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Game Publishers Pressuring Sony For PS3 Price Cut
Bloomberg is running a story about several video game publishers and developers who are pushing for a long overdue price cut on Sony's PS3 console. Sales of the PS3 are lagging behind both the Wii and the Xbox 360 despite the PS2's resounding victory in sales of the previous generation of consoles. One of the creators of LittleBigPlanet, a PS3 exclusive, made similar comments in an interview with Gamasutra, acknowledging that they're looking forward to the day Sony drops the PS3's price. An analyst from Janco said such an action is necessary if Sony doesn't want to "lose support from game developers and publishers."
The only way Sony can win is if they pretend they're not competing with Nintendo, and say that the Xbox 360 will be surpassed in 10 years. This conveniently ignores the high probability that the PS3 will be completely dead in ten years if they don't do something now.
Kaz Hirai is a lunatic and he's going to run the PS3 into the ground.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
i get the feeling the title of this pose is true, i wonder if easier to pirate PS3 games would results in more PS3 sales, and as a result more legitimate game sales
I've never owned a console but lately I've been considering getting a PS3. The only thing stopping me is the price which when compared to the 360 is just plain silly. It's not that I can't afford the PS3 at the current price I just can't justify paying more than double the price of the 360 for something that is only a little better. The price of the PS3 really pushes it into the luxury / enthusiast bracket for me. I want something I can just kick back on occasionally not something where I feel guilty for not using it because I've spent a fortune on it.
Just my 1c worth.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I mean it's outselling the 360, even at a higher price point.
Just as a reminder (and to counter the obvious Microsoft FUD spreading):
22m PS3's in 2.5 years (2 in Europe) is ~10m a year
28m 360's in 3.5 years (and having a exclusive 1 yr period) is 8m a year.
Seems like some people including "the industry experts" have been fooled by Microsofts cherry picked statistics..
Own all three. PS3 is a great gaming system with really nice media center features etc. Xbox 360 is a great gaming system with really good online gaming solution. Far superior online system to Playstation network but you pay for it so meh. Wii is perfect for when the mates come around etc or friends or family for a social visit. Its a hit with my young nieces and nephews, but also a hit with my mother so its very popular. However as an out and out gaming machine the wii graphics are very poor but the social benefits of its setup are plenty. Sooo, where am I going with this state the damn obvious here...... Sony's product IMO is a far better system to have in the living room. I mean you can actually copy movies and music onto the damn thing unlike the 360 (yeah I know direct cd import but not mp3 support???) So to me the extra price is actually worth it! Sony are not really competing with Nintendo or Microsoft here as their machines all concentrate on different aspects. PS3 = Home entertainment system Xbox 360 = Gaming system with kickass online play Wii = Family casual gaming fun. So not really competing here in terms of what they are trying to offer. Well the only problem here is that somebody forgot to tell the consumer that they are not competing. They see Call Of Duty World at War on all three systems. To most people they see all three as gaming systems pure and simple and do not know they differences between the xbox 360 and the ps3 and usually go for the cheaper ones. I know the parents who are purchasing the systems do... If you ask a salesman, whats the difference between the Ps3 and the Xbox 360, the most common answer will just be "The PS3 has a built in Blue Ray player which the xbox 360 does not have". In reality there are many more pros and cons that can in use would change their minds about the console they would like. So overall I beleive the PS3 is worth the sale price, but most consumers will not see it that way and they only thing for Sony to do now is drop those prices and try and compete in the consumers ignorant eyes. Well thats just my $2.50, take it or leave it.
With accessories and online costs considered, I'd say it evens out, and rather quickly at that.
Fear is the mind killer.
And if Sony cuts down the PS3 price EA and Blizzard are going to stop selling games at $70 each? I doubt it.
[Citation Need]
And just where exactly did you "cherry pick" your statistics from?
I don't own an XBox, nor PS, but I'd like to know how your statistics are so absolute.
n/t
Is it just me or does the price seem about right?
First things first, look at the prices of stand-alone Blu-ray players. Somewhere around $300-$500, with some models much more. The PS3 offers you a Blue-ray player, an internet appliance, home media streaming AND a game console for around $540. (Less depending on the HD size and bundle you get)
Is it just me or does the price seem about right?
(Prices from http://www.crutchfield.com/)
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
And? So they're doing slightly better than the 360 (not that the time adjusted sales really matter, what matters is the userbase you can sell stuff to). What does that get them? A medal in the special olympics? The 360 isn't the goal, the Wii is! Currently the Wii's userbase is about equal to the COMBINED userbase of the 360 and PS3. I know people love to fling around stupid claims like "it's a fad" (yeah, one that's already gone through half a console generation without ending) or "casual gamers don't buy many games" (the tie in ratio does not support that claim). What is true to some extend is "third party software tends to sell much worse than Nintendo software" but that's mostly because third party software for the system tends to be garbage thrown together by, as Iwata put it, 4th and 5th string teams while the 1st and 2nd string teams keep working on extremely expensive yet less profitable games on the HD consoles. Of course dev teams that can barely make their games not crash aren't going to compete with the highest quality game publisher in the whole damn industry on even footing.
Anyway, taking second place from the 360 is a worthless goal since it's pretty easy to make a game cross platform between the two (and the PC) so the leadership in that special race isn't going to change much. What they have to beat is the Wii which is just far off in the distance with currently no apparent chance for Sony or MS to catch up with it.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
And while we could all benefit from DVD, not all of us have the 1080i/p display that is necessary to derive any actual benefit from it.
True, DVD had the advantage of no rewinding. But at the time, a lot of paid-for TVs had no composite input jack, only an RF jack. The $25 RF modulators brought DVD's picture quality down near VHS's.
One of the creators of LittleBigPlanet, a PS3 exclusive, made similar comments in an interview with Gamasutra, acknowledging that they're looking forward to the day Sony drops the PS3's price.
I look forward to the time when "exclusives" are no longer even pretended to be a good thing, and those who make those Faustian bargains are recognized as chumps.
Chances are as the market comes under greater and greater economic pressure they are holding off on discounting the PS3 for as long as possible so the can go with a major price drop for maximum marketing impact and a major sales surge rather than minor sales price reductions. Right now a lot of the component suppliers are starting to suffer and they will be looking for any opportunity to boost sales in a significant way even if it is with very low margins.
So who knows maybe as high as a 50% drop in price right after xbox drops it price by say 10%.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The Xbox360 as it is CAN NOT PLAY ONLINE without you buying a gold membership.
Nor can the Wii, unless you have friends from the real world who happen to own a copy of the same game. Nintendo WFC does not have lobbies. Either you play with friend codes that have been exchanged mutually out of band, or you play against anonymous opponents that are indistinguishable from CPU opponents.
From what i understand, game developers are more interested in making it easier to develop the games for the PS3. Currently it is difficult and time consuming. This makes it less profitable for developers, so they have chosen to jump ship and go to the 360.
I agree, the price difference between the two is almost the same 'for most people' with all the peripherals considered.
But that initial price shock is enough to steer potential buyers the other way and that really is hurting the PS3's bottom line.
That's right, folks. The XBOX 360 is just as expensive as the PS3.
A lot of people go around bashing the PS3, but I find that most of them don't own both systems, like I do. The PS3 is actually cheaper than the 360. Did you know that? Here's why:
1. The PS3 comes with wireless capability. The XBOX 360 requires a $100 wireless kit. That right there makes up the price difference.
2. The XBOX 360's controllers require batteries. An add-on rechargeable battery system costs about $20 per controller. The PS3's controllers are all rechargeable right out of the box.
3. If you buy something from the PlayStation store that costs $5 or more, you pay the exact amount. On the XBOX store, you have to buy "Microsoft Points" at the rate of $12.50 (USD) for 1,000 points. You have to buy these in bulk. So if you want something that costs 800 points, you have to pay for 1,000 points, leaving you with 200 points ($2.50) left over. Of course, Microsoft manipulates things, so you are always left with small amount of points left over. In other words, Microsuck is keeping your change. Bastards.
I have a bad feeling about this...
Sony should start releasing some old classics. Be it free downloads, chap downloads or updates to old games that people would jump on.
Final Fantasy WAS a Nintendo title till Sony came along...it worked before, do it again.
I for one would love to see updates to games like: Dragon Warrior, Battletoads, Contra, Ghouls & Ghosts, RC Pro AM, Baseball Stars and BaseWars...etc.
I here you like XBOX. You give me ten dollar I tell where you buy XBOX LIVE now!
Common MS, theres no excuse, let us use any HD on our xboxes, you techy execs or senior engineers have lost all credibility and respect, its a 100% money grabbing scam.
You guys look real stupid now dont you eh, all your excuses are lame. A million shops sell 3rd party laptop HDs now.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The Wii most certainly can play games online without buying a membership. You even said so yourself.
:-)
Just because the anonymous users are anonymous does not negate the fact that you are playing games against human players. If they are indistinguishable from CPU opponents then 1) the game has great AI or 2) the human players are horrible.
Starmen.net
So basically you contradict yourself ?
You CAN PLAY the Wii ONLINE without having to pay anything more.
The XB360 is the only console that requires that you pay a yearly or monthly fee to play online against others.
[Citation Need]
And just where exactly did you "cherry pick" your statistics from?
I don't own an XBox, nor PS, but I'd like to know how your statistics are so absolute.
What ?
LOL, these numbers are taken right from TFA, using exactly the same data the "analysts" talk about.
It's absolutely right that for now, the PS3 sells faster than the XB360 despite the higher price point. You can see this clearly if you align launches.
You've clearly been fooled by MS cherry picking.
Most people don't realize it, because Nintendo flew past MS, despite being 1 year younger, so it skews most people's visions.
There's a reason there's a long list of former PS3 exclusives that have Xbox 360 versions: DMC4, FFXIII spring to mind immediately, and rumors have it that Konami is considering porting MGS4 due to poor sales. There are others, (basically any 3rd party game developed for the PS3, ever) but I'm too lazy to look them up.
OK. You're even including rumors in your facts, which shows how well thought out your reply is.
Now, can you explain why some XB360 former exclusives are going to PS3 too ? Because of poor sales ?
Bioshock, Eternal Sonata comes to mind. There are also rumors of Mass Effect coming to PS3.
There are others, (basically any 3rd party game developed for the XB360, ever) but I'm too lazy to look them up.
Seems to me like XB360 and PS3 are in the exact same boat.
Sony can't afford a price cut. Frankly, they can't even afford the current price, as evidenced by their having squandered almost all of the profits from both the PS1 and PS2 just keeping this train wreck afloat. That's the problem with predatory tactics like loss-leader hardware: sometimes you get burned by the risk, and Sony has gotten burned big time.
Ultimately, the core problem is that people won't pay $600 for a game console. Truth be told, they don't really even tolerate $400 at launch, if the 360's sales are any indication (for all that we -rightly- speak of the PS3 as a failure, it still consistently outdoes the 360 at corresponding points in its lifetime). This is because people understand that the value of a console derives not from what the devs put into it, but from what the gamers get out of it, and that there is really only a small section of the market that can actually be swayed by "better value through bloat" marketing Kool-Aid. The proper response, therefore, is to make sure that you can afford to release your console at a price people are willing to pay for it en masse -$300 at launch seems to be the limit- and if you can't do this, then you need to scale your technology back until you can. Sony failed to do that with the PS3, and their current situation is nothing but a natural consequence of that.
Truth be told, the 360 really isn't faring too much better. Neither market is large enough to sustain third parties on its own anymore, thus the glut of cross-platform games: the increased sales from being on both platforms can be just enough to eke out a profit despite the additional cost of porting. If anything, the real benefit of Microsoft's year-long headstart may be that it hasn't benefited from the marketing fallout of its failure due to there being no real basis for comparison. The PS3 has faced that in full measure.
But the real problem that faces both consoles, really, is that the self-described "hardcore market" is dying (and no, Netcraft has not confirmed it). This fanbase's obsessive pwn-the-n00bs mentality and fetish for gratuitous complexity have between them driven away most of the new gamers who might otherwise be interested, ensuring that there a healthy influx of new players. Meanwhile, many of the existing gamers in that market have frankly grown up, and in the process have either gotten bored with gaming altogether or started wanting more from their games than the generic "hardcore" formula; these have sought greener pastures and found them elsewhere.
But then, the attitude of the so-called "hardcore" has never been a gamer attitude anyway; it was a domination fantasy and nothing more. They've poisoned this market for far too long, and as a gamer I'm frankly relieved to see them being pushed back to the margins. If the 80s and early 90s were gaming's golden age, then let this generation be the start of a renaissance of gaming for everyone. The market will be so much healthier.
Actually you're wrong.
The PS3 is absolutely not outselling the 360 overall, nor is it doing so in Europe or North America. It is only outselling the 360 in Japan but only by around 10,000 units a week, whilst it's losing out to the 360 by around 20,000 a week in Europe and around 50,000 a week in the US.
The reason the AC parent has the stats he has (although they're rounded in favour of the PS3- the real stats are 21mill PS3s and 29mill XBox 360s) are because the PS3 had a period where it was outselling the 360, about 6 months into it's lifetime for around a year. It wasn't outselling it for the first 6months of it's life however and it has not been outselling it for the last 6, furthermore it's actually losing ground week on week in terms of the units shifted, so not only is it losing ground overall, it's losing ground at a faster rate week on week as an average trend across the last 6 months.
MS were cherry picking for a while for sure, but they're not now. They've got a healthy gain on the PS3 and it's almost certainly because the 360 is so cheap now whilst the PS3 remains too expensive.
It's also worth pointing out that MS is also selling over twice as many games per console as the PS3 so is making even more money than Sony in that repect too.
Go check the facts for yourself if you want at:
http://www.vgchartz.com/
Now if we could only pressure Sony to make the damn thing easier to code for. Having developed for both I can tell you it's night and day. The XBox dev tools are much easier to use and better integrated into IDE and speaking from mostly writing multiplayer code the API are much simpler.
So you asked for a citation, it was given, and now that's not good enough?
Where's your contrary evidence?
You CAN PLAY the Wii ONLINE without having to pay anything more.
Let me put it another way: With the Wii, how do I get friend codes without paying to join some AFK club? Nintendo doesn't want players posting friend codes online; they're considered "personal information".
And while we could all benefit from DVD, not all of us have the 1080i/p display that is necessary to derive any actual benefit from it.
DVDs worked wonders for users of the pirate bay.
Do you know how frigging hard it is to digitally rip a VHS tape?
:(
What makes you think Nintendo cares? They may warn you not to share if you don't want to play with strangers but I doubt they really care if you do end up playing with strangers. The problem I've heard is that there are so few games that actually have online play.
First question was mostly rhetorical, my point was, what makes these new digits, superior to any Microsoft have put out?
And I don't need contrary evidence, because neither evidence can be trusted, nor is it even relevant to the point I was making.
Seems like some people including "the industry experts" have been fooled by Microsofts cherry picked statistics.
So they "seem" to believe these statistics, and others "seem" to believe Microsofts statistics. I have absolutely no idea what Microsoft has said, or Sony either for that matter, but how can you say that people have been fooled by Microsoft, when these can just as easily be inaccurate, when did Microsoft say X > Y, and at what range of time were those statistics relevant to, perhaps the XBox did outsell the PS3 at the time they did their analysis, but since then the PS3 has surpassed, the question is wether that now if Microsoft says that the XBox is still outselling the PS3, it could be argued that it's not true, but have they continued to say that the XBox is outselling the PS3?...
And what was Microsoft talking about; worldwide sales, US sales, sales since release, or sales since the last quarter, etc.
Now that these statistics say that PS3 has sold more units, Sony could theoretically claim they have "outsold" Microsoft from hence forth, when potentially the XBox might make a sudden spike in sales, and surpass the PS3 again, but till someone does a newer study, Sony can't be proven wrong, even if they are wrong in continuing to say they have sold more, just like Microsoft may have done.
So how is/was it FUD? And how have people been fooled?
Your economic stimulus inaction!
A lot of publishers AREN'T making everything for the PS3. The 360 seems to be the best supported console. Which is still odd, since it seems like it should be the wii. I get that it's not as powerful as the other two, and the controls were a new challenge, but it's been years, plenty of time to adapt, and it's been beating the other consoles this whole time. Where are the big games on the wii that aren't made by nintendo? Why aren't companies making games for the wii that are ported to the 360 and PS3?
(I am talking about decent games that have a budget of more than a hundred bucks, the wii is the leading console in terms of shovelware.)
Sony's between a rock and a hard place.
Firstly, they have to decide if they want to push the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player or a games console. The issue is that the PS3 is effectively a "price ceiling" for blu-ray players - the market for players more expensive than a PS3 is very tiny, and thus the majority of Blu-Ray players on the market must be under the price of a PS3 (otherwise, people will buy PS3s as Blu-Ray players).
Secondly, third party Blu-Ray manufacturers aren't dropping their prices fast enough - while you can get a good Blu-Ray 2.0 player for $250 these days, the prices aren't dropping any further. The problem comes in should Sony wish to sell a PS3 for $300 (a meaningful price cut, since even the $400 Xbox360 can be had $350 on sale!). Suddenly, do you want to pay $250 for a Blu-Ray player, or $300 for a Blu-Ray player *AND* the added features of a PS3 (WiFi, games, ...). I omit the downsides of a PS3 (proprietary Bluetooth remote - no consumer IR, remote extra cost) since most users will live with them (I do, even though a PS3 integrates poorly (not-at-all) with my remote...).
The issue is, third-party manufacturers will be forced into a lower price range (probably sub-$200), a price point they may decide it's not worth expending the R&D for to make a Blu-Ray player, and leave the market. This is bad, for consumers will believe Sharp, Panasonic, Pioneer, etc., think that Blu-Ray is not worth investing in, and content providers see consumer demand. Blu-Ray is still in the early stages - DVD is a very big competitor to Blu-Ray (cheaper, and even after upscaling, a good majority of DVDs don't look much worse to justify the benefit and cost), and content providers are exploring and investing heavily in streaming technologies (not as good as Blu-Ray, but "good enough" for the consumer). And content providers may be wary of investing more in a format that only Sony makes and others have pulled out of.
So Sony may want to cut the price of the PS3 down, but doing so can jeopardize Blu-Ray.
On the gaming side, while a PS3 has possibly a more powerful processor and GPU than an Xbox360, it has less system memory, and is harder to develop for. And with Sony unwilling to help developers take full advantage of the hardware (contrary to Microsoft), it has the potential for non-exclusives to run/look better on an Xbox360 than a PS3 (already happened several times), so until developers get their act together on a PS3, people may prefer the Xbox360 version of a game (providing they have both consoles). And the PS3 exclusive list has gotten shorter.
Perhaps Sony's best option is to release a "PSThree", a "lite" console that plays PS3 games only. No Blu-Ray playback. No fancy media center stuff. Just play games. Release it with the smallest/cheapest hard drive possible, and sell it for $200 and eat Microsoft's lunch. The lack of Blu-Ray playback means it won't compete with Blu-Ray players, and the low price means Microsoft and Nintendo have to worry.
PS - I have both an Xbox360 and PS3. My PS3 players Blu-Ray movies, because other than a few PS3 exclusives, I tend to buy games for my Xbox360, waiting for PS3 developers to "get it".
Speaking of cherry picked statistics:
22m / 2.5 = 8.8 28m / 3.5 = 8
While your overall point still holds, it seems like your statistics were "cherry picked".
I laughed my ass off.
Blu-Ray and the PS3 (and its power) are the future of gaming. The 360 is already at its limit as to what games it can handle. I'll still play Virtua Fighter 5 Online on my 360 until the day they drop the servers, but my PS3 is used for every other game I play on consoles.
http://play.tm/news/23623/tekken-6-pushing-360-limits/
Katsuhiro Harada, one of the senior developers behind Namco Bandai's Tekken 6, has said that his new game is pushing the very limits of the Xbox 360 console, and that his game may have an influence over the specifications of the system's eventual successor.
"It is a challenge to fit this game onto one DVD and to make sure the data is read at a fast rate," Harada explained in a new interview.
Harada's title was conceived originally for the PS3, and squeezing the game on to the 360 seems to be quite a task, the designer struggling to ensure the title runs at a smooth 60fps on the new hardware.
When games like Tekken 6, or Killzone 2, or Metal Gear Solid 4, begin being regularly produced for the PS3 it will be only that, for the PS3. No one will be able to make those games for the 360 unless they significantly tone down the visuals and size of the game. Tekken 6 is going to be an inferior port on the 360 because the arcade version of Tekken 6 was designed with a PS3 based arcade board. The 360 can't handle Tekken 6 at full capacity, something MS didn't anticipate when they payed Namco to break the console exclusive strategy they've usually done with the previous Tekken games. Tekken has usually been on Sony consoles and Tekken 6 was made on a PS3 arcade board because Namco wanted the most visuals out of their game and has a long standing relationship with SONY hardware. Now MS is taking a slight hit in the media because when they coerced Namco into porting the game to the 360 they assumed their console could handle the game.
And as for the cost of the PS3 right now? The PSN is free to play games on, XBL is not. I pay $40-$50 a year for XBL, across a few years that adds up to a lot of money in the long run to play online. Factor in that the 360 elite is still $400 and the PS3 with a Blu-Ray drive is $460 the price difference is negligible when you weigh what you get. Factor in that I've lost not one, but three 360 units to the red ring of death since launch, and I own two PS3s that have never had any issues whatsoever that I am aware of, including letting them run for hours and hours upon end running the Folding At Home client without shutting them off for days at a time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home#PlayStation_3
The Wii most certainly can play games online without buying a membership.
But can you even tell you're online, other than that it's laggier?
Just because the anonymous users are anonymous does not negate the fact that you are playing games against human players.
Some games are friend-code-only, such as Animal Crossing: Wild World and Animal Crossing: City Folk.
If they are indistinguishable from CPU opponents then 1) the game has great AI or 2) the human players are horrible. :-)
When Tetris DS was popular, most human players were horrible. As long as you were rated below 6500 in standard 2-player, the level 5 CPU opponent (Bowser) would hand you your behind more often than not.
What makes you think Nintendo cares?
The NSider forum TOS banned sharing friend codes. (This policy changed once NSider left Nintendo.com for NSider2.com.)
"A lot of publishers AREN'T making everything for the PS3. The 360 seems to be the best supported console. Which is still odd, since it seems like it should be the wii."
It's only odd until you look a little closer at it. I'd say there's two main points about the Wii that make 3rd party developer a bit weary about the system.
1. The games that seem to sell the best are the ones made by Nintendo. Sure, there are exceptions to that rule (Guitar Hero, Carnival Games), but just a quick glance at NPD's charts seems to suggest that, despite the larger user base, the user base seems primarily loyal to Nintendo products and may overlook a 3rd party title.
2. It's much harder to identify whether a game will be successful on the Wii or not. Face it, casual gamers are much harder to classify than core gamers, mostly due to the inherent diversity of the casual crowd (children, women, and old people) versus the core crowd (young males). There's that and the fact that casual gamers prefer casual games, and casual games are cheaper to produce which means the casual gaming market tends to get a bit flooded (as it currently is). Even a quality casual game like BoomBlox can get lost in the crowd.
Given that the casual gaming market on the Wii is flooded and the core gaming market tends to be overlooked, it's not surprising to me that a lot of developers still prefer the 360 or PS3. Whether this will eventually change or not is arguable.
PSN Online is provided free of charge, with multiplayer gaming. XBox Gold membership is something like $50/year, and is required to actually play multiplayer games on XBLive.
Sony also has less incentive than Microsoft to keep a given title's matchmaking servers going. In fact, Frequency and Dance Dance Revolution Supernova were turned off (DNAS Error -103: Title is not in service) before I could log in even once.
Most PS3 models have built in wireless support (although there were some that didn't), the XB360 Wireless Network adapter is something around $50.
Which isn't worth much if your existing network is all-wired. A lot of Wii owners had to buy a Wi-Fi gateway just to get the console onto Wii Shop Channel.
PS3 offers you a Blue-ray player, an internet appliance, home media streaming AND a game console for around $540.
Couldn't one build a PC with a BD-ROM drive and a Windows OS for that price?
"Anyway, taking second place from the 360 is a worthless goal since..."
Actually, it's really not. This is a business, remember, not a race. Pepsi has been second to Coke since as long as they've existed, but because the cola market can easily support two competing companies, this means Pepsi can still turn a profit.
If there's one thing I've learned about the console gaming market over my twenty years experience with it, it's that the phrase "two is company, three's a crowd" has often been historically correct. At almost every point during the last four or five console generations, two consoles seemed to coast easily while every other console struggled or failed. A two-console market seemed to be the sweet spot, but the ability for the gaming market to sustain three consoles was always finicky at best. In fact, if it wasn't for Nintendo's incredibly strong handheld market, many people believe they wouldn't have survived the last generation when the Gamecube started to see stiff competition from the original Xbox. Before the Wii became a resounding success, many people predicted Nintendo was going to end up like Sega.
Of course, the market has changed quite a bit in the last few years. I personally believe that at this point, it's strong enough to maintain all three consoles. But there's no telling what the future might bring, especially in these economic times. If things start to get tight, I guarantee you the difference between first place and second place won't be nearly as important as the difference between second place and third.
As much as I dislike recurring fees, I have to admit that in this particular case, you get what you pay for. Xbox Live is way, way, WAY better than Sony's crappy online offering. I should know, I own all 3 consoles and I only play online on the 360, because it's actually an enjoyable experience. Sony and Nintendo both completely screwed the pooch on online functionality and while nintendo (more than) made up for it with innovative controls and low initial price, the PS3's trump cards (best theoretical performance and BluRay) just aren't enough to offset all they did wrong. And boy, did they do a lot of things wrong. (crappy update mechanism requiring too much user interaction, mandatory installation for games are just the tip of the iceberg)
In my case I was getting a Blu-Ray player. I was also getting a replacement for my PS2 that worked in HD, had gigs of "memory card" space and controllers that couldn't lose the connection because the jack was dirty. Oh, and I was getting a next generation gaming system that probably wouldn't RRoD on me in a year.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
It's not the number of console's that important in terms of saying who is winning, it's the attach rate that determines profitability (especially for 3rd party games developers) as that's where the money is made. The higher the attach rate the more you can afford to make a loss on the console and make it up in income from software sales.
There's an article here from last year with attach rates listed: http://playstation.joystiq.com/2008/04/25/npd-releases-home-console-attach-rate-ratios-ps3-not-so-hot/
The 360 has a significantly higher attach rate. I'll let you do the math to work out the number of games sold
Unfortunately I do believe attach rates include bundled games.
Why pressure Sony?
They have chosen the wrong platform.
What they should do, is to develop games for the Wii.
In fact, they should develop HUNDREDS of GOOD* games for the Wii, that would guarantee very strong sales.
--
*This means gameplay, no fancy graphics.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
But second place is not the point where you start making a profit, the profit is independent of the placing and only depends on raw sales and costs. Last gen Nintendo made the most money despite being in last place while MS blew billions because that was their strategy. Sony's situation doesn't look like they're magically going to make big profits when they surpass the 360.
The difference between places doesn't matter as much as the business proposal that is each of these platforms. The Wii's proposal is "you make a game for us, you get half the market but you'll have a hard time porting it", the 360's and PS3's proposal is "you make a game for us, you get our part of the market and can port it to the other console to get roughly the other half of the market". The Wii is significantly cheaper to develop for though.
There is not much money to be saved by omitting the PS3 or 360 when making a game for one of them. Porting is fairly cheap and nets roughly a doubling of the potential userbase. Which one of them is leading by a few million and which one is trailing does not matter, only the cost of releasing a port vs the likely revenue from it. For a game publisher the 360 and PS3 userbases can basically be seen as one market with similar tastes. There's some pointless fighting between them about which console is better why but in the end they'll still buy the same games and run hardware at roughly the same specs. Outside of moneyhats for exclusives there is no reason not to see it as one console called the PS360 with a userbase that is somewhere between a third to a half of the market, depending on the overlap between the userbases of the two systems.
However even in their combination they are still subject to the core implosion, core games cost too much to make and companies run up deficits even while having big sellers. So while the market shares of the Wii and PS360 are roughly equal, the business opportunity is not. On the PS360 you have to spend a lot more money for the same amount of revenue and there's a good chance that that revenue will not cover the costs.
It will be first place vs the combined second and third place but the first place has more advantages than just raw user numbers. In fact it's likely that those who keep working for the PS360 alliance will end up imploding under their own costs. They will die with little warning. Well, what am I doing using the future tense there? It already started happening. Or do you really think all these downsizings, buyouts and bankrupcies are just the result of the recession with the companies completely healthy otherwise? EA's problem was not low revenues, quite the contrary, the revenues were healthy, the costs were through the roof.
This is a videogame crash again. Or maybe not a crash, maybe a shakedown. A shakedown to see who can swallow their pride for long enough to make a game that's not meant for people like themselves and have the understanding of other people to make it good for them. Let us see how many will be left standing at the end of it.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I used to agree. For a while VGChartz used to use different metrics for different consoles. For a while their 360 charts were based on Microsofts announcements whilst their Wii/PS3 were based on NPD's stats. The problem here was Microsoft went for over a year between announcements so whilst their announcement was shipped vs. sold it made their initial sales figures overly high but after that year the 360 was shown as being behind when it wasn't
Their figures do seem more accurate now though and they have since started using NPD's figures it seems as the figures seem to match.
You're right though, it's always better to go straight to the source, but VGChartz is at least a lot more accurate now than it used to be and does at least present stats in an easily searchable manner.
I bought a PS3 for many of the reasons stated above, BlueRay+Media center capabilities and free online gaming being the biggest one. The price is worth it. It's just as Sony has said, it's not just a gaming machine.
What I am worried about is the price of games. Here in Sweden we pay 699-599 (62,25-55â) for a new game, if you are lucky some of the bigger electric chains have it for 499 (45,85â) (including sales tax).
That's too much. Luckily the PS3 is REGION FREE when it comes to games (Army of Two is the only region locked game so far). So I buy almost all my games from the UK now (play.com)
They need to lower the prices of games for people to consider buying one. It's no fun when you need to buy a extra controller and a game and you have just added 1/4 of the original unit's price to your expenses.
Honestly the console wars are a bit retarded. The PS3 isn't a failure until people just stop talking about it all together this is evidenced by all the other failed gamesystems. The PS3 can stick around for a long, long time and as production methods get cheaper the 360 advantage won't exist anymore. On top of that people are going to get a little miffed when MS comes out with the next Xbox while PS3 users are still sitting pretty with backwards compatability and still superior hardware and graphics.
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"Last gen Nintendo made the most money despite being in last place while MS blew billions because that was their strategy."
Well, first, I'm honestly very skeptical that Nintendo made the most money last Gen. I'd wager that honor goes to Sony, but I don't have any concrete data on that. Second, MS blowing tons of money kind of speaks to my point, doesn't it? There's little doubt Sony and Nintendo made money last gen, but MS lost tons of it. If it were almost any other company, they wouldn't have survived. I think that demonstrates perfectly how the market has traditionally been a two console market.
You speak of the PS360, stating how both systems tend to have the same features and appeal to the same kind of players, and that this tends to split the market into a Wii versus PS360 mentality. I believe that's mostly true. And because of this, I also believe that, should the market tighten, the real competition would be between the 360 and the PS3, and the Wii would be relatively safe. Again, second place would become a very important position at that point.
The idea, as you seem to imply, that it's first place versus second and third is a mistake in my humble opinion. Should the market tighten, I'd wager its far more likely that two systems would come out on top and one would drop off, rather than the contrary opinion that the Wii would be the sole survivor. I simply say, don't underestimate the importance of second place.
Fortunately, the gaming market is going strong with no signs of slowing down, so we may never know.
Don't know about the stats/etc/etc. but I do know that the Wii fit is still selling out locally, and the Wii isn't far behind (I think they had 3 in stock, the Wii fit typically stays in stock for an hour once it comes in according to the Best Buy guys), on the other hand Best Buy/Future Shop/etc. have literally piles of Xbox's and PS3's (nice pyramid stacks).
And because of this, I also believe that, should the market tighten, the real competition would be between the 360 and the PS3
I'm saying that the competition there doesn't really exist. Most of the games are third party and third parties have little reason to make exclusives, especially now that they have trouble making their development investments back. Ports are cheap compared to the gain they bring so they're pretty much mandatory unless you can somehow extort a nice money hat from a console manufacturer by not doing them. Any difference between the platforms is artificial currently. It doesn't matter which one is in the lead, a 60-40 split still means you're ignoring 40% of your potential userbase by going exclusive to the bigger one while accessing that 40% would cost you pocket change.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.