The PS3 FUD has driven away the majority of people who use to read Slashdot for general gaming news. Gaming stories now usually have tiny numbers of comments consisting mostly of the rabid Zonk followers who feel he is very 'fair and balanced'.
Actually, there are usually seventy or so comments flaming and trolling Zonk. Several hundred talking about the Wii (regardless of the news topic), another few proclaiming the coming ascendance of Sony or Microsoft, and some old coot wondering when Pong stopped being the most popular video game.
Also, consistant numbers of over 300 posts hardly constitutes "tiny".
What exactly did Microsoft do that catered to the blogs and internet media? How exactly is this supposed to give Sony negative press as opposed to Microsft positive press? Do you mean to say Microsoft bribed them?
You're putting a statement on the table here that smells of crackpot conspiracy theory. Unless you have some article or link to back it up, I'm going to have to call this FUD, even if some of the PS3 bashing we see here is as well.
Also, the idea that anyone can be unbiased about buying something is silly. The internet didn't create bias, it just made it more obvious.
It's good to see a PS3 review that's positive and rational. The two haven't met for a while now.
So the PS3 lived up to all the hype. Here are some interesting improvements I'm certain we'll see over time. And, thankfully, we can expect regular updates of functionality just like the 360. Honestly I could go on and on about how much I liked the experience and enjoy the games. I also know full well that there is improvement to be made over time, and it WILL be done.
Unforunately this particular part jived with me. Firstly, I'm not sure it has lived up to the hype. Does Resistance look better than similar Xbox 360 games? Does it look as insanely better as the trailers shown at E3 2005? The case may be that the PS3 is visibly better than the 360, but at the moment it seems too soon to say that it lived up to the hype.
Also, your personal certainty that specific new features will be forthcoming doesn't assuage the fears that some or all of them will either be poorly implemented or not implemented. None of us want the features to go undeveloped, but there is some measure of fear that some important ones will be. Until we hear from Sony that they are going to be improving the system over time, these fears will remain desipte your assurances.
When buying a game demo, purchasing the full game should be an unlock code and not another download. They are large.
What you say makes sense, but doesn't concern so much as the first sentence in itself. Did you really mean to use the word "buying"? Does this mean that what is otherwise free on an Xbox 360 (game demos) costs money on the PS3? That surely would be a far bigger issue in my mind.
Motorstorm is an amazing game and it's a shame it wasn't available on launch day. I can't wait to get my hands on that one.
Is this opinion from experience with the demo?
People love to bash the PS3 and praise the Wii online-- it's progressed to an art form now. But, I just don't see it.
There's a reason you just don't see it, it comes in your very next sentence.
I know the Wii is nice and all, but if you are looking for an HD experience look no further than PS3.
The "HD Experience" is why you don't see it. To have personal bias in one's hobbies is not bad, and yours leans towards that visual experience. It's not wrong, it's just you.
Ultimately your personal taste and preference should determine what you like and purchase, just don't assume the same goes for everyone else who is adept at the internet.
I don't agree with the reviews of Excite Truck, at least in the realm of final scores. I agree that having a greater number of players would have been nice, but I do not agree that this and other minor flaws should cause the game to score so low. However, what is "minor" for me may well be crippling for someone else.
In the same fashion, someone who is not sold on the HD experience will not see the PS3's power as a large benefit. They will look at the other parts of the console which make up the substance of the PS3. They will ask questions such as "Do the better graphics make Resistance more fun than a game I could have on the PS2, Xbox 360, or the Wii?" or "Is the PS3 $200 more fun than the Xbox 360?"
Ultimately what we witness on the internet is the result of several trends. The first is the general skepticism of many literate in technology of the next generation DVD format war. Blu-ray and HD-DVD both have merits, but nobody wants to support the loser. The second is a similar skepticism of the worth of HD. Not everyone adept with technology can afford the latest and greatest gadgets however much they might want them. Children, Morgages, gas, and bills take precedence.
For someone who lacks an HDTV, the cost of the experience is as high as $3000 for a television capable of 1080p, $600 for the PS3, $500 for the sur
The GameStop I got my Wii at was sold out of everything. Yes, everything. Controllers, Excite Truck, Zelda, everything. There wasn't a single Wii related item (exception: Anything Gamecube) left.
The scariest thing, this wasn't forced. The Xbox 360 launch featured gamers being forced to grab tons of extra games and accesories if they wanted the system. Here, Nintendo was perfectly content to let you walk out with just the system, and yet EVERYTHING sold out. I've been trying to find somewhere that has controllers in stock without success.
Someone need to update that hilarious animated gif of Iwata and Miyamoto holding the DS saying, "It prints money". It needs a Wii now as well.
For all the negative comments towards Jackson's work on the trilogy, the fact that they somehow have the idea that a prequel and "the Hobbit" are two seperate things bodes very ill for the "It absolutely must be exactly like the book" nerds.
On the plus side, maybe some of us will appreciate Jackson more when we see how Hollywood botches these films. That or I'll eat my words.
The PS3 is neat. The Wii is neat. These people are insane.
1) It's a video game console, not a cure for cancer. You don't need to get worked up over it.
2) This isn't the only chance you'll have to get one. If it is, you really don't want one anyway.
3) If you seriously didn't think you could be in the "I waited days in line for this and got nothing" group you need several reality checks.
Frankly, I'm scared that I'm going to walk to my car with my brand new Wii and some nut with a gun is going to try and take it from me. These morons seem desperate enough that they'll actually shoot me for it.
I've personally found reviews to be rather unhelpful these days. It is extremely difficult to find a review that isn't vague about both what is good and what is bad. Attempting to find anything specific is as timeconsuming as WoW.
Ultimately the best thing you can do is try the games yourself. Does netflix rent games yet?
A lot of people have long forgotten the days when it took 6 hours worth of time to download a 5mb shareware game. Even more were never there, and have no conception that these things could take time.
Go out and ask someone what they would think if to use the internet they had to tie up their phone line. You'd be surprised the kind of responses you'd get.
Due to the limited initial installed base of the platforms, we believe the financial impact over the holiday period will be more significant for hardware manufacturers and video game retailers (such as GameStop) than for software publishers
I fail to see how having fewer PS3s availible has less impact on the potential sales of titles for the system. It looks to me as a "everybody loses" situation, with this being the most positive way to word it. Better than, "Hey, some of you are slightly less screwed!"
Nintendo ignores any mail complaining that someone couldn't get Halo or God of War working on their Gamecube. The same applies here.
Blizzard does not support Linux. It was great that some enterprising people got WoW working, but that doesn't mean you can complain when Blizzard does something that unintentionally breaks it.
My experience has been that Blizzard is extremely customer friendly. I've had a number of issues resolved cocerning game glitches, account errors and more in a timely and respectful manner. Many people complain that "blue" doesn't respond enough in the forums. Given the huge amount of traffic there, and the additional traffic and focus any blue response gives a thread, it would be both impossible (time constraints) and unfair (any thread with a blue response implodes, leaving other worthy threads unread) to increase their interaction.
When Blizzard releases an expansion for WoW which does nothing but raise the level cap by X and doesn't even feature new content but the promise of new content claiming "You'll buy it because it's WoW", when they discontinue the in game ticket system and shut down the forums, when they "have built a line of equity and we intend on spending it", then they will be about as customer-friendly as Sony. As it stands, I don't think you can claim that Blizzard's service is anywhere near as hellish as what SW:G and EQ players have had to deal with.
I've browsed the internet with my ever changing browser of choice set to ask me about any and all cookies for years now. The number of cookies per site has been very steadily and rapidly increasing since their conception.
I hate it.
Back when they first appeared, they were there to help us maintain our logins through the website, not lose our shipping carts etc. It wasn't bad, it made sense. I was willing to let websites store my username and password so that I didn't have to keep logging back in constantly.
Honestly, I don't even see why we have cookies anymore. There should be far better ways to maintain a persistant login by now. Ways which don't threaten our privacy, or provide a medium for the same bastards that invented pop-ups and pop-unders to destroy common decency.
The first time I visit any website I am bombarded by cookies. This isn't just one cookie, this is as many as seven from a single page. Why in the name of Linux Torvalds do these sites need seven cookies to function? Clicking the next page bombards me again, and will keep bombarding me until I get through all 255 or more ad3.adserve.cookies.net like services. Only then can I finally visit the website in peace, until next month when a new advertiser joins the loop.
So now my cookie accept/block list is the size of New York's phone book. Heaven forbid in that barrage of cookies there was actually an important one. With all the obscure names they're given it's impossible to tell until you can't maintain your login. Now I get to play the age old 'Find the needle in the haystack' game, new millenium version.
This is beyond sanity. I don't know if the FCC has the right or the ability to do something about this, but something should be done. I don't have any idea what. Boycotting pages with cookies means 99.9% of the internet is off limits.
Not if you know me personally. I mix my metaphors, phrases, and idioms all the time. Unfortunately or fortunately, none of you know me personally. As such, I can't blame you for taking my blatant mistake at face value rather than realizing I meant something completely different.
In short, when other people say "Cup of Cake", "Bite the Bucket" or "A fool and his money gather no moss", it's a joke. When I say I'm serious, and an idiot.
That isn't a revolutionary controller, no. Not even Nintendo claims it to be, hence "Classic Controller". The revolutionary controller lauded in the article and elsewhere is the remote.
My post did not slight the SIXAXIS because of any notion Sony copied Nintendo (Quote: "Speculation about their copycatting Nintendo aside") but because they hyped the SIXAXIS as something new, innovative and revolutionary when really it had all been done over 10 years ago.
Attacking Nintendo for being unrevolutionary with a controller specifically designed to be unrevolutionary is as ridiculous as attacking Sony for branding their products with their brand name.
In Wii's defense, I can't stand non-symetrical dual joystick controllers, so it's nice to see them using Sony as a model.
Which is exactly the point. The "Classic Controller" is made to cater to you, me and all the people who played with the DualShock. Much like other companies adapted Nintendo's designs when they were the norm, Nintendo is simply doing what players will find familiar and accessible.
That's right, you could do exactly what they're doing now with the original Warhawk on your PS1 back in the early 1990s. This isn't something new. It may have been innovative then, but I don't think we can apply words such as "revolutionary" to it now.
The article strikes me as being written by someone who's high on hype for both systems, and hasn't taken a single grain of salt since E3. This is the kind of thing I could write with minimal research in about an hour. Heck, we here at slashdot write extensive monologues from our gut all the time. The only difference here is they make money off theirs......damn it. What I am doing telling you people this for free?
The issue is that not everyone wants Blue-ray, and the inclusion has had two undesirable affects on the PS3.
1. An increase in price. 2. A decrease in supply.
The lasers for Blue-ray are both difficult and expensive to manufacture. Because of this, we have fewer PS3s at a greater price.
The argument for Blue-ray is largely for the 50GB of space it provides. This is compared to DVDs with a max of 9GB.
What people seem to forget is that the Gamecube's small discs had a maximum storage capacity of 1.5GB. That's exactly 1/6th of what the PS2 and Xbox had availible, yet we were delivered a number of incredible games (Resident Evil 4, Crystal Chronicles, Metroid Prime, Windwaker, Super Smash Bros and even Twilight Princess). 9GB is slightly more than 1/6th of the 50GB that Blue-ray offers.
The point is that because of facts such as these, the cut scene CG craziness many games employ, and general skepticism of the potential success for Blue-ray, many gamers are not exactly thrilled with it. Those who wanted to play Blue-ray movies may be, and some who don't as well, but a fairly large number don't feel happy about being used as a stepping stone for Sony's plans of market domination.
Firstly, he's hardly smug. Secondly, he's pointing out not why he in particular felt this was wrong but instead attempted to explain why, despite no laws or capitalistic principles were violated, so many people find this story distasteful. He's not the lone voice in the desert here, he's just the one person who figured out why there were many voices meandering around attempting to find someone to blame.
He isn't calling for you to spend your dollars differently. He didn't call for you to repent. What he did do was ask a few very good questions about the nature of society.
What does it say about our society that we are willing to spend $2000 to purchase something we can get just months later at a third of that price? In those three months value will actually be ADDED to the item in the form of new games, yet people pay more to have it sooner?
Charity in this case would be his personal preference on where to spend the $1000 or more surplus from simply waiting, but you can make the same argument with whatever else you might desire to spend money on. Spending $2000 now means you're $1400 dollars less for the year that you could have spent on peripherals, games, dates, cars, plane tickets, world domination, taxes, presents, bills, books, ebayed WoW accounts, HDTVs or the world's largest collection of toilet seats.
Smugness or morality aren't necessarily even involved. While some people, such as myself and perhaps the OP, find it distasteful primarily for moral reasons others might find it distasteful because it's a poor investment on the parts of those who spend $2000 on a PS3. It's the same distaste many felt for scams such as Gizmondo. Some people were morally offended, some were economically offended.
Your reaction is as guilty of knee-jerk fallacies as Zonk blaming Sony was.
He also said the true test for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo's forthcoming Wii would be next year when the consoles are all available at retailers and consumers have a true choice.
I find this quote very telling.
We've gone from "the next generation doesn't start until we say it does" to "the true test isn't until next Christmas when we finally have our act together". This isn't the attitude and strategy of a winner.
It's good to hear Kaz reiterate that they're on track for 2 million/4 million (although I thought they were going for 6 million in March). I was concerned they wouldn't be able to do that given their current issues. Still, while they delay when the competition really begins, their competitors are raking in money, market share, and mass appeal.
It's not obvious it won't sell, we know better than that. It's the market analysts and marketers who think it's "obvious". Somehow, the wild success of games such as Final Fantasy VII and now XII haven't clued them in.
They create self-fulfilling prophecies. They think X game will sell, and Y game won't. They market heavily game X and not game Y. End result, X game does better than Y. They see that they were correct in their analysis that Y wouldn't sell and feel justified in canning any Y-like games.
The Good News: Sony will have an online network for their PS3. Single login makes life easier.
The Bad News: The firmware needs to be updated to use Sony's online network. That this was not pre-installed indicates the network only recently was finished. The possibility that the network will have issues and growing pains is thus much more likely (though not a certainty).
The Bottom Line: Something is better than nothing.
Definately. Nitnendo's consoles have always been nigh indestructible. My NES had me and my two siblings to destroy it and it too us (well known for destroying toys very quickly) years to do it in (mishandle is an understatement).
Additionally I remember some years ago a video circulated wherein some teenagers dragged their gamecube behind their truck. Despite looking like crap, it still ran afterwards. They had to take a sledge hammer to it for it to stop functioning.
For the other systems, it may not be so bad an investment. I have my doubts a PS3 could withstand similar punishment.
A major point to be made is that Sony can not afford to try pulling a Nintendo.
When Nintendo lost its dominant place in the market (as well as most of its third party support) it had 2 major factors in its favor.
1. They didn't sell consoles at a loss. 2. They make craploads of first party games.
Despite the often non-existant support from other companies, Nintendo's first and second party titles made them extremely profitable even resting on the least market share of the three big players.
Sony has been building up capability for first party titles and we've seen some neat games because of it. However, Sony does not have the software muscle that Nintendo has. That muscle is what has kept Nintendo going strong despite its meager share in the market. Were their positions reverse Sony would be in trouble. They sell systems at a loss, and they depend largely on third party support.
Third party support isn't bad, but if you are completely dependant on it you can't afford to alienate it. Sony may well do this.
1. Sony's system will be the hardest to program for (the Cell is tough to crack). 2. Sony's system looks to be set up a slow start (who wants to have a launch title on a system with only 500k units worldwide).
There is a threshhold this generation which Sony can not afford to fall below. If they can not garner a significant amount of marketshare relative to their competitors they will hemmorage third party titles left and right.
The part where that wasn't posted in the first place?
You don't have to be abrasive about being more informed than the rest of us. Sony hasn't really gone out of its way to tell us that Linux on the PS3 isn't gimped like it was on the PS2. Your post is informative, but please assume that we're simply not informed as opposed to willfully ignorant in the future (regardless of which we may actually be).
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, there are usually seventy or so comments flaming and trolling Zonk. Several hundred talking about the Wii (regardless of the news topic), another few proclaiming the coming ascendance of Sony or Microsoft, and some old coot wondering when Pong stopped being the most popular video game.
Also, consistant numbers of over 300 posts hardly constitutes "tiny".
Pardon?
What exactly did Microsoft do that catered to the blogs and internet media? How exactly is this supposed to give Sony negative press as opposed to Microsft positive press? Do you mean to say Microsoft bribed them?
You're putting a statement on the table here that smells of crackpot conspiracy theory. Unless you have some article or link to back it up, I'm going to have to call this FUD, even if some of the PS3 bashing we see here is as well.
Also, the idea that anyone can be unbiased about buying something is silly. The internet didn't create bias, it just made it more obvious.
Unforunately this particular part jived with me. Firstly, I'm not sure it has lived up to the hype. Does Resistance look better than similar Xbox 360 games? Does it look as insanely better as the trailers shown at E3 2005? The case may be that the PS3 is visibly better than the 360, but at the moment it seems too soon to say that it lived up to the hype.
Also, your personal certainty that specific new features will be forthcoming doesn't assuage the fears that some or all of them will either be poorly implemented or not implemented. None of us want the features to go undeveloped, but there is some measure of fear that some important ones will be. Until we hear from Sony that they are going to be improving the system over time, these fears will remain desipte your assurances.
What you say makes sense, but doesn't concern so much as the first sentence in itself. Did you really mean to use the word "buying"? Does this mean that what is otherwise free on an Xbox 360 (game demos) costs money on the PS3? That surely would be a far bigger issue in my mind.
Is this opinion from experience with the demo?
There's a reason you just don't see it, it comes in your very next sentence.
The "HD Experience" is why you don't see it. To have personal bias in one's hobbies is not bad, and yours leans towards that visual experience. It's not wrong, it's just you.
Ultimately your personal taste and preference should determine what you like and purchase, just don't assume the same goes for everyone else who is adept at the internet.
I don't agree with the reviews of Excite Truck, at least in the realm of final scores. I agree that having a greater number of players would have been nice, but I do not agree that this and other minor flaws should cause the game to score so low. However, what is "minor" for me may well be crippling for someone else.
In the same fashion, someone who is not sold on the HD experience will not see the PS3's power as a large benefit. They will look at the other parts of the console which make up the substance of the PS3. They will ask questions such as "Do the better graphics make Resistance more fun than a game I could have on the PS2, Xbox 360, or the Wii?" or "Is the PS3 $200 more fun than the Xbox 360?"
Ultimately what we witness on the internet is the result of several trends. The first is the general skepticism of many literate in technology of the next generation DVD format war. Blu-ray and HD-DVD both have merits, but nobody wants to support the loser. The second is a similar skepticism of the worth of HD. Not everyone adept with technology can afford the latest and greatest gadgets however much they might want them. Children, Morgages, gas, and bills take precedence.
For someone who lacks an HDTV, the cost of the experience is as high as $3000 for a television capable of 1080p, $600 for the PS3, $500 for the sur
The GameStop I got my Wii at was sold out of everything. Yes, everything. Controllers, Excite Truck, Zelda, everything. There wasn't a single Wii related item (exception: Anything Gamecube) left.
The scariest thing, this wasn't forced. The Xbox 360 launch featured gamers being forced to grab tons of extra games and accesories if they wanted the system. Here, Nintendo was perfectly content to let you walk out with just the system, and yet EVERYTHING sold out. I've been trying to find somewhere that has controllers in stock without success.
Someone need to update that hilarious animated gif of Iwata and Miyamoto holding the DS saying, "It prints money". It needs a Wii now as well.
For all the negative comments towards Jackson's work on the trilogy, the fact that they somehow have the idea that a prequel and "the Hobbit" are two seperate things bodes very ill for the "It absolutely must be exactly like the book" nerds.
On the plus side, maybe some of us will appreciate Jackson more when we see how Hollywood botches these films. That or I'll eat my words.
The PS3 is neat. The Wii is neat. These people are insane.
1) It's a video game console, not a cure for cancer. You don't need to get worked up over it.
2) This isn't the only chance you'll have to get one. If it is, you really don't want one anyway.
3) If you seriously didn't think you could be in the "I waited days in line for this and got nothing" group you need several reality checks.
Frankly, I'm scared that I'm going to walk to my car with my brand new Wii and some nut with a gun is going to try and take it from me. These morons seem desperate enough that they'll actually shoot me for it.
I tried, I tried...
Review games yourself.
I've personally found reviews to be rather unhelpful these days. It is extremely difficult to find a review that isn't vague about both what is good and what is bad. Attempting to find anything specific is as timeconsuming as WoW.
Ultimately the best thing you can do is try the games yourself. Does netflix rent games yet?
A lot of people have long forgotten the days when it took 6 hours worth of time to download a 5mb shareware game. Even more were never there, and have no conception that these things could take time.
Go out and ask someone what they would think if to use the internet they had to tie up their phone line. You'd be surprised the kind of responses you'd get.
I fail to see how having fewer PS3s availible has less impact on the potential sales of titles for the system. It looks to me as a "everybody loses" situation, with this being the most positive way to word it. Better than, "Hey, some of you are slightly less screwed!"
Nintendo ignores any mail complaining that someone couldn't get Halo or God of War working on their Gamecube. The same applies here.
Blizzard does not support Linux. It was great that some enterprising people got WoW working, but that doesn't mean you can complain when Blizzard does something that unintentionally breaks it.
My experience has been that Blizzard is extremely customer friendly. I've had a number of issues resolved cocerning game glitches, account errors and more in a timely and respectful manner. Many people complain that "blue" doesn't respond enough in the forums. Given the huge amount of traffic there, and the additional traffic and focus any blue response gives a thread, it would be both impossible (time constraints) and unfair (any thread with a blue response implodes, leaving other worthy threads unread) to increase their interaction.
When Blizzard releases an expansion for WoW which does nothing but raise the level cap by X and doesn't even feature new content but the promise of new content claiming "You'll buy it because it's WoW", when they discontinue the in game ticket system and shut down the forums, when they "have built a line of equity and we intend on spending it", then they will be about as customer-friendly as Sony. As it stands, I don't think you can claim that Blizzard's service is anywhere near as hellish as what SW:G and EQ players have had to deal with.
I've browsed the internet with my ever changing browser of choice set to ask me about any and all cookies for years now. The number of cookies per site has been very steadily and rapidly increasing since their conception.
I hate it.
Back when they first appeared, they were there to help us maintain our logins through the website, not lose our shipping carts etc. It wasn't bad, it made sense. I was willing to let websites store my username and password so that I didn't have to keep logging back in constantly.
Honestly, I don't even see why we have cookies anymore. There should be far better ways to maintain a persistant login by now. Ways which don't threaten our privacy, or provide a medium for the same bastards that invented pop-ups and pop-unders to destroy common decency.
The first time I visit any website I am bombarded by cookies. This isn't just one cookie, this is as many as seven from a single page. Why in the name of Linux Torvalds do these sites need seven cookies to function? Clicking the next page bombards me again, and will keep bombarding me until I get through all 255 or more ad3.adserve.cookies.net like services. Only then can I finally visit the website in peace, until next month when a new advertiser joins the loop.
So now my cookie accept/block list is the size of New York's phone book. Heaven forbid in that barrage of cookies there was actually an important one. With all the obscure names they're given it's impossible to tell until you can't maintain your login. Now I get to play the age old 'Find the needle in the haystack' game, new millenium version.
This is beyond sanity. I don't know if the FCC has the right or the ability to do something about this, but something should be done. I don't have any idea what. Boycotting pages with cookies means 99.9% of the internet is off limits.
Not if you know me personally. I mix my metaphors, phrases, and idioms all the time. Unfortunately or fortunately, none of you know me personally. As such, I can't blame you for taking my blatant mistake at face value rather than realizing I meant something completely different.
In short, when other people say "Cup of Cake", "Bite the Bucket" or "A fool and his money gather no moss", it's a joke. When I say I'm serious, and an idiot.
You lose the internet, but win life.
My post did not slight the SIXAXIS because of any notion Sony copied Nintendo (Quote: "Speculation about their copycatting Nintendo aside") but because they hyped the SIXAXIS as something new, innovative and revolutionary when really it had all been done over 10 years ago.
Attacking Nintendo for being unrevolutionary with a controller specifically designed to be unrevolutionary is as ridiculous as attacking Sony for branding their products with their brand name.
Which is exactly the point. The "Classic Controller" is made to cater to you, me and all the people who played with the DualShock. Much like other companies adapted Nintendo's designs when they were the norm, Nintendo is simply doing what players will find familiar and accessible.
Speculation about their copycatting Nintendo aside, their controller is hardly revolutionary. Here's why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep8DRXJpA9Q
...damn it. What I am doing telling you people this for free?
That's right, you could do exactly what they're doing now with the original Warhawk on your PS1 back in the early 1990s. This isn't something new. It may have been innovative then, but I don't think we can apply words such as "revolutionary" to it now.
The article strikes me as being written by someone who's high on hype for both systems, and hasn't taken a single grain of salt since E3. This is the kind of thing I could write with minimal research in about an hour. Heck, we here at slashdot write extensive monologues from our gut all the time. The only difference here is they make money off theirs...
The issue is that not everyone wants Blue-ray, and the inclusion has had two undesirable affects on the PS3.
1. An increase in price.
2. A decrease in supply.
The lasers for Blue-ray are both difficult and expensive to manufacture. Because of this, we have fewer PS3s at a greater price.
The argument for Blue-ray is largely for the 50GB of space it provides. This is compared to DVDs with a max of 9GB.
What people seem to forget is that the Gamecube's small discs had a maximum storage capacity of 1.5GB. That's exactly 1/6th of what the PS2 and Xbox had availible, yet we were delivered a number of incredible games (Resident Evil 4, Crystal Chronicles, Metroid Prime, Windwaker, Super Smash Bros and even Twilight Princess). 9GB is slightly more than 1/6th of the 50GB that Blue-ray offers.
The point is that because of facts such as these, the cut scene CG craziness many games employ, and general skepticism of the potential success for Blue-ray, many gamers are not exactly thrilled with it. Those who wanted to play Blue-ray movies may be, and some who don't as well, but a fairly large number don't feel happy about being used as a stepping stone for Sony's plans of market domination.
He's hardly a nut, I think you missed his point.
Firstly, he's hardly smug. Secondly, he's pointing out not why he in particular felt this was wrong but instead attempted to explain why, despite no laws or capitalistic principles were violated, so many people find this story distasteful. He's not the lone voice in the desert here, he's just the one person who figured out why there were many voices meandering around attempting to find someone to blame.
He isn't calling for you to spend your dollars differently. He didn't call for you to repent. What he did do was ask a few very good questions about the nature of society.
What does it say about our society that we are willing to spend $2000 to purchase something we can get just months later at a third of that price? In those three months value will actually be ADDED to the item in the form of new games, yet people pay more to have it sooner?
Charity in this case would be his personal preference on where to spend the $1000 or more surplus from simply waiting, but you can make the same argument with whatever else you might desire to spend money on. Spending $2000 now means you're $1400 dollars less for the year that you could have spent on peripherals, games, dates, cars, plane tickets, world domination, taxes, presents, bills, books, ebayed WoW accounts, HDTVs or the world's largest collection of toilet seats.
Smugness or morality aren't necessarily even involved. While some people, such as myself and perhaps the OP, find it distasteful primarily for moral reasons others might find it distasteful because it's a poor investment on the parts of those who spend $2000 on a PS3. It's the same distaste many felt for scams such as Gizmondo. Some people were morally offended, some were economically offended.
Your reaction is as guilty of knee-jerk fallacies as Zonk blaming Sony was.
I find this quote very telling.
We've gone from "the next generation doesn't start until we say it does" to "the true test isn't until next Christmas when we finally have our act together". This isn't the attitude and strategy of a winner.
It's good to hear Kaz reiterate that they're on track for 2 million/4 million (although I thought they were going for 6 million in March). I was concerned they wouldn't be able to do that given their current issues. Still, while they delay when the competition really begins, their competitors are raking in money, market share, and mass appeal.
It's not obvious it won't sell, we know better than that. It's the market analysts and marketers who think it's "obvious". Somehow, the wild success of games such as Final Fantasy VII and now XII haven't clued them in.
They create self-fulfilling prophecies. They think X game will sell, and Y game won't. They market heavily game X and not game Y. End result, X game does better than Y. They see that they were correct in their analysis that Y wouldn't sell and feel justified in canning any Y-like games.
It's sad, but true.
The Good News: Sony will have an online network for their PS3. Single login makes life easier.
The Bad News: The firmware needs to be updated to use Sony's online network. That this was not pre-installed indicates the network only recently was finished. The possibility that the network will have issues and growing pains is thus much more likely (though not a certainty).
The Bottom Line: Something is better than nothing.
Definately. Nitnendo's consoles have always been nigh indestructible. My NES had me and my two siblings to destroy it and it too us (well known for destroying toys very quickly) years to do it in (mishandle is an understatement).
Additionally I remember some years ago a video circulated wherein some teenagers dragged their gamecube behind their truck. Despite looking like crap, it still ran afterwards. They had to take a sledge hammer to it for it to stop functioning.
For the other systems, it may not be so bad an investment. I have my doubts a PS3 could withstand similar punishment.
A major point to be made is that Sony can not afford to try pulling a Nintendo.
When Nintendo lost its dominant place in the market (as well as most of its third party support) it had 2 major factors in its favor.
1. They didn't sell consoles at a loss.
2. They make craploads of first party games.
Despite the often non-existant support from other companies, Nintendo's first and second party titles made them extremely profitable even resting on the least market share of the three big players.
Sony has been building up capability for first party titles and we've seen some neat games because of it. However, Sony does not have the software muscle that Nintendo has. That muscle is what has kept Nintendo going strong despite its meager share in the market. Were their positions reverse Sony would be in trouble. They sell systems at a loss, and they depend largely on third party support.
Third party support isn't bad, but if you are completely dependant on it you can't afford to alienate it. Sony may well do this.
1. Sony's system will be the hardest to program for (the Cell is tough to crack).
2. Sony's system looks to be set up a slow start (who wants to have a launch title on a system with only 500k units worldwide).
There is a threshhold this generation which Sony can not afford to fall below. If they can not garner a significant amount of marketshare relative to their competitors they will hemmorage third party titles left and right.
The part where that wasn't posted in the first place?
You don't have to be abrasive about being more informed than the rest of us. Sony hasn't really gone out of its way to tell us that Linux on the PS3 isn't gimped like it was on the PS2. Your post is informative, but please assume that we're simply not informed as opposed to willfully ignorant in the future (regardless of which we may actually be).
I don't think we need the confusion.
Mom: "Go do your homework Junior."
Junior: "I'll go do my 'homework' on the PS3."
Mom: "Okay Dear."
3 hours later...
Mom: "How's your homework coming dear?"
Junior: "Great mom, I've almost cleared the third boss!"