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Gamers Don't Know Their Own Consoles

Posted by Zonk on from the you-paid-up-now-pay-attention dept.

deadmantyping writes "Ars Technica reports on a survey of 6,260 responses which indicates that only 40 percent of PS3 owners knew that their console included Bluray. Apparently a large portion of gamers aren't aware of the non-gaming capabilities of their systems. Ars speculates that this might help explain Nintendo's apparent dominance in the console market since their introduction of the Wii."

13 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What? by evil+agent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah, wtf? It's almost as if they bought it to just play video games...

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  2. Don't know, or don't care? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the interesting quirks of the market is that if you position a device as a game machine, people will buy it as a game machine. Thing like the media it takes are secondary to the function the device is being sold for. So if you sell your machine as a game machine, expect that people will treat it as such and compare it to other game machines. Secondary features like the BluRay drive will only matter if the device compares favorably on its primary function.

    Now if you position a device like the PS3 as a Sony's PlayStation Media Center, suddenly it looks like a good deal. It can play BluRay, PS1 games, PS2 games, and games "designed for the BluRay format". All for less than competing BluRay players.

    It's too bad that Sony didn't do this. They might have had a better response if they had.

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    1. Re:Don't know, or don't care? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Don't care. I bought a Wii so that my wife and I could have a fun console that we could both enjoy. It's on the el-cheapo 19" TV in our bedroom, so HD is completely useless to me. We already have a DVD player. I specifically do not want BluRay. Nintendo's concentrating on quick, fun games instead of hard-core appeal (although Resident Evil 4 is incredibly great).

      Despite all those reasons, Ars must be right: we bought a Wii because we just didn't know what the 360 or PS3 could do. Yeah, that's it.

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    2. Re:Don't know, or don't care? by Gravatron · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The playstations never had a lot of games early on, they always hit around year one. I remember it being a huge crisis for the ps2 back in the day. Xbox and GCN had hype behind them, and the DC had quite a few killer games, and Sony really had nothing stellar for its first year.


      Now, that all changed that fall though, when DMC, MGS, etc hit home. Sony's got a simular fall lineup this year, dropin something like 15-20 games I can see myself buying, most of which are exclusive.


      As for the price? I can point you to a few thousand posts during the early ps2 years on the official playstation boards with people complaining about how DVD drive up the cost and how games didn't need that much storage. It took a long time for those folks to shut up about it. Did Blu-ray hurt Sony? Yeah, but considering what all Sony used tech wise, it was going to be expensive ether way. XDR, Cell, Blu-ray, etc, all couldn't have been cheep.


      Despite being the worlds biggest ps1 and ps2 fan, $600 was just too much. When it droped to $500, I picked one up though. The 1.8 and 1.9 updates added all kinds of functionality, and now it's one well rounded and expandable system. Its a dozen devices in one package, and they keep adding stuff I don't even know how to use, such as all the audio options and such. What gets me is sony doesn't seem keen to advertise all that. You could devote a full page add to just listing features of the thing. This I think had been their greatest mistake.

  3. Whaa?! by morari · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How do they justify the price to themselves then? I mean, at least you have mediocre Blu-Ray movies to watch while the console stagnates and remains without games to play. Oh, I forgot, it's all marketing. People are sheep and like commercials. Sony doesn't even need current commercials, because all of the Playstation and Playstation 2 commercials already have it so ingrained in peoples' minds. They see a brand and feel the need to purchase it regardless of any factors.

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  4. Way to cherry pick quotes... by the_skywise · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How about even fewer gamers knew their 360 had HD graphics?
    "50 percent of gamers in the study knew the system [PS3] featured high-definition graphics, compared to the 30 percent of gamers who knew about the high-definition function of the 360."

    What does this also say about Blu-Ray only being successful because of the PS3? Only 40% of the PS3 owners account for all the Blu-Ray discs sold? What happens when the other 60% figure it out?

  5. Re:Nintendo Wins for Another Reason by Sylver+Dragon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Pretty much the exact same reason my parents bought one.
    My parents are not gamers. The last console they bought was an NES for my brother's birthday one year. The last system that one of them actually picked up a controller for was the Atari 2600 (not counting the hours my father spent with me playing PC flight sims). My brother brought over his Wii during Christmas and we all proceeded to play Wii golf until the wee hours of the morning, several days in a row. After that, my parents ended up buying a new TV, and talked the Circuit City salesman into holding a Wii for them as well. Much to my chagrin, this enabled them to get one well before I could find one. They now play with it semi-regularly, mostly Wii-Sports bowling, golf, and Tiger Woods golf.
    Nintendo isn't winning because of a lack of HD, they are winning because the Wii is a lot of fun and very accessible to non-gamers and I am sure that the price helps $300 for the system, a game and extra controller is cheap. People who would never even think about an XBox or PS3 are buying Wii's in droves. Hell, it's still hard to get one.

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  6. Re:Of course not by yaphadam097 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My local Fry's had a gigantic sign over the blu-ray section the other day that said, "Blu-Ray discs require a Blu-Ray player." If there is enough confusion to justify that sign (Which just appeared there despite the fact that the Blu-Ray section has been there since late last year) then it is not surprising that many PS3 owners might be confused as well.

  7. Re:The Wii's success is due to price. Period. by grumbel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think the main point of the Wii is neither price nor the control scheme alone, but simply its simplicity. In 30sec a consumer can understand what the Wii will do for him and how it will be fun, both of these are very successfully told trough advertisement, word of mouth and Wii Sports as the perfect demo game. With PS3 and XBox360 you really can't make a normal person understand so easily what is good about them, especially not in 30sec.

  8. Re:Of course not by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When I go to Blockbuster and rent Blu-Ray movies they stop me at the desk and confirm that I have a Blu-Ray disc player every time (please add it to my customer profile). The one person I told I had a PS3 then replied "but you need a Blu-Ray disc player" which precipitated my explaining that the PS3 in fact included one.

    I'm not surprised by the findings at all from my experience. Sony needs a better marketing campaign, not a new price tag (although I'm all for cheaper).

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  9. Re:Wii-tards by LKM · · Score: 2, Interesting
    1. Ironically, the Wii Sports game have more depth than most other sports games I've ever played. What other boxing game has such precise controls and so many different moves? What other Tennis game lets you slice the ball so precisely?
    2. The Wii has more First Person Shooters than Minigames compilations.
    3. Dude, if you consider yourself a hardcore gamer, but think that Warioware has "poor gameplay" (with gameplay in quotes, I might add), you're unfortunately a sad little fanboy.
  10. Re:What? by th3rmite · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For real, my wife was trying to get me to buy her a PS3 to complement her Wii and Xbox360, and I told her that when she can give me a list of 5 games that she wanted for it that aren't on the 360, THEN I'd buy it for her.

    That was 6 months ago...

  11. Re:I know someone... by HalAtWork · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I bought one 'cause way back they were saying the PS3 was going to have the next Katamari Damacy game, and the Wii one was cancelled. I had no choice but to get one! Yes, Katamari was going to be on 360, but I already didn't want one of those. Plus, on 360, they were saying it would be a download through Live! arcade, and I know I wanted to own a hard copy of the game. The PS3 also had Virtua Fighter 5 as an exclusive (at the time there was no sign it would come out on any other console) so I had to buy that. I'm a big VF fan. The Wipeout series is also tied to the PlayStation platform, and I'm a big fan of that. I also thought that even if the PS3 wouldn't have a ton of exclusives, it would get all of the niche games the way the PS2 did, because I assumed it would sell better than the 360. All in all, I think the PS3 complements my Wii well for all of the games that won't really be appearing on the Wii, and for the fact that I can play Blu-ray movies. Really does look night/day compared to DVDs, if only just for the increase in the preserved colour range of the original video. Even upscaled DVD looks like VHS in comparison, because of colours alone. Watching a DVD looks like playing Quake 2.... everything looks like mud.

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