The reason this does not happen is because there is very little incentive to DOS a 911 center.
Not to mention that it is probably a federal offense and would initiate an FBI investigation... one with more of an incentive to find and prosecute the "bad guy" than going after typical SPAM mailers.
The only reason I have copper is for E911 service and in case of power failure. I use my cellfone for 99.9999% of all calls even at home. I just like having a little redundancy in case of emergency.
Exactly.
Cell Phone for day-to-day calls. Cable Modem for day-to-day internet use. POTS for reliability when all else goes to heck.
In the past ten years I've had both Cell and Cable fail and in each case I was able to fall back on POTS to handle my basic needs (and we're talking the center of a major urban metropolis, not some rural area).
One caveat to the above. When I say POTS, I MEAN POTS. Sure I've got a Cordless phone hooked up, but I also have a hardwired phone connected. When the last blackout hit in the Northeast, I know of quite a few people that had to hunt around to get a non-cordless phone. A little planning can do wonders (and is very useful for when my wife has been on the Cordless so long that the charge starts to go on it:) ).
Well... the Sex and the City boxed sets had about 6 episodes per disk (each episode about half an hour minus commercials), which adds up to ~2 hours of programming.... the 24 boxed sets seem to have about 4 episodes per disk (each episode about an hour minus commercials), which adds up to ~3 hours of programming.
I'm not sure what the maximum Standard-Definition video you can store on a DVD, but it certainly sounds like they might be pushing it a bit, and that this might be a function of the space available on the disk. If that is the case then a larger media will come in handy (especially if you're now dealing with a higher resolution video such as 480p, 720p or 1080i/p).
There were about 60 PS3s half 60s and half 20s sitting there, but they were only selling them in the $1000 bundle with 5 games and a second controller.
I wouldn't pay that much for a bundle that I didn't want either. That was the main reason I held out till I could get the system on its own. The launch titles just aren't strong enough to justify the 5 game bundle that most electronics stores seem to want to sell.
I didn't get it cause I don't see 5 games I'm that interested in. Oh that and I don't have a 1080p TV (damn Santa and all his reindeer) which is just about all they work properly on from what I hear.
Well... you heard wrong. I've hooked mine up to both a SD TV and a 720p HD TV (as far as I know there are no HD TVs in the 32" range that have a native display resolution above 720p) and while the picture is definitely better on the HD TV, the graphics are still gorgeous on both, and the system works fine on both.
Is it worth buying an HD TV for? Heck no. A game system shouldn't be the reason for a purchase that is probably in the $800-$1000 range (at the cheap end).
Is it one more reason to consider an HD TV? Heck yes. HD picture quality is great for TV (if you can either get over the air signals or cable/satellite service). It also makes games look great. As an added bonus, even my old PS2 games look sharper, probably because I'm using a digital signal versus the old analog cables I had on the PS2. Can't speak on Blu-Ray as a movie format, since I haven't had a reason to go buy one yet, but its something to look forward to.
My first question would be if they are the 20GB or the 60GB models.
I've got a theory (based on sampling the people I know), that most people would rather get the 60GB model ("if I'm already spending the money...").
My second question would be if this is in a more urban, rural, or suburb area.
It stands to reason that you're going to have a higher demand for Wiis vs PS3s simply becuase the lower price open the Wii up to be an easier purchase (easier on ones wallet:)), and the positive press has helped.
In contrast the PS3 is competing for a different market (initially?). With the lack of enough "must have" games just yet (the launch lineup has some fun titles but I'd only qualify "Resistance: The Fall of Man" as a must have), the game system is still launching. I expect that (assuming the publishers keep their word), this should change within the next few months as titles like "Virtua Fighter 5" come out (slated for Feb).
In the meantime the only ones buying are 'early adopters'. Population density will play a factor in this, with more demand in big cities than more rural areas. I expect a lot of people are also still playing PS2 games (heck, look how well the PS2 sold this past Dec).
Sony is also producing units much faster than MS ramped up with the 360. A lot of people might not realize they can buy units. There is probably a brake between the populations who camp out, and the populations who just want to walk into a store and buy something (without running around looking for it).
Given that, it doesn't surprise me that there might be a few units starting to sit on shelves yet. If it still is sitting there in a few months (without a big boost in sales or production), then I might be a little concerned.
As I've said before, it reminds me of the PS2 launch, just wait, it'll still do great.
This would sound like a really good point unless you've ever actually purchased or rented one of these DVD sets, and wondered why there's only two episodes on a disc. The reason for this is that you can charge more for a 5-disc set than you can for a 2-disc set. Even though the content is the same, the customer feels like they're getting more if they have a big box full of DVDs. Just take a look at the back of any TV series disc, and observe how much of the burned area is used. Usually it's only about 30% of the total disc area.
My experience (for the few Series I've seen), have been a season on 3-4 disks, with ~ 6 episodes a Disc. That certainly doesn't sound wasteful to me.
I don't deny that there are companies that want to gouge you (I think each season of "24" comes on 6 or 7 disks), but that doesn't mean all companies have to (or do).
These were also all SD broadcasts. What's going to happen with HD broadcast series?
I was lucky enough to be on-line at BestBuy Dec.31st. Waited on line for ~1 hour before the store opened and got a PS3. No fuss, no muss (they advertised in the weekly circular). I was amazed at how orderly and organized both the line and the BestBuy staff were. They handed out tickets when they opened the doors to the store. Then they let people in from the line 5 at a time (the store itself opened and anyone could go in). I was about 25 back and when I got in they directed you to a separate line they set up that snaked past a table with PS3 games and accessories on it. If you wanted an item and they had it in stock, you could buy it, otherwise you just had to continue to the counter and turn in the ticket to buy a PS3.
They definitely did not have enough units (people kept coming up after the store opened and the line got let in asking if they had any units left.
Both HD-DVD and blu-ray use blue-lasers, so that is a non-issue. Blue-Ray has more capacity per layer (25GB/layer) as opposed to HD-DVD (15GB/layer), but a dual-layer HD-DVD has more than enough space to hold a movie and all the crappy extra feature, especially when using h264 or VC1 codec. So extra space for blu-ray is also irrelevant.
The current "big thing" with TV programs is to package them in seasons for sale on DVDs (sometimes along with Extras).
If this idea makes the jump to HD media (which is a reasonable assumption), then the extra space means less discs in the set, or the same number of discs with more space for extras.
Just because the extra space doesn't seem relevant for one application (storing a movie with some extras) doesn't mean it couldn't be used for some other parallel application that might need it.
Thats like saying "people will never need more than X amount of HardDrive space in their machines, since all you need is X to install WindowsXP and a word processor". Some people do things like Video or Audio editing which might need more space. Others need to run large Databases for businesses.
Not sure, since I've never driven one, but I imagine you could map it so the direction the joystick is pushed corresponds to the direction the car goes.
Then you can have the wheels move independently so the car can go in that direction. This would let you do things like have the wheels rotate perpendicular to the car and allow it to "parallel park" by just moving into a spot "sideways".
You could also add "twist" to the joystick to change the direction you are facing.
Again, these are all assumptions since I've only seen them operate, but never close enough to see how to work them.
Essentially the "original" controls map directly to control surfaces (wheel = wheel rotation, brake = brake, gas = acceleration), the "new" controls map to concepts (stick = direction of travel, rotate stick = facing relative to direction of travel).
Why? It's like getting into a car and finding that the UI you have come to love to hate has changed to something completely different. Gone is the steering wheel as you know it, gone are the foot pedals, and gone are the buttons that operate the comfort controls.
Well... I haven't tried the new Office interface (I'm still using Office 2000), but in regard to your car analogy, I can see cases where it might make sense.
I've seen a few cars that are doing "drive by wire" where they replace the steering wheel and pedals with a joystick and a throttle. Yes, the interface is different, and takes some getting used to, but it is also much less cumbersome and can have a much lower learning curve (even if it means that its a new learning curve for everyone).
I imagine that is probably what MS is banking on, that the learning curve is low enough that everyone gets on-board rapidly.
Excellent point. Discovering infringement of patents that cover integrated circuit internals is EXTREMELY difficult.
Decapping an IC properly and analyzing the internal circuitry is extremely expensive and time consuming. I wouldn't be surprised if they had spent 2-3 years simply determining whether the chips infringed or not. Of course, by that time the chips would be replaced with new models and UW would have to either: a) Prove the new chips were designed similarly to the old ones b) Seek only damages for past products sold and not licensing/royalties for future products
c) Sue for past damages and seek discovery of current IC design as a reasonable recourse, since it can be shown they infringed in the past, and therefor might currently be infringing.
"That increased supply is what affected the curve, not the drop in the demand." Not only production, returned items as well.
Absolutely true. As the price falls, and more of the units that are out there by scalpers get returned, they only add to the supply further affecting the curve (although I would say their impact is probably minimal compared to the increased supply of units by Sony).
If I remember correctly the 360's were selling at a premium on e-bay well into the spring. I think that the point of this article is that we've barely passed X-Mas and the prices are already down around retail, which probably implies low demand. In other words, sony is screwed.
You are right about how long 360 prices stayed high, but the quicker price drop on the PS3s isn't due to lower demand.
Sony actually came through and have ramped up production on the PS3 much faster than Microsoft was able to ramp up production on the XBox360s. There weren't many shipments of XBox 360's to resupply stores after the initial console launch. By comparison, there have been a steady (and growing) stream of shipments resupplying both the PS3 and the Wii.
That increased supply is what affected the curve, not the drop in the demand.
By comparison, the Wii, because of its lower price, has a higher pool of possible buyers. Therefore, even though the suplpy HAS been increasing, its against a higher demand, so the inflated price has dropped slower.
Another consideration is contract law. Sony has contracts with Best Buy, Circuit Shitty, Target, you name the company, to supply them with items. I suppose that each of those contracts has a clause that prohibits Sony from by-passing them and selling direct to the consumer. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that such a clause was standard.
That sounds good and I'm probably going to look at them again, but I' more interested in a RAID-1 set up for the hard-drives... something that most Intel hardware out there supports, with the exception of anything from apple, short of the PowerMac and XServe.
Also, keep in mind that many people don't need to buy new computers very often. The real test will be over time as these 'new' ipod lovers PCs die will they look at apple for their next computer?
Exactly. I just built my computer a year ago. I don't need to upgrade it every year, thank you. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to maybe upgrading in a year or so, and am very looking forward to telling MS and Vista to "Go take a Hike".
My only complaint is that there is no "mid-size" desktop in Apple's lineup.
They've got: - The "small little HTPC wanna-be" in the MacMini - The "Small Office Server" in the MacPro - The "Integrated to heck" iMac
I already have an LCD (or want to upgrade separately) so the iMac is out. I would like a 64bit CPU, so the MacMini is out (unless they refresh). I might like RAID, but I don't need 16GB of RAM, so the MacPro seems like I will pay far more for most of what I won't need.
They need a lower end MacPro (or some other machine) to sit in the middle between the iMac and the MacPro.
Re:Panasonic say: Buy Our TVs Film At 11.
on
Plasma or LCD?
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· Score: 1, Offtopic
Interesting. Thanks for the clarification. I for one hope one day to have enough money to be in their market.
In the meantime I will console myself with a laugh every time I walk by their store and realize that the title still sounds like a cheap Porno movie from the 80's.
Either way, there will always be defective units, but since the 360 was first to market we may of heard about the bad ones much "louder" than today. No manufacture can get around defective units.
True that the XBox 360 was the first to launch, but we've heard about the "defective" Wii-mote straps.
Considering how much Slashdot has been acting like a group of sharks churning the water for any bad news about Sony lately, if the PS3 was failing like the XBox 360 had, I think we would know about it by now.
The major difference though is interaction with other people.
The iPod was designed to be used by one person. The Wii was designed to be used by a one or more people... only in the same place for now (no titles supporting on-line play yet?)
In contrast the XBox 360 seems to have very robust on-line multi-player support, and the PS3, while not as robust as the XBox 360's support, certainly seems to be heading in the correct direction.
It should be noted that no new revision ever fundamentally changed the hardware. They made new versions of the GB, GBA and DS smaller, prettier and included a brighter screen, but they never increased the screen's resolution, or made them faster.
You're right. Each revision merely added features that should have been in the device from the start (backlight on the GBA for instance), or that reflected advances in technology (smaller/lighter and brighter screen).
Why is the inclusion of an HD output and a scaler chip to convert the SD format into HD format, in a manner they control any different?
By the same token, how would the inclusion of a new revision of the Wii that can handle "original" Wii games and "Wii-HD" games any different from the way that Nintendo handled the introduction of the GameBoy Color?
Considering I know one person with an HDMI port on their TV (and that's me), I can't see why so many people would be hung up on getting the 60GB PS3 over the 20GB one...
Actually both models (the 20GB and the 60GB) have an HDMI port, so thats no longer a factor.
The 60GB offers: - a 60GB hard drive instead of the 20GB hard drive - integrated memory card readers (arguably superfluous if you already have one, but you might prefer to have it bundled into the device) - built-in 802.11b/g
I expect that last point (and the larger hard drive), might be the reason some people prefer the 60GB model. Why get a third party adapter, or anything external that has to be plugged into the machine, or why buy a machine just to replace the HD immediately?
Even if its "user upgradable", laptop hard drives are not cheap, and I bet your average consumer would rather not have to open up their console to change things.
Remember, just because your average slashdot reader might feel comfortable doing these things, your average console purchaser probably won't.
Oh, that's amusing. Very amusing. Where I work, we're all rolling our eyes at the PS3 architecture because unless we do a whole pile of custom work for it (like redesigning most of the engine we've licensed), our game will run on PS3 at about 1/3rd the speed of XBOX 360.
Not to discount your experience, but you're complaining that an engine your company licensed for the XBox 360 (I assume previously licensed), will not run on a new platform.
It sounds like your engine was not designed to run on the PS3, or does not run "as advertised" on a PS3.
Did the engine claim it would run on the PS3?
If so, then I think your complaints should be taken up with whoever designed the engine. Perhaps they hadn't optimized for the platform, or perhaps they have a new release with a better support. In either case the problem is with the engine maker.
If not, then I think your complaints are misplaced. Trying to run software on a platform it wasn't designed to work on is always risky. It may run, but there is no guarantee.
Can you elaborate on which engine and version (or the release date of the engine) your having problems with?
Seriously, it was a random rep, in a random EB games. Reps lie, that is all they do. Anythign a rep says is a lie. Remember this and you will be much better off. (I will admit, this is all simply personal experiance in working in retail, and I am including sales staff ofr retail stores as reps. They all lie also.)
I think it was a random Best Buy, but yeah. It seems that Slashdot needs to bash Sony so much they're reporting on a bloggers word of mouth with a sales rep. at a some random Best Buy as front page news as if its handed down from Sony Corporate.
Sheesh. Get a life (or a PS3, or an XBox 360, or a Wii).
We have hit a point of diminishing returns in graphics, even if you had a system that was 4 times as powerful as the PS3 you probably would not notice a dramatic improvement in the graphics of games being released for it. The PS3 and XBox 360 will have games which look (basically) identical on both systems because neither system is that much more powerful than the other.
This may (or may not) be true in terms of what the graphics card/chip can deliver, however the larger Disk capacity might mean more variation in pre-rendered assets that can be loaded on the fly to create a more visually diverse scene.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention that it is probably a federal offense and would initiate an FBI investigation
Exactly.
Cell Phone for day-to-day calls.
Cable Modem for day-to-day internet use.
POTS for reliability when all else goes to heck.
In the past ten years I've had both Cell and Cable fail and in each case I was able to fall back on POTS to handle my basic needs (and we're talking the center of a major urban metropolis, not some rural area).
One caveat to the above. When I say POTS, I MEAN POTS. Sure I've got a Cordless phone hooked up, but I also have a hardwired phone connected. When the last blackout hit in the Northeast, I know of quite a few people that had to hunt around to get a non-cordless phone. A little planning can do wonders (and is very useful for when my wife has been on the Cordless so long that the charge starts to go on it
Well ... the Sex and the City boxed sets had about 6 episodes per disk (each episode about half an hour minus commercials), which adds up to ~2 hours of programming. ... the 24 boxed sets seem to have about 4 episodes per disk (each episode about an hour minus commercials), which adds up to ~3 hours of programming.
I'm not sure what the maximum Standard-Definition video you can store on a DVD, but it certainly sounds like they might be pushing it a bit, and that this might be a function of the space available on the disk. If that is the case then a larger media will come in handy (especially if you're now dealing with a higher resolution video such as 480p, 720p or 1080i/p).
I wouldn't pay that much for a bundle that I didn't want either. That was the main reason I held out till I could get the system on its own. The launch titles just aren't strong enough to justify the 5 game bundle that most electronics stores seem to want to sell.
Well
Is it worth buying an HD TV for? Heck no. A game system shouldn't be the reason for a purchase that is probably in the $800-$1000 range (at the cheap end).
Is it one more reason to consider an HD TV? Heck yes. HD picture quality is great for TV (if you can either get over the air signals or cable/satellite service). It also makes games look great. As an added bonus, even my old PS2 games look sharper, probably because I'm using a digital signal versus the old analog cables I had on the PS2. Can't speak on Blu-Ray as a movie format, since I haven't had a reason to go buy one yet, but its something to look forward to.
My first question would be if they are the 20GB or the 60GB models.
...").
:)), and the positive press has helped.
I've got a theory (based on sampling the people I know), that most people would rather get the 60GB model ("if I'm already spending the money
My second question would be if this is in a more urban, rural, or suburb area.
It stands to reason that you're going to have a higher demand for Wiis vs PS3s simply becuase the lower price open the Wii up to be an easier purchase (easier on ones wallet
In contrast the PS3 is competing for a different market (initially?). With the lack of enough "must have" games just yet (the launch lineup has some fun titles but I'd only qualify "Resistance: The Fall of Man" as a must have), the game system is still launching. I expect that (assuming the publishers keep their word), this should change within the next few months as titles like "Virtua Fighter 5" come out (slated for Feb).
In the meantime the only ones buying are 'early adopters'. Population density will play a factor in this, with more demand in big cities than more rural areas. I expect a lot of people are also still playing PS2 games (heck, look how well the PS2 sold this past Dec).
Sony is also producing units much faster than MS ramped up with the 360. A lot of people might not realize they can buy units. There is probably a brake between the populations who camp out, and the populations who just want to walk into a store and buy something (without running around looking for it).
Given that, it doesn't surprise me that there might be a few units starting to sit on shelves yet. If it still is sitting there in a few months (without a big boost in sales or production), then I might be a little concerned.
As I've said before, it reminds me of the PS2 launch, just wait, it'll still do great.
My experience (for the few Series I've seen), have been a season on 3-4 disks, with ~ 6 episodes a Disc. That certainly doesn't sound wasteful to me.
I don't deny that there are companies that want to gouge you (I think each season of "24" comes on 6 or 7 disks), but that doesn't mean all companies have to (or do).
These were also all SD broadcasts. What's going to happen with HD broadcast series?
You can buy the unbundled unit on-line too now.
Check: http://www.xpbargains.com/ps3_locator.php
I was lucky enough to be on-line at BestBuy Dec.31st. Waited on line for ~1 hour before the store opened and got a PS3. No fuss, no muss (they advertised in the weekly circular). I was amazed at how orderly and organized both the line and the BestBuy staff were. They handed out tickets when they opened the doors to the store. Then they let people in from the line 5 at a time (the store itself opened and anyone could go in). I was about 25 back and when I got in they directed you to a separate line they set up that snaked past a table with PS3 games and accessories on it. If you wanted an item and they had it in stock, you could buy it, otherwise you just had to continue to the counter and turn in the ticket to buy a PS3.
They definitely did not have enough units (people kept coming up after the store opened and the line got let in asking if they had any units left.
The current "big thing" with TV programs is to package them in seasons for sale on DVDs (sometimes along with Extras).
If this idea makes the jump to HD media (which is a reasonable assumption), then the extra space means less discs in the set, or the same number of discs with more space for extras.
Just because the extra space doesn't seem relevant for one application (storing a movie with some extras) doesn't mean it couldn't be used for some other parallel application that might need it.
Thats like saying "people will never need more than X amount of HardDrive space in their machines, since all you need is X to install WindowsXP and a word processor". Some people do things like Video or Audio editing which might need more space. Others need to run large Databases for businesses.
Not sure, since I've never driven one, but I imagine you could map it so the direction the joystick is pushed corresponds to the direction the car goes.
Then you can have the wheels move independently so the car can go in that direction. This would let you do things like have the wheels rotate perpendicular to the car and allow it to "parallel park" by just moving into a spot "sideways".
You could also add "twist" to the joystick to change the direction you are facing.
Again, these are all assumptions since I've only seen them operate, but never close enough to see how to work them.
Essentially the "original" controls map directly to control surfaces (wheel = wheel rotation, brake = brake, gas = acceleration), the "new" controls map to concepts (stick = direction of travel, rotate stick = facing relative to direction of travel).
Well
I've seen a few cars that are doing "drive by wire" where they replace the steering wheel and pedals with a joystick and a throttle. Yes, the interface is different, and takes some getting used to, but it is also much less cumbersome and can have a much lower learning curve (even if it means that its a new learning curve for everyone).
I imagine that is probably what MS is banking on, that the learning curve is low enough that everyone gets on-board rapidly.
c) Sue for past damages and seek discovery of current IC design as a reasonable recourse, since it can be shown they infringed in the past, and therefor might currently be infringing.
Absolutely true. As the price falls, and more of the units that are out there by scalpers get returned, they only add to the supply further affecting the curve (although I would say their impact is probably minimal compared to the increased supply of units by Sony).
And that says it all. Most of the early adopters that I know are waiting to get their hands on the 60GB model.
You are right about how long 360 prices stayed high, but the quicker price drop on the PS3s isn't due to lower demand.
Sony actually came through and have ramped up production on the PS3 much faster than Microsoft was able to ramp up production on the XBox360s. There weren't many shipments of XBox 360's to resupply stores after the initial console launch. By comparison, there have been a steady (and growing) stream of shipments resupplying both the PS3 and the Wii.
That increased supply is what affected the curve, not the drop in the demand.
By comparison, the Wii, because of its lower price, has a higher pool of possible buyers. Therefore, even though the suplpy HAS been increasing, its against a higher demand, so the inflated price has dropped slower.
They may, but there must be a loophole.
Otherwise how could the http://www.sonystyle.com/ store exist?
That sounds good and I'm probably going to look at them again, but I' more interested in a RAID-1 set up for the hard-drives ... something that most Intel hardware out there supports, with the exception of anything from apple, short of the PowerMac and XServe.
Exactly. I just built my computer a year ago. I don't need to upgrade it every year, thank you. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to maybe upgrading in a year or so, and am very looking forward to telling MS and Vista to "Go take a Hike".
My only complaint is that there is no "mid-size" desktop in Apple's lineup.
They've got:
- The "small little HTPC wanna-be" in the MacMini
- The "Small Office Server" in the MacPro
- The "Integrated to heck" iMac
I already have an LCD (or want to upgrade separately) so the iMac is out.
I would like a 64bit CPU, so the MacMini is out (unless they refresh).
I might like RAID, but I don't need 16GB of RAM, so the MacPro seems like I will pay far more for most of what I won't need.
They need a lower end MacPro (or some other machine) to sit in the middle between the iMac and the MacPro.
Interesting. Thanks for the clarification. I for one hope one day to have enough money to be in their market.
In the meantime I will console myself with a laugh every time I walk by their store and realize that the title still sounds like a cheap Porno movie from the 80's.
True that the XBox 360 was the first to launch, but we've heard about the "defective" Wii-mote straps.
Considering how much Slashdot has been acting like a group of sharks churning the water for any bad news about Sony lately, if the PS3 was failing like the XBox 360 had, I think we would know about it by now.
The major difference though is interaction with other people.
... only in the same place for now (no titles supporting on-line play yet?)
The iPod was designed to be used by one person.
The Wii was designed to be used by a one or more people
In contrast the XBox 360 seems to have very robust on-line multi-player support, and the PS3, while not as robust as the XBox 360's support, certainly seems to be heading in the correct direction.
You're right. Each revision merely added features that should have been in the device from the start (backlight on the GBA for instance), or that reflected advances in technology (smaller/lighter and brighter screen).
Why is the inclusion of an HD output and a scaler chip to convert the SD format into HD format, in a manner they control any different?
By the same token, how would the inclusion of a new revision of the Wii that can handle "original" Wii games and "Wii-HD" games any different from the way that Nintendo handled the introduction of the GameBoy Color?
Actually both models (the 20GB and the 60GB) have an HDMI port, so thats no longer a factor.
The 60GB offers:
- a 60GB hard drive instead of the 20GB hard drive
- integrated memory card readers (arguably superfluous if you already have one, but you might prefer to have it bundled into the device)
- built-in 802.11b/g
I expect that last point (and the larger hard drive), might be the reason some people prefer the 60GB model. Why get a third party adapter, or anything external that has to be plugged into the machine, or why buy a machine just to replace the HD immediately?
Even if its "user upgradable", laptop hard drives are not cheap, and I bet your average consumer would rather not have to open up their console to change things.
Remember, just because your average slashdot reader might feel comfortable doing these things, your average console purchaser probably won't.
Not to discount your experience, but you're complaining that an engine your company licensed for the XBox 360 (I assume previously licensed), will not run on a new platform.
It sounds like your engine was not designed to run on the PS3, or does not run "as advertised" on a PS3.
Did the engine claim it would run on the PS3?
If so, then I think your complaints should be taken up with whoever designed the engine. Perhaps they hadn't optimized for the platform, or perhaps they have a new release with a better support. In either case the problem is with the engine maker.
If not, then I think your complaints are misplaced. Trying to run software on a platform it wasn't designed to work on is always risky. It may run, but there is no guarantee.
Can you elaborate on which engine and version (or the release date of the engine) your having problems with?
I think it was a random Best Buy, but yeah. It seems that Slashdot needs to bash Sony so much they're reporting on a bloggers word of mouth with a sales rep. at a some random Best Buy as front page news as if its handed down from Sony Corporate.
Sheesh. Get a life (or a PS3, or an XBox 360, or a Wii).
This may (or may not) be true in terms of what the graphics card/chip can deliver, however the larger Disk capacity might mean more variation in pre-rendered assets that can be loaded on the fly to create a more visually diverse scene.