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80 Gig PS3 For South Korea, Slow April for Sony
The South Koreans are about to see the PlayStation 3 launched in their nation, and they're getting a treat the rest of the world will have to wait on: a PS3 with an 80 gig hard drive. Meanwhile, NPD numbers show that the company's games division suffered greatly during April, likely as a result of few titles released during that month. "Though the company saw a bump in PSP sales, Nintendo DS continues to curb stomp the portable PlayStation. More disappointing, however, must have been seeing PlayStation 3 decline in sales of almost 50,000 units between March and April ... If April was tough, May looks bleaker. Karraker wouldn't speculate on sales, but outside of MLB 07: The Show's release at the end of April, there are no first-party releases coming to PS3 in May. In fact, there are only two May PS3 games period: Surf's Up and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Both are multi-platform releases."
One has to remember what Sony's competition was with the PS1 and PS2.
Sony has never launched first in a generation. The PS1, PS2 and now PS3 have all launched into a market where at least one other competitor had been around for awhile.
With the PS1, there was the Saturn and the N64. Sega was begining to struggle at that point, and Sony had managed to pick up several developers after Nintendo decided the N64 was going to be cartridge based.
With the PS2, the Dreamcast had a full year to try to build up a market, but just couldn't get going due to mostly cool receptions from both 3rd party developers (like EA) and gamers alike - partially due to the way Sega treated the Saturn...
By the time the Xbox came out, the PS2 had arguably been established as #1 for the generation. The Xbox's lineup consisted mainly of multiplatform games that were available for the PS2 or the PC and that didn't help either, despite having superior hardware compared to the PS2.
Nintendo hadn't fully recovered from the N64 when the GameCube came out, though it remained quite sucessful in its niche.
While I agree it's too early to say the PS3 is doomed, things certainly look a lot worse for the PS3 than they did for the PS1 or PS2 at the same time in their lifecycles.
For one thing, both the PS1 and PS2 were $300 - a lot less intimidating than the PS3's $600. For another, both the PS1 and PS2 had some decent exclusive (at launch, anyways) games. What did the PS3 have? One "ok" launch game, and a bunch of multiplatform titles that didn't look any better on the PS3 than on its cheaper competitor, the 360.
This makes the PS3's biggest problems Cost, Time, and (lack of) Games.
Sure, the PS3's biggest titles are yet to come out. But in the meantime, what does Sony expect people to do? Buy a $600 console with virtually no games and just wait? It's not as if the 360 or the Wii are standing still, either. Both Nintendo and Microsoft have announced their lineups for this year and both have heavy-hitting, console-selling titles. Halo3 will sell consoles. What does the PS3 have that even approaches that? And before you say 'Final Fantasy', remember that we probably won't see FFXIII in the US until next summer - at best. What the PS3 really needs is something like MGS2 for the PS2, or Halo3 for the 360. People were willing to buy the console months before those titles even hit the shelves. Nothing in the PS3's lineup has that same "I *GOTTA* GET ONE NOW!" feeling. Not FFXIII, not Ratchet & Clank, nor anything else previewed so far.