Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

5 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...

    --
    End transmission.
  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.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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...