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."

Comments

Console News

[MankyD]

What I've found interesting is that I've been reading a lot of news about upcoming PS3 releases recently, (not necessarily releases coming this month of course.) Conversely, it seems that news about the Wii have been tapering off - certainly from what the volume when it was first released. xbox360 news seems to have been holding steady.

This is, of course, an entirely subjective observation. Anyone care to corroborate or counter what I've noticed?

Re:Console News

[HappySqurriel]

The reduction in scope of E3 (and delaying it until later in the year) has had an unintended consequence of every major publisher doing their own micro conference in May to release information about the second half of the year.

Sony did their Gamer's Day press conference last week (or the week before, I really can't remember) and many third parties joined in on releasing a lot of information about upcomming PS3/PSP games ... There was something like 40 games announced with details being released over the days following the conference.

Nintendo is doing a very similar conference today and tomorow and will (likely) have a similar number of titles announced.

Even without new titles, if you check out release dates the Wii has roughly the same number of titles announced until the end of the year as the PS3. The main difference is the Wii has far (FAR) more titles being released before September than the PS3 does; it is hypothetically possible that the Wii's (post september) line-up will grow at Nintendo's conference, E3 and TGS until it is far greater than the PS3's (post september) line-up.

Price + Lack of games

[wframe9109]

Sony wouldn't have such a huge problem if they could back the vicious cycle they are within.

1.) Console too expensive to justify buying given lack of games.
2.) Less consumers adopt PS3.
3.) Developers see gamers going to other platform, eliminate exclusives.
4.) Repeat (1), removing PS3 exclusives gone multi-platform from equation.

Wii By a landslide, 360 with a strong following, PS3 in a small niche. All will have some great games, but Sony will get some much deserved humiliation.

Re:Price + Lack of games

[brkello]

I think the Wii will probably slow down. The problem with the Wii isn't actually with the Wii. It is with the third party developers that are now targeting it. They are going to make games that are worthless compared to what Nintendo puts out. This will make people buy less third party Wii games (and indeed, since more Wii owners are casual, they will buy less games per console). Third party developers will run back to Sony since they don't have to compete with Nintendo and the people who own a PS3 are going to buy more games per console.

Also, the Wii will probably have to have a shorted lifecycle than the PS3. It just doesn't have the power for AI or graphics. While those elements don't have anything to do with fun...a lot of developers do want to have more capability and the Wii is going to be limited to more casual games. This isn't a criticism of the Wii...I am glad Nintendo viewed next gen as how you control the game and that MS and Sony viewed next gen as power and HD. I just think the Wii is going to lose steam as soon as third party vendors realize they won't sell as many games on the Wii and that they are limited by the older hardware. And this isn't really speculation...this has happened on every Nintendo console (i.e. Third parties peform poorly compared to first party games in sales more than on other platforms)

As a side note, I find it interesting how many people love the Wii on here compared to the gamers I know in real life. A lot of them don't like the Wii because they feel the controller isn't responsive enough. Most don't want one and are happy with just their 360. The PS3 has nothing worth buying it for so they just mainly 360 and PC game. Maybe my friends are in the minority or maybe posts that don't claim Wii as the second coming of christ just don't get modded up!

Re:Price + Lack of games

[wframe9109]

I think the third party theory has pretty much been debunked. Third party titles of outstanding quality sell deservedly well for the most part. It's up to the third party to develop a quality title, that is also appealing.

Some Nintendo games have totally flopped, but typically they do well, because typically, they are high quality games.

I'm 99.9% sure I remember hearing third parties happy with their sales on the Wii this past holiday...

Anyhow, I do agree that it's debatable whether the Wii will continue to steam roll the competition. My guess is that it will, but I am less sure than guessing about the PS3 placing a distant 3rd (given the 360's installed base, cheaper price, comparable hardware, comparable exclusives, etc. etc.)

Personally, I haven't been using mine mcuh recently (barring drunken weekends), but this comes with the territory when you are dealing with a first year console during the spring/early summer draught.

PS: On a side note, you discuss processing power and implications to AI. Do you know of any titles that would be limited in AI due to the Wii's processing? I can't think of any, and always had my doubts about AI being a bullet behind the pros of better hardware. Better theoretical AI maybe :-P

Re:Price + Lack of games

[vux984]

They are going to make games that are worthless compared to what Nintendo puts out.

Do you mean to say that Nintendo is going to have the best games?? I hardly think that will cause the Wii to slow down.

I just think the Wii is going to lose steam as soon as third party vendors realize they won't sell as many games on the Wii and that they are limited by the older hardware.

If the Wii becomes the dominant console nobody is going to abandon it. Look at how quickly 3rd parties took notice of wii and ramped up wii game production once it became obvious that it was selling far beyond expectations. They didn't all leak their brains out and forget that competing on nintendo means competing with nintendo... they KNOW what they're dealing with. They've got the same history you do.

But they know that supporting the dominant console will pay off.

and the people who own a PS3 are going to buy more games per console.

Only relevant if they buy enough more to make up for the fact that there are less of them.

(And if the games are 'worthless' compared to what nintendo releases, I'd hope even a PS3 owner would stay the hell away from them.)

As for limited by the older hardware? The ONLY situation that is going to affect is that it gets even harder to make lousy multi-platform ports on the cheap. Losing the 'Lousy ports' isn't going to harm the platform.

Also, the Wii will probably have to have a shorted lifecycle than the PS3. It just doesn't have the power for AI or graphics.

By that logic the Honda civic should have been discontinued by now. And why does anyone buy a handheld when all they do is let us play last generation games technology? Seriously. Yes, its 'limiting', but entertainment value per dollar is high. As long as that can be sustained the system will do well.

Just look at the popularity of the virtual console.

I find it interesting how many people love the Wii on here compared to the gamers I know in real life.

Comparing the /. audience to 'gamers' is a little goofy don't you think. There's a lot of us here on slashdot that aren't 'gamers', but who enjoy games.

so they just mainly 360 and PC game

Seems pretty redundant to buy two boxes for that.

And furthermore, if your own 'real world group' has already self-selected into 'gamers who play 360 + PC games' do you really think THEY are representative of the larger audience for the Wii?

Hmmm

[TB]

If you compare sales per week for the PS1 PS2 and PS3, PS3 is already outselling the PS1 by 2-3x and its just a 100,000 units or so behind the PS2. Of course, people on forums and such have a selective memory.... they just choose to block all this out.

Re:Hmmm

[buffer-overflowed]

Awesome. That means the Wii is going to outperform the PS1 and PS2 by enormous margins, right? Since it's outpacing all three? PS3 is made of brown, bloom and fail no matter how you slice it.

I mean, right now, the PS3 is being outsold in the US by the GBA. THE GBA! It's underperforming the gamecube in Japan, hitting sales targets *weeks* after the cube did. And, like the PSP was by the DS, it's being absolutely destroyed by the Wii. And the HD movie market is *NOTHING* compared to the DVD market. It's like a sick joke.

It's very easy and fun to play with sales data and especially pacing and trends. But ultimately, it's meaningless. In what countries, by what metric? Are we adjusting for the increased market size since the X came out?

Re:Hmmm

[Just Some Guy]

If you compare sales per week for the PS1 PS2 and PS3, PS3 is already outselling the PS1 by 2-3x and its just a 100,000 units or so behind the PS2.

Or, you could look at sales per month, and see that the Wii sold 82% as many units in April as in January (360k vs. 436k), while the the PS3 dropped to 34% (82k vs. 244k).

Or, that last month they moved 23% as many PS3s as Wiis (82k vs. 360k).

Or that since the beginning of the year, PS2s have outsold PS3s by 70% (989k vs. 583k).

Or that the Wii outsold the PS3 by 138% (1390k vs. 583k).

Or that the DS has outsold the PSP by 124% (1703k vs. 760k).

Pick your metric. Every single one of them is awful, and if anyone left at Sony still has plans of staying in the game business, they need to stem the hemorrhaging soon.

Re:Hmmm

[amuro98]

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.

Competition.

[MaWeiTao]

I'd like to see the PS3 succeed for one reason: competition. I don't mean that it necessarily has to dominate the market like the PS2 did, but it needs to sell well enough that it's considered a viable platform and regarded as an actual competitor.

We have the Xbox360, but I don't really consider it a true competitor to the Wii because those two systems aren't really seen as inhabiting the same market space. The primary problem is how poorly it's done in Japan. The fact that the system is virtually nonexistent in one of the biggest gaming markets in the world means it's always going to lose out when it comes to variety of games. Clearly, the Xbox360 has fared far better than the original Xbox, but I still see it as potentially ending up in the same situation as the Sega Genesis relative to the SNES.

The Xbox360 certainly is significant and it may turn out to be more of a challenge to Nintendo than we realize now, but it's going to require more than Halo 3 and other such games to accomplish that. But, like I've said, they've likely already lost the Japanese market. The saving grace is that Japanese companies keep developing games for the system.

The PS3 has the potential to be a competitor for both consoles because of the potential for such a variety of games, at least if it sees anything like the sort of development the PS2 has. The PS2 really had games of all types and some were truly innovative. Really the only thing it lacked was anything from Nintendo.

My point here is that if Nintendo returns to the sort of dominance it had in the past it will also revert to the same sort of tactics it used back then, back when they were the heavy-handed monopoly. If it weren't for Nintendo falling behind in the last two generations of consoles we probably wouldn't have seen the DS or the Wii.