So the PS3 has enough room to provide massive content in it's games.. and XBox and Wii don't. To me that's all I need to know. What's the point of a next gen console that can't even provide more detailed and massive enviroments to game in? A graphics boost is nice as is improved controllers but I want better gameplay and that means more data available to the games, better physics, better AI, etc.
I'll get a PS3 but I have no plan at all to upgrade my movie buying to HD-DVD or Blue-Ray or to use my next gen console for playing movies. The biggest deciding factor for me as to when I will switch to a HD movie format is when the format is cracked so that the security measures no longer work. I won't buy movies I can't copy and modify (removing menus, etc).
In the previous generation (PS2/XBox/Gamecube) most of the games produced easily fit on a single layered DVD, with only a few requiring a double layered DVD and (almost) none requiring multiple dual layered DVDs; in fact, most games were easily ported to the Gamecube on its single layered (1.5GB) optical disc. The Wii (we assume) now has about 6 times as much storage as the Gamecube did without requiring much more data in game (because of it's modest graphics).
The XBox 360 may not have the storage capacity of the PS3 but that shouldn't be too big of a problem because FMV should be far less necessary on a next generation console (the few double layered DVD games for the PS2 were mostly filled with MPEG-2 encoded FMV) and the XBox 360 can handle much greater compression on FMV than the XBox could, the XBox 360 can handle greater texture compression than the XBox could, and most polygonal data can be stored as a spline on the disc and polygonalized in memory; I know someone will say that polygonalizing a spline would take longer but the reality is that (with how slow optical drives are) it is much faster to store a model as a spline and then polygonalize it then to load a polygonal model from disc.
Anyways, I'm not so sure you will see more detailed massive environments then are already being provided on the XBox 360. the more detailed the enviroment becomes, or the more massive it becomes, the more people are required to produce the content; if game budgets are already in the $20-$40 Million range (requiring 1 to 2 Million sales to break even) I doubt you will see many game budgets explode to $40-$80 Million (requiring 2 to 4 Million sales to break even) to produce your massive detailed worlds.
IIRC the Playstation processor was included on the PS2 as the sound processor... Currently the Emotion Engine has been included in the PS3 in a similar way...
Personally, I would suspect that much of the non-CPU related functionality of the PS2 is being emulated on the Cell processor but the emulation is incomplete
I don't know what types of games you like... but here is a list of games that were pretty good
Star Wars: Rogue Squadren 2/Star Wars: Rogue Squadren 3
Super Smash Bros: Melee
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Eternal Darkness
Resident Evil 0
Super Mario Sunshine
Pikmin
Animal Crossing
Metroid Prime/ Metroid Prime 2
F-Zero
None of those games were on the PS2/XBox 360 and all of them were enjoyable... Many games (like Resident Evil 4 and Soul Calibur 2) were best on the Gamecube...
Nintendo is a very classy company by most standards and tends not to make (unreasonable) negative comments about their competition; in almost all cases of negative comments made by Nintendo about their competition you can interpret what they're saying as "We respect what are competition is trying to do, but we do not believe that this is the best strategy for Nintendo to try to achieve our goals at this time".
On another note, it is always interesting to watch reporters get Nintendo to talk trash about Sony and Microsoft; you'll see someone ask Nintendo whether they think that it was a huge mistake for Sony to release so few PS3s in Japan and Nintendo would say "We understand the difficulty of maintaining a decent supply of systems, but our goal is to try to expand the market and we believe that the best strategy for that is to ensure that someone can buy our console in a store for the MSRP"... or something like that
Personally, I believe that if Sony is still performing reasonably well in Q4 2008 they will be able to dominate the market; but that is a big if.
Over the next 24 months Nintendo and Microsoft have an opportunity to build a lead in system sales, and use that lead to take development away from the PS3. If Nintendo and Microsoft are successful, the PS3 will be approaching a reasonable price (for most users) but will have so little content that it will not become a popular product, if they're unsuccessful the PS3 will have tons of content. This content will determine how successful the PS3 really will be...
The problem I see for the PS3 (at the moment) is that in the second half of 2007 (when they get supply under control) the XBox 360 (and possibly the Wii) will have a 5 to 10 Million unit lead and will (likely) recieve a price drop which will increase sales; with the (suspected) losses the Sony is taking on the PS3 they may not be able to afford a price drop in 2007 which would (possibly) mean that the XBox 360/Wii could build enough of a lead to get developers to drop support for the PS3 pretty early on.
I probably should have been more clear as to what I meant by "making videogames" because, obviously, you can't take someone who has never developed a game and put them in a lead design position; what I meant to say was that you need non-gamers more involved in the design process of videogames.
A good example of this was Brain Age which was inspired by a conversation with Nintendo's CFO who had very little interest in videogames but (at the time) was working on puzzles in a brain traing book; I don't remember the exact story but it (basically) is that he stated that no-one his age (in his 60s) played videogames but they were all interested in this brain training book. Essentially, this single conversation was the necessary inspiration for a game that has sold more than 6 Million copies worldwide and is (largely) responsible for a massive number of non-gamers (including women) in buying a Nintendo DS.
What I was trying to get at is that most of the women you'd "recruit" to make videogames are largely going to be the rare girl gamer who will likely produce very similar content to what a male gamer would.
Personally, I think that the goal should not to be to try to recruit more women into making videogames but to encourage more non-gamers into making videogames; I know that for some people this may seem to be equilivant but it is not.
The fact is that the Gaming industry is not dominated by men but is dominated by hard-core gamers who happen to be men. As long as the main focus of development (and press) are games that appeal only to hard-core gamers the market will not expand into demographics that currently do not play videogames. A women who doesn't play videogames because they're overly violent and believes that they're childish will likely not pick up Gears of War II: Geardom even if it is designed by a woman; that same woman might pick up The Sims 3: More Expansions even though it is produced by a man.
Years ago (when I was taking a game theory in University) I was introduced to the Nash Equilibrium which, at the time, seemed like a pretty obvious thought when you consider what it is really saying. Essentially, what the Nash Equilibrium states (in plain English) is that in a competitive system (like a capitalistic economy) all competitors are better off if they give up personal gains and co-operate to produce mutual gains.
As an example (related to free software) consider Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Opera. For years it has been reasonably difficult to produce an advanced webpage (or web-application) that was cross browser compatible because of how different each of these browsers are; most websites avoid any advanced features because they know that they will be incompatible in one of these browsers. As these browsers become closer and closer to the W3C specifications web-developers having an easier time producing web-applications so a user doesn't have to use a particular web-browser to see a page anymore.
This hurts Microsoft right?
No, the fact is that if everyone was compliant with the specifications then Microsoft could take it's massive resources and focus on making IE produce web-pages that are more attractive, useable, secure and readable and dominate the market through having a better product rather than having the most web-pages compliant with its version of the HTML specification.
The same principle can be extended to all OS companies co-operating to produce the most stable (and best) OS kernal (or standard), and then each of them trying to develop the most useable user-interface.
Hopefully, this story will reduce the amount of people randomly bashing Sony (and how their PS3 will "obviously" fail) for no reason. Right now I'm just happy for Sony and the rate of sales they've had. Aren't you?
The average sales for the Nintendo DS Lite in a give week are about 100,000 units... On a good week (when they release a highly popular game) the DS Lite sells about 250,000 units...
Claiming that the PS3 won't fail because it sold 80,000 units in its launch week is foolish; hell the XBox 360 sold 55,750 in its first week in Japan... The PS3 is selling at about 133% the rate of one of the worst performing systems in the history of consoles in Japan...
The fact is that the PS2's top titles have a fanbase like no other. Games like (from the top of my head) Tekken, MGS, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo are enough to make people sell crack to their parents to be able to afford the PS3.
Except for the fact that the only major PS2 game (in terms of sales) that Sony has true exclusivity (in that they make it) is Gran Turismo... At the same time many of these games have seen a decline in sales on every new version that has been released (GT4 sold half as many as GT3, MGS3 sold 2/3 as many as MGS2) and (unless there is drastic gameplay improvements) this trend will likely continue on the PS3. Basically what I'm saying is that there is nothing that says that Sony's most popular games will continue to be exclusive or that they will still sell as well in the next generation.
If I were Microsoft I would use a much more conventional strategy...
I would focus on reducing the manufacturing cost of the XBox 360 by moving towards a more advanced manufacturing process (65nm) and integrating as many of the controller chips as possible; the goal of this is to be able to have a drastic price drop on the XBox 360 ($100) in the second half of 2007. Upon finishing the internal redesign the next goal would be to reduce the manufacturing process again (45nm) and to reduce the form factor of the XBox 360 (while still focusing on simplification of the system's internals); this "slim-line" version of the system can be released in the second half of 2008 at a much lower cost ($50) than the XBox 360 would currently be selling for.
While this is occuring I would be approaching every major 3rd party in the world and encourage (or bribe) them into porting any existing exclusive PS3 games to the XBox 360, and encouraging (or paying) them to drop any PS3 versions of a game that are currently planned on multi-platform games.
The combination approach would force Sony into price drops they couldn't afford while forcing them to pay to maintain development (which they can afford to do); all in all it will end up costing Sony $4 Billion - $8 Billion to stay competative in this generation. Even if Sony came out on top worldwide there company would be a fraction as profitable and would (likely) be in no position to compete in the next generation.
I'm not going to make a prediction on the numbers or percentages sold (because there is no way to anticipate changes in consumer tastes) but I do not think that your numbers reflect reality.
End of 2009:
PS3: 50% Wii: 30% 360: 20%
Personally I can't see how the PS3 could outsell the XBox 360 and Wii combined when it is likely that until 2009 the PS3 could be nearly as expensive as both of the systems combined; the Wii60 will probably see a $75-$150 price drop in the second half of 2007, followed by a similar price drop in 2008, I'm not sure that Sony can keep up with this pace.
personally feel like the Wii number is optimistic, but I can't logically see how it would be lower with the much lower cost of entry the Wii offers. However it will be squeezed by the 360 and PS3 really pushing HD gaming, which is why I also can't see it being higher.
The fact is that HDTVs are in (approximately) 15% of homes currently, and it would be optimistic to see that jump to 33% over the next 3 years; if there are HDTVs in 50% of homes by 2010 I'd be surprised. It is really doubtful that HD gaming will actually provide enough of a benefit to most gamers for it to translate into greater sales.
Ultimately, I think the determining factor is what the average game developer decides to do. The PS2 and Playstation gained their market share largely because the bulk of independant (and shovelware) developers decided to focus their efforts on the Playstation; the effect of this was that there was many more games developed for the Playstation systems than there was for its competition (and, as a result, more good games). In this upcomming generation the XBox 360 has built enough of a lead in North America and Europe that it will probably take (many) years for the PS3 to catch up (if it can), and the Wii offers dramatically lower development costs than either the PS3 or XBox 360; this means that these average developers could decide to focus on the XBox 360 because of its user base, focus on the Wii because of its lower development costs, focus on the PS3/XBox 360 because of similar technology or split their efforts evenly.
As I see it, the more developers that move away from producing exclusive content for the PS3 the more market share it will lose; and I think the PS3 will lose a lot of exclusive content over the next 24 months.
So Sony is selling their brand new console, which should last 5-8 years, for $599. And Slashdot is up in arms at how insane Sony is for charging this much.
How long a system lasts is largely determined by how well it sold, not by the hardware that is inside of it; consider that the PS2 was no where near as powerful as the XBox or Gamecube and yet still has more games being developed for it (and will likely still have development in 2008) whereas the XBox and Gamecube are (essentially) dead. A friend of mine (who was the biggest Playstation booster) explained to me his new found hatred for all things PS3 with "At $600 I said that I would wait for a decent price drop before I bought it, and then I noticed that everyone I knew who was going to buy it at launch was taking the same approach. If a large portion of the PS3's early adopters are waiting for a price drop, the PS3 could be one of the biggest flops in the history of gaming."
Now I don't (entirely) agree with his statement but I think it explains a lot of the anger and frustration.
But nobody complains when a new cell phone comes out that costs $500. How many years is that phone going to last you? How much in monthly service charges are you going to have to pay? PS3 is free.
Why not compare it to a car or a plane ticket while you're at it?
The PS3 is a game console so it should be directly compared to a game console...
Last year people were bitching about how the XBox 360 was $400 and I know people who have yet to buy it because it was $100 too expensive; those are the same people who thing the PS3 is $200-$300 too expensive.
Nobody complains that Nvidia just came out with a $700 video card. It'll only be 6 months that that card is top of the line. Nobody is coming out with a higher powered console any time soon.
There is a different mentality with PC gamers though... The PC allows you to select exactly what you want your system to do; for someone like me (who doesn't need 1920x1280) I'm happy with a $200 card and a mid line processor, other people will want a Quad SLi Geforce 8800 GTX to hold them over until the Geforce 9 series comes out.
But Sony is charging too much. Even though they are taking a loss on each unit. Right, whatever you say...
I didn't tell them they had to use an unconventional CPU architecture or include a HD-Movie player in the unit; there loss was their decision, not mine, so why do I care? All I want is the system to be at a price I am willing to pay (and $500 is not a price I'm willing to pay).
They could have charged more for it (let's say $800) and they would still sell out the first batch of consoles. Then they could drop the price to something resonable 3-6 months later. Now the money is going to all the people selling them on ebay rather than Sony.
Didn't the xbox drop by $100 only 6 months after launch?
In Europe the XBox was initially overpriced and it was hurting sales so they cut the price a couple of months later; this pissed off most of the people who already purchased a XBox so they were forced to give people coupons for games (IIRC everyone who paid the initial price got 2 game coupons). The fact is that if you cut your price too often, or by too much, you're only going to upset the customers who already bought your system.
Personally, I believe the best strategy is to reduce the price $50 (or add a pack-in game) every 12 months; then even people who buy the system the day before the price drop/pack-in will not be that offended. The problem (with the PS3) is that at $500/$600 it will take 6 years at that rate before the average consumer will be willing to purchase your product; in that time Nintendo could release the Super Wii Advance that is 4 times as powerful as your system for $200.
Don't forget that the original Playstation launched at (basically) the same time as the Saturn did, and sold at approximately the same rate as the Saturn (a system with no games) until the N64 launched 18 months later; the N64's launch (essentially) killed the Saturn and the Playstation began selling at a remarkable rate. I don't have North American data, but here are some charts showing what I mean:
Had Sega delivered a reasonable system with the Saturn, or had Nintendo released the N64 9-12 months earlier, the Playstation may never have had the opportunity to build steam.
Those are good points - but what has he done lately in the business to give you the idea that he knows what he is talking about now? I would think that the PS's success is due to the kind of games they had and relationships Sony made with developers/publishers.
Has the gaming market changed all that much over its entire history?
The fact is that there is a certain similar strategy which made the Atari 2600, NES, Gameboy, SNES, Playstation, Playstation 2, Gameboy Advance and the Nintendo DS more successful than any of their competition. At the same time there are many systems (3DO, Atari-Jaguar, Turbo Graphics 16, Sega Saturn and Neo-Geo) that had similar strategies which lead to failure. The question is whether the PS3's current strategy is more similar to the successful systems or the unsuccessful systems?
Personally, I would say that the PS3 is similar to both categories in various ways...
Ultimately it will be interesting to watch the PS3 over the next year or two.
On the other hand, if you're not able to vote on a topic (whether it is because you're uninformed or can not decide between your options) go to a polling station and spoil the ballot.
To simply not show up to vote says that you're too lazy to vote (and that you don't take the right to vote seriously)... spoiling the ballot says you do not believe you have a good option.
Personally, I couldn't get a pre-order but I'm not too worried about getting a Wii at launch and I (sort of) plan on "camping out"...
My plan is to show up at walmart at 6:30 or 7:00 sunday morning because they open at 8:00; if I can't get one there I will move to Super Store which opens at 9:30, if I cant get one there I will move to futureshop which opens at 11:00. I expect that at one of my stops I will get a Wii but I'm prepared to go hunting for one.
As I see it the worst case scenerio is that I will get one in the second shipment...
It may not be a popular opinion, but Halo was pretty crappy as far as single player games go...
Where Halo was a very good game (and worthy of its hype) was in a 16 player lan game. Certainly PC gamers had large lan-parties for years before Halo was released, but a lan party that size was quite difficult to set up and there were (always) tons of technical problems. To get a Halo lan game to work you just needed 4 people with a reasonable sized TV (hopefully over 27 inches), and 4 consoles (either owned or rented) a router and some cables. Personally, I think any game would be fun like that, but Halo was the first game to make it that easy.
there's absolutely no upside to telling Americans that dumping tons of pollutants into the atmosphere is going to have a bad effect
I would actually disagree with this because (for the most part) we have a gigantic media circus that works by making sure everyone is too afraid to not watch the news (or read the newspaper) that will make you "famous" if you play into their fears; this strategy has existed for decades with the world being on the "brink of destruction" whether the threat was from Nuclear Weapons or Global Warming. Rational voices are usually silenced in favour of more radical messages to increase ratings and readership.
Now, there have been several pieces of evidence that bring into question the conclusion that "Humans are causing global warming" that have not been brought to public attention because they're in a field that requires much stronger proof than climate science does. The most damaging piece of evidence I have seen is that the cycles of heating and cooling are directly related to sunspot activity (the greater the sunspot activity the warmer the earth is) even though the irradiant energy arriving from the sun to the earth doesn't change; currently the sun is at a historic high for sunspot activity (historic from studying it for ~400 years). Even though we see this relationship (which could explain global warming) it can not be published until we understand why it would influence the temperature of the earth; is the electromagnetic energy from the sunspots doing something to the atmosphere that allows the irradiant energy to reach the earth more effectively?
Have you ever heard of the connection between sunspots and global temperature? Was this because the science isn't strong enough or because it is a more moderate explanation of global warming?
I disagree. The PS3 will sell out everywhere (even if it is just because people want to ebay them). Big name developers are already on board. I do agree that Sony will lose market share this round...but I think they will have no problem selling out. It is just that their production will be worse that the Wii and the 360.
I think that many people have misunderstood what I meant by "selling poorly"... I will try to clarify the statement.
The PS3 will likely sell out from Q4 2006 until the end of Q2 2007 simply because they have a limited supply of units and they have to launch the system in three regions; I think they will fail to make sales projections durring this time frame because they will be unable to supply enough units. I expect that even if Sony gets control over their supply problems that they will continue to sell at an uninspired rate largely because the pricetag acts as a barrier to entry for the average consumer; $600 (for console, 1 game and tax) is a tough expense to justify regardless of income level.
I can guess what is going to happen in Q3/Q4 2007 but without knowing certain pieces of information I can't guess all that accurately; for example, if the XBox 360 and Wii both drop in price and the PS3 maintains its price the outcome would be different then if Microsoft releases the XBox 360HD and matches the price of a PS3 base.
Overpriced? Nope, it's a better value than the XBox 360 when it comes to technology and cost of manufacturing.
It may be a better "value" but that doesn't really matter too much to people when it comes to videogames. The reality is that people buy a videogame system when a game they want is released for it and (usually) not for the technology that is in the system; a high price acts as a barrier to entry because there are few people who are willing to spend $500/$600 to play 1 or 2 games.
Overheating? Nope, it's cooler than the XBox 360.
Overheating and durability will be seen as to whether it is better than the XBox 360...
Free online service
Depending on how good it is... I would (personally) rather spend $4.50 per month for a good service than use an awful service for free.
Better form factor
Define "Better"...
Linux capability
Unless it alows for homebrew development this is pretty pointless...
Blu-ray
I don't own a 1080p TV and there is so little content for Blu-Ray that it is pointless at this time; over time the extra space may be useful for games but (beyond 1080p FMV) there is little content that will use this space.
Motion control
With how this Motion control is integrated I'm not sure how much of a benefit there will be... The Wii offers a whole new playing experience with tons of ways to use the controller, the PS3 controller seems only really useful for flight games or monkey ball...
I'm not trying to say that the PS3 is doomed just the benefits you listed are all conditional benefits or are quite limited...
How often has the most powerful console been a total market failure?
Define "Total Market Failure"?
The XBox is certainly a contender after having lost $4 Billion to only sell 20 Million systems (or $200 per system sold); several of the Neo-Geo / Turbo Graphics 16 / 3DO / Jaguar / etc. systems were the most powerful systems of their time and still failed to be successful platforms; and the most obvious choice was the N64, which was much more powerful than the Saturn/Playstation yet sold half as many systems as the SNES did.
HD support may not be a requirement for many people, but those with HDTV will want some hardware to complement it.
This may be true, but how much of an impact on sales it will have is questionable. Currently only about 15% of households have HDTVs, and HDTVs currently make up 50% of new TVs sold; a good guestimate for market penetration would be 25% sometime in 2008, 50% around 2010 and 100% around 2020 (the bottom half of the market will likely stick with whatever TV they have until it breaks). Now, when you start talking about 1080p TVs they have a much smaller market share and will (likely) take 5 years to get the market penetration that 1080i/720p TVs currently have. The "Advantage" of 1080p HDTV will likely only be felt in 2010-2012 (after the XBox 720 has been released).
While it is expensive, and although Sony have been pretty evil in the past, the fact remains that the PS3 is a very powerful system, with a decent level of brand recognition.
Brand recognition is a strong thing, but it can erode quickly and it can not float the wrong product that is released at the wrong time.
Now, I'm not going to make any Doom and Gloom predictions for the PS3 but everyone has to admit that because of the higher price point and low supply the PS3 is (likely) going to sell poorly in 2006 and through the first half of 2007; this (in theory) could discourage developers from producing exclusive games and prevent the stranglehold that the PS2 had on third parties (which would further reduce sales of the PS3). In other words it is likely that the PS3 will sell worse than either the PS2 or Playstation, and the Wii and XBox 360 will gain in marketshare; how dramatic these changes are is still open to debate.
The final question is how well can someone who only has been in charge of PR for the company for 2 months manage the growing problems; if he makes a couple of foolish mistakes it could cost the PS3 even further market share and possibly destroy the brand.
Slashdot Mirror
So the PS3 has enough room to provide massive content in it's games.. and XBox and Wii don't. To me that's all I need to know. What's the point of a next gen console that can't even provide more detailed and massive enviroments to game in? A graphics boost is nice as is improved controllers but I want better gameplay and that means more data available to the games, better physics, better AI, etc.
I'll get a PS3 but I have no plan at all to upgrade my movie buying to HD-DVD or Blue-Ray or to use my next gen console for playing movies. The biggest deciding factor for me as to when I will switch to a HD movie format is when the format is cracked so that the security measures no longer work. I won't buy movies I can't copy and modify (removing menus, etc).
In the previous generation (PS2/XBox/Gamecube) most of the games produced easily fit on a single layered DVD, with only a few requiring a double layered DVD and (almost) none requiring multiple dual layered DVDs; in fact, most games were easily ported to the Gamecube on its single layered (1.5GB) optical disc. The Wii (we assume) now has about 6 times as much storage as the Gamecube did without requiring much more data in game (because of it's modest graphics).
The XBox 360 may not have the storage capacity of the PS3 but that shouldn't be too big of a problem because FMV should be far less necessary on a next generation console (the few double layered DVD games for the PS2 were mostly filled with MPEG-2 encoded FMV) and the XBox 360 can handle much greater compression on FMV than the XBox could, the XBox 360 can handle greater texture compression than the XBox could, and most polygonal data can be stored as a spline on the disc and polygonalized in memory; I know someone will say that polygonalizing a spline would take longer but the reality is that (with how slow optical drives are) it is much faster to store a model as a spline and then polygonalize it then to load a polygonal model from disc.
Anyways, I'm not so sure you will see more detailed massive environments then are already being provided on the XBox 360. the more detailed the enviroment becomes, or the more massive it becomes, the more people are required to produce the content; if game budgets are already in the $20-$40 Million range (requiring 1 to 2 Million sales to break even) I doubt you will see many game budgets explode to $40-$80 Million (requiring 2 to 4 Million sales to break even) to produce your massive detailed worlds.
IIRC the Playstation processor was included on the PS2 as the sound processor ... ...
Currently the Emotion Engine has been included in the PS3 in a similar way
Personally, I would suspect that much of the non-CPU related functionality of the PS2 is being emulated on the Cell processor but the emulation is incomplete
None of those games were on the PS2/XBox 360 and all of them were enjoyable
Many games (like Resident Evil 4 and Soul Calibur 2) were best on the Gamecube
Nintendo is a very classy company by most standards and tends not to make (unreasonable) negative comments about their competition; in almost all cases of negative comments made by Nintendo about their competition you can interpret what they're saying as "We respect what are competition is trying to do, but we do not believe that this is the best strategy for Nintendo to try to achieve our goals at this time". On another note, it is always interesting to watch reporters get Nintendo to talk trash about Sony and Microsoft; you'll see someone ask Nintendo whether they think that it was a huge mistake for Sony to release so few PS3s in Japan and Nintendo would say "We understand the difficulty of maintaining a decent supply of systems, but our goal is to try to expand the market and we believe that the best strategy for that is to ensure that someone can buy our console in a store for the MSRP" ... or something like that
Personally, I believe that if Sony is still performing reasonably well in Q4 2008 they will be able to dominate the market; but that is a big if.
...
Over the next 24 months Nintendo and Microsoft have an opportunity to build a lead in system sales, and use that lead to take development away from the PS3. If Nintendo and Microsoft are successful, the PS3 will be approaching a reasonable price (for most users) but will have so little content that it will not become a popular product, if they're unsuccessful the PS3 will have tons of content. This content will determine how successful the PS3 really will be
The problem I see for the PS3 (at the moment) is that in the second half of 2007 (when they get supply under control) the XBox 360 (and possibly the Wii) will have a 5 to 10 Million unit lead and will (likely) recieve a price drop which will increase sales; with the (suspected) losses the Sony is taking on the PS3 they may not be able to afford a price drop in 2007 which would (possibly) mean that the XBox 360/Wii could build enough of a lead to get developers to drop support for the PS3 pretty early on.
I probably should have been more clear as to what I meant by "making videogames" because, obviously, you can't take someone who has never developed a game and put them in a lead design position; what I meant to say was that you need non-gamers more involved in the design process of videogames.
A good example of this was Brain Age which was inspired by a conversation with Nintendo's CFO who had very little interest in videogames but (at the time) was working on puzzles in a brain traing book; I don't remember the exact story but it (basically) is that he stated that no-one his age (in his 60s) played videogames but they were all interested in this brain training book. Essentially, this single conversation was the necessary inspiration for a game that has sold more than 6 Million copies worldwide and is (largely) responsible for a massive number of non-gamers (including women) in buying a Nintendo DS.
What I was trying to get at is that most of the women you'd "recruit" to make videogames are largely going to be the rare girl gamer who will likely produce very similar content to what a male gamer would.
Personally, I think that the goal should not to be to try to recruit more women into making videogames but to encourage more non-gamers into making videogames; I know that for some people this may seem to be equilivant but it is not.
The fact is that the Gaming industry is not dominated by men but is dominated by hard-core gamers who happen to be men. As long as the main focus of development (and press) are games that appeal only to hard-core gamers the market will not expand into demographics that currently do not play videogames. A women who doesn't play videogames because they're overly violent and believes that they're childish will likely not pick up Gears of War II: Geardom even if it is designed by a woman; that same woman might pick up The Sims 3: More Expansions even though it is produced by a man.
Years ago (when I was taking a game theory in University) I was introduced to the Nash Equilibrium which, at the time, seemed like a pretty obvious thought when you consider what it is really saying. Essentially, what the Nash Equilibrium states (in plain English) is that in a competitive system (like a capitalistic economy) all competitors are better off if they give up personal gains and co-operate to produce mutual gains.
As an example (related to free software) consider Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Opera. For years it has been reasonably difficult to produce an advanced webpage (or web-application) that was cross browser compatible because of how different each of these browsers are; most websites avoid any advanced features because they know that they will be incompatible in one of these browsers. As these browsers become closer and closer to the W3C specifications web-developers having an easier time producing web-applications so a user doesn't have to use a particular web-browser to see a page anymore.
This hurts Microsoft right?
No, the fact is that if everyone was compliant with the specifications then Microsoft could take it's massive resources and focus on making IE produce web-pages that are more attractive, useable, secure and readable and dominate the market through having a better product rather than having the most web-pages compliant with its version of the HTML specification.
The same principle can be extended to all OS companies co-operating to produce the most stable (and best) OS kernal (or standard), and then each of them trying to develop the most useable user-interface.
Hopefully, this story will reduce the amount of people randomly bashing Sony (and how their PS3 will "obviously" fail) for no reason. Right now I'm just happy for Sony and the rate of sales they've had. Aren't you?
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... The PS3 is selling at about 133% the rate of one of the worst performing systems in the history of consoles in Japan ...
The average sales for the Nintendo DS Lite in a give week are about 100,000 units
On a good week (when they release a highly popular game) the DS Lite sells about 250,000 units
Claiming that the PS3 won't fail because it sold 80,000 units in its launch week is foolish; hell the XBox 360 sold 55,750 in its first week in Japan
Are you sure it is doing all that well?
The fact is that the PS2's top titles have a fanbase like no other. Games like (from the top of my head) Tekken, MGS, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo are enough to make people sell crack to their parents to be able to afford the PS3. Except for the fact that the only major PS2 game (in terms of sales) that Sony has true exclusivity (in that they make it) is Gran Turismo ... At the same time many of these games have seen a decline in sales on every new version that has been released (GT4 sold half as many as GT3, MGS3 sold 2/3 as many as MGS2) and (unless there is drastic gameplay improvements) this trend will likely continue on the PS3. Basically what I'm saying is that there is nothing that says that Sony's most popular games will continue to be exclusive or that they will still sell as well in the next generation.
If I were Microsoft I would use a much more conventional strategy ...
I would focus on reducing the manufacturing cost of the XBox 360 by moving towards a more advanced manufacturing process (65nm) and integrating as many of the controller chips as possible; the goal of this is to be able to have a drastic price drop on the XBox 360 ($100) in the second half of 2007. Upon finishing the internal redesign the next goal would be to reduce the manufacturing process again (45nm) and to reduce the form factor of the XBox 360 (while still focusing on simplification of the system's internals); this "slim-line" version of the system can be released in the second half of 2008 at a much lower cost ($50) than the XBox 360 would currently be selling for.
While this is occuring I would be approaching every major 3rd party in the world and encourage (or bribe) them into porting any existing exclusive PS3 games to the XBox 360, and encouraging (or paying) them to drop any PS3 versions of a game that are currently planned on multi-platform games.
The combination approach would force Sony into price drops they couldn't afford while forcing them to pay to maintain development (which they can afford to do); all in all it will end up costing Sony $4 Billion - $8 Billion to stay competative in this generation. Even if Sony came out on top worldwide there company would be a fraction as profitable and would (likely) be in no position to compete in the next generation.
I'm not going to make a prediction on the numbers or percentages sold (because there is no way to anticipate changes in consumer tastes) but I do not think that your numbers reflect reality.
End of 2009:
PS3: 50%
Wii: 30%
360: 20%
Personally I can't see how the PS3 could outsell the XBox 360 and Wii combined when it is likely that until 2009 the PS3 could be nearly as expensive as both of the systems combined; the Wii60 will probably see a $75-$150 price drop in the second half of 2007, followed by a similar price drop in 2008, I'm not sure that Sony can keep up with this pace.
personally feel like the Wii number is optimistic, but I can't logically see how it would be lower with the much lower cost of entry the Wii offers. However it will be squeezed by the 360 and PS3 really pushing HD gaming, which is why I also can't see it being higher.
The fact is that HDTVs are in (approximately) 15% of homes currently, and it would be optimistic to see that jump to 33% over the next 3 years; if there are HDTVs in 50% of homes by 2010 I'd be surprised. It is really doubtful that HD gaming will actually provide enough of a benefit to most gamers for it to translate into greater sales.
Ultimately, I think the determining factor is what the average game developer decides to do. The PS2 and Playstation gained their market share largely because the bulk of independant (and shovelware) developers decided to focus their efforts on the Playstation; the effect of this was that there was many more games developed for the Playstation systems than there was for its competition (and, as a result, more good games). In this upcomming generation the XBox 360 has built enough of a lead in North America and Europe that it will probably take (many) years for the PS3 to catch up (if it can), and the Wii offers dramatically lower development costs than either the PS3 or XBox 360; this means that these average developers could decide to focus on the XBox 360 because of its user base, focus on the Wii because of its lower development costs, focus on the PS3/XBox 360 because of similar technology or split their efforts evenly.
As I see it, the more developers that move away from producing exclusive content for the PS3 the more market share it will lose; and I think the PS3 will lose a lot of exclusive content over the next 24 months.
So Sony is selling their brand new console, which should last 5-8 years, for $599. And Slashdot is up in arms at how insane Sony is for charging this much.
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... The PC allows you to select exactly what you want your system to do; for someone like me (who doesn't need 1920x1280) I'm happy with a $200 card and a mid line processor, other people will want a Quad SLi Geforce 8800 GTX to hold them over until the Geforce 9 series comes out.
How long a system lasts is largely determined by how well it sold, not by the hardware that is inside of it; consider that the PS2 was no where near as powerful as the XBox or Gamecube and yet still has more games being developed for it (and will likely still have development in 2008) whereas the XBox and Gamecube are (essentially) dead. A friend of mine (who was the biggest Playstation booster) explained to me his new found hatred for all things PS3 with "At $600 I said that I would wait for a decent price drop before I bought it, and then I noticed that everyone I knew who was going to buy it at launch was taking the same approach. If a large portion of the PS3's early adopters are waiting for a price drop, the PS3 could be one of the biggest flops in the history of gaming."
Now I don't (entirely) agree with his statement but I think it explains a lot of the anger and frustration.
But nobody complains when a new cell phone comes out that costs $500. How many years is that phone going to last you? How much in monthly service charges are you going to have to pay? PS3 is free.
Why not compare it to a car or a plane ticket while you're at it?
The PS3 is a game console so it should be directly compared to a game console
Last year people were bitching about how the XBox 360 was $400 and I know people who have yet to buy it because it was $100 too expensive; those are the same people who thing the PS3 is $200-$300 too expensive.
Nobody complains that Nvidia just came out with a $700 video card. It'll only be 6 months that that card is top of the line. Nobody is coming out with a higher powered console any time soon.
There is a different mentality with PC gamers though
But Sony is charging too much. Even though they are taking a loss on each unit. Right, whatever you say...
I didn't tell them they had to use an unconventional CPU architecture or include a HD-Movie player in the unit; there loss was their decision, not mine, so why do I care? All I want is the system to be at a price I am willing to pay (and $500 is not a price I'm willing to pay).
They could have charged more for it (let's say $800) and they would still sell out the first batch of consoles. Then they could drop the price to something resonable 3-6 months later. Now the money is going to all the people selling them on ebay rather than Sony.
Didn't the xbox drop by $100 only 6 months after launch?
In Europe the XBox was initially overpriced and it was hurting sales so they cut the price a couple of months later; this pissed off most of the people who already purchased a XBox so they were forced to give people coupons for games (IIRC everyone who paid the initial price got 2 game coupons). The fact is that if you cut your price too often, or by too much, you're only going to upset the customers who already bought your system.
Personally, I believe the best strategy is to reduce the price $50 (or add a pack-in game) every 12 months; then even people who buy the system the day before the price drop/pack-in will not be that offended. The problem (with the PS3) is that at $500/$600 it will take 6 years at that rate before the average consumer will be willing to purchase your product; in that time Nintendo could release the Super Wii Advance that is 4 times as powerful as your system for $200.
My bundle guess:
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System, Wiimote, Nunchuck, Wiisports ($250)
3 Wiimotes, 3 Nunchucks and 4 classic controllers ($240)
4 Games ($200)
Total: $690
Not a bad bundle
They could replace the classic controllers with SD cards or battery packs but I'm not sure it matters.
Don't forget that the original Playstation launched at (basically) the same time as the Saturn did, and sold at approximately the same rate as the Saturn (a system with no games) until the N64 launched 18 months later; the N64's launch (essentially) killed the Saturn and the Playstation began selling at a remarkable rate. I don't have North American data, but here are some charts showing what I mean:
& name2=SAT&type=2&align=1& name2=N64&type=2&align=1
http://www.vgcharts.org/japconscomps.php?name1=PS
http://www.vgcharts.org/japconscomps.php?name1=PS
Had Sega delivered a reasonable system with the Saturn, or had Nintendo released the N64 9-12 months earlier, the Playstation may never have had the opportunity to build steam.
Currently Canada is offering a competition for independant developers as well:
M .20061108.wtelefilmm1107/BNStory/Technology/home
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGA
Those are good points - but what has he done lately in the business to give you the idea that he knows what he is talking about now?
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I would think that the PS's success is due to the kind of games they had and relationships Sony made with developers/publishers.
Has the gaming market changed all that much over its entire history?
The fact is that there is a certain similar strategy which made the Atari 2600, NES, Gameboy, SNES, Playstation, Playstation 2, Gameboy Advance and the Nintendo DS more successful than any of their competition. At the same time there are many systems (3DO, Atari-Jaguar, Turbo Graphics 16, Sega Saturn and Neo-Geo) that had similar strategies which lead to failure. The question is whether the PS3's current strategy is more similar to the successful systems or the unsuccessful systems?
Personally, I would say that the PS3 is similar to both categories in various ways
Ultimately it will be interesting to watch the PS3 over the next year or two.
On the other hand, if you're not able to vote on a topic (whether it is because you're uninformed or can not decide between your options) go to a polling station and spoil the ballot.
... spoiling the ballot says you do not believe you have a good option.
To simply not show up to vote says that you're too lazy to vote (and that you don't take the right to vote seriously)
Personally, I couldn't get a pre-order but I'm not too worried about getting a Wii at launch and I (sort of) plan on "camping out" ...
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My plan is to show up at walmart at 6:30 or 7:00 sunday morning because they open at 8:00; if I can't get one there I will move to Super Store which opens at 9:30, if I cant get one there I will move to futureshop which opens at 11:00. I expect that at one of my stops I will get a Wii but I'm prepared to go hunting for one.
As I see it the worst case scenerio is that I will get one in the second shipment
It may not be a popular opinion, but Halo was pretty crappy as far as single player games go ...
Where Halo was a very good game (and worthy of its hype) was in a 16 player lan game. Certainly PC gamers had large lan-parties for years before Halo was released, but a lan party that size was quite difficult to set up and there were (always) tons of technical problems. To get a Halo lan game to work you just needed 4 people with a reasonable sized TV (hopefully over 27 inches), and 4 consoles (either owned or rented) a router and some cables. Personally, I think any game would be fun like that, but Halo was the first game to make it that easy.
there's absolutely no upside to telling Americans that dumping tons of pollutants into the atmosphere is going to have a bad effect
I would actually disagree with this because (for the most part) we have a gigantic media circus that works by making sure everyone is too afraid to not watch the news (or read the newspaper) that will make you "famous" if you play into their fears; this strategy has existed for decades with the world being on the "brink of destruction" whether the threat was from Nuclear Weapons or Global Warming. Rational voices are usually silenced in favour of more radical messages to increase ratings and readership.
Now, there have been several pieces of evidence that bring into question the conclusion that "Humans are causing global warming" that have not been brought to public attention because they're in a field that requires much stronger proof than climate science does. The most damaging piece of evidence I have seen is that the cycles of heating and cooling are directly related to sunspot activity (the greater the sunspot activity the warmer the earth is) even though the irradiant energy arriving from the sun to the earth doesn't change; currently the sun is at a historic high for sunspot activity (historic from studying it for ~400 years). Even though we see this relationship (which could explain global warming) it can not be published until we understand why it would influence the temperature of the earth; is the electromagnetic energy from the sunspots doing something to the atmosphere that allows the irradiant energy to reach the earth more effectively?
Have you ever heard of the connection between sunspots and global temperature? Was this because the science isn't strong enough or because it is a more moderate explanation of global warming?
I disagree. The PS3 will sell out everywhere (even if it is just because people want to ebay them). Big name developers are already on board. I do agree that Sony will lose market share this round...but I think they will have no problem selling out. It is just that their production will be worse that the Wii and the 360.
... I will try to clarify the statement.
I think that many people have misunderstood what I meant by "selling poorly"
The PS3 will likely sell out from Q4 2006 until the end of Q2 2007 simply because they have a limited supply of units and they have to launch the system in three regions; I think they will fail to make sales projections durring this time frame because they will be unable to supply enough units. I expect that even if Sony gets control over their supply problems that they will continue to sell at an uninspired rate largely because the pricetag acts as a barrier to entry for the average consumer; $600 (for console, 1 game and tax) is a tough expense to justify regardless of income level.
I can guess what is going to happen in Q3/Q4 2007 but without knowing certain pieces of information I can't guess all that accurately; for example, if the XBox 360 and Wii both drop in price and the PS3 maintains its price the outcome would be different then if Microsoft releases the XBox 360HD and matches the price of a PS3 base.
Overpriced? Nope, it's a better value than the XBox 360 when it comes to technology and cost of manufacturing.
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... I would (personally) rather spend $4.50 per month for a good service than use an awful service for free.
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It may be a better "value" but that doesn't really matter too much to people when it comes to videogames. The reality is that people buy a videogame system when a game they want is released for it and (usually) not for the technology that is in the system; a high price acts as a barrier to entry because there are few people who are willing to spend $500/$600 to play 1 or 2 games.
Overheating? Nope, it's cooler than the XBox 360.
Overheating and durability will be seen as to whether it is better than the XBox 360
Free online service
Depending on how good it is
Better form factor
Define "Better"
Linux capability
Unless it alows for homebrew development this is pretty pointless
Blu-ray
I don't own a 1080p TV and there is so little content for Blu-Ray that it is pointless at this time; over time the extra space may be useful for games but (beyond 1080p FMV) there is little content that will use this space.
Motion control
With how this Motion control is integrated I'm not sure how much of a benefit there will be
The Wii offers a whole new playing experience with tons of ways to use the controller, the PS3 controller seems only really useful for flight games or monkey ball
I'm not trying to say that the PS3 is doomed just the benefits you listed are all conditional benefits or are quite limited
How often has the most powerful console been a total market failure?
Define "Total Market Failure"?
The XBox is certainly a contender after having lost $4 Billion to only sell 20 Million systems (or $200 per system sold); several of the Neo-Geo / Turbo Graphics 16 / 3DO / Jaguar / etc. systems were the most powerful systems of their time and still failed to be successful platforms; and the most obvious choice was the N64, which was much more powerful than the Saturn/Playstation yet sold half as many systems as the SNES did.
HD support may not be a requirement for many people, but those with HDTV will want some hardware to complement it.
This may be true, but how much of an impact on sales it will have is questionable. Currently only about 15% of households have HDTVs, and HDTVs currently make up 50% of new TVs sold; a good guestimate for market penetration would be 25% sometime in 2008, 50% around 2010 and 100% around 2020 (the bottom half of the market will likely stick with whatever TV they have until it breaks). Now, when you start talking about 1080p TVs they have a much smaller market share and will (likely) take 5 years to get the market penetration that 1080i/720p TVs currently have. The "Advantage" of 1080p HDTV will likely only be felt in 2010-2012 (after the XBox 720 has been released).
While it is expensive, and although Sony have been pretty evil in the past, the fact remains that the PS3 is a very powerful system, with a decent level of brand recognition.
Brand recognition is a strong thing, but it can erode quickly and it can not float the wrong product that is released at the wrong time.
Now, I'm not going to make any Doom and Gloom predictions for the PS3 but everyone has to admit that because of the higher price point and low supply the PS3 is (likely) going to sell poorly in 2006 and through the first half of 2007; this (in theory) could discourage developers from producing exclusive games and prevent the stranglehold that the PS2 had on third parties (which would further reduce sales of the PS3). In other words it is likely that the PS3 will sell worse than either the PS2 or Playstation, and the Wii and XBox 360 will gain in marketshare; how dramatic these changes are is still open to debate.
The final question is how well can someone who only has been in charge of PR for the company for 2 months manage the growing problems; if he makes a couple of foolish mistakes it could cost the PS3 even further market share and possibly destroy the brand.