Yeah the numbers are skewed.. though the Silver accounts are free you still have to SIGN UP for it and the console is quite content playing games without a silver account. Of course it doesn't make any sense to NOT do it considering the vast number of features you're missing out on. Even still I know a good 5 or 6 people IRL who own Xbox 360s and have no Xbox Live account at all, some of them don't even have broadband... heathens!
I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I have a Gold account, and my significant other has a Gold account too. I also have 2 Silver accounts registered as Europe and Japan so I can access the marketplace content from those countries AND I have 4 or so other Silver accounts that were made by some of my friends who frequently come over to play the console despite not owning one themselves. So on my console alone I have 8 Xbox Live accounts... I know quite a few other people who've made multiple Silver accounts for accessing other marketplace content or for friends to use etc.
So the real question is: does that 60% represent the percent of consoles that have one or more accounts on it, or does that 60% represent the total number of accounts over the total number of consoles?
Yeah americans do like good games as opposed to games from a particular country. But you'd be foolish to think that a game developer familiarity with their countrymen's likes and dislikes doesn't help sell games in that country. US games developers are generally more in tune to the US game market, and Japanese Game developers are generally more in tune with the Japanese game market. Microsoft might not need Japanese developers to sell more consoles in the US but it's pretty clear that they'll need them to sell more consoles in... Japan.
Wow, I've played through Prey and the portals in that game really mess with your mind but being able to create portals at will certainly makes for some messed up stuff. Reminds me of the black circles they used to have in old cartoons were they'd just throw it in the ground or onto a wall and walk through.
I'm curious how they plan to let you get yourself out of an infinite portal loop like a portal in the floor the drops from the ceiling back into the portal in the floor. etc. unless of course said portals are only good for X number of uses. Even still This one looks to be much cooler then the gravity gun.
well I'd agree partially... The Xbox does concentrate mostly on FPS and Racers, and the GC mostly on party, platformer... etc. But the PS2 doesn't really concentrate in any one area. Sure it's got more fighters then both Xbox and GC put together but it's also got just as many racing games as fighters. Most of the best selling PS2 games were cross platform games. Like Madden and Grand Theft Auto. There are almost as many rhythm games on Xbox (DDR, Karaoke games, Music Mixer, etc.) and GC (DDR, Donkey Konga etc.) as there are on the PS2 but I don't see those selling very well on ANY platform.
My point was that the PS2 appealed to a broader audience because it offered the largest catalog of games with enough variety to appeal to everyone. If I only want to play Madden I can choose any console I want. I'm most likely to choose the same console my friend has.
The PS2 ran away with the market early on, the dreamcast was a star for a couple of months before it faded away then the PS2 was the ONLY console in town for over a year with two non-competitors (the unproven Xbox and the child's console GameCube). 3rd parties only had 1 option during that time and consumers only had 1 option during that time. buy the time the other consoles came out Sony had the biggest back-catalog and consumer base. Casual gamers typically buy what their more video-game savvy friends own and or the console with the widest variety of cheap games. It's not hard to see how Sony's market share snowballed into what it is today. Ask any causal gamer you know who owns a PS2 why they bought that instead of an Xbox or a Gamecube and in my experience the answer is usually "because that's what all my friends had".
The analysit's prediction DOES have merit. You can't compare it to the auto industry because all cars can take you down the same roads. Not all consoles can let you play the same games. You can't compare a console's games to features in a car, a console's purpose is to play games, a car's purpose is to take you places. If there was a car on the market that was the only one capable of traveling through a certain set of roads, I'm sure people who wanted to travel down those roads would buy that car over any other, or wait until they could afford it. Similarly if there are particular games you will ONLY be able to play on a PS3 there will be a group of people who will buy the PS3 because of it or sit on their cash until they can afford it... thus shrinking the market.
It sounds like you've been downloading too much communism.
Even still the GP has a point. I think Sony forgets that most of the market-share they got from the PS1 and PS2 were from those people who can barely feed their kids (but still somehow found a way to afford a game console). I'm not saying their entire market is made up of people in that situation but in general the Playstation crow are those people who didn't always have the latest technology. They were looking for a reasonably price unit with a lot of good, cheap games to choose from.
hmm maybe. Nothing says those people can't keep their PS2s kicking around. It's a lot easier to leave an extra square-foot of shelf space for a dusty PS2 then a whole desk area for an old computer.
Sure, it's convenient to buy the predecessor and use a single machine to play all your games but convenience only wins out over price to a point. I think the high price of entry WILL stagnate the market a bit with people, as you said, choosing not get any new console at all. But I think that will only effect a small-ish percentage of PS2 fans who refuse to get anything but a PS3 and can't afford one until it drops to X$$. Everyone else will either A. Bite the bullet and just buy a PS3 even if their bank account takes a beating. B. Hock their PS2 and all the games on ebay/some pawn shop to help afford a PS3 (lots of people do this when buying a new console and the PS2 will still be a great seller this holiday and beyond). or C. Give the other consoles a look and deal with having more then one taking up space in their TV stand.
It's not so weird that the PS2 is outselling the Xbox 360 and it wont be weird when it outsells the PS3 this holiday. The PS1 outsold the PS2 it's first year out too...
The PS3 can only sell as well as the number of consoles they make. I suspect it will sell out but only because they're dividing the 1.6million they're suspected being able to actually deliver by christmas across three continents. I would imagine with much more simple hardware the Wii will be able to meet whatever demand arises. and with MS having been at this for a while now 360 store stock should be able to keep up with demand as well.
The 360 has decent word of mouth so far, the PS3 will sell out on brand name alone, but if Nintendo wants to take this holiday season by storm they need to put a Kiosk in every store with the wii-mote and $199 this holiday in big bold print. As it is right now I don't think they have much mind share outside of us nerds as most people look at me funny when I bring up Nintendo's next console. Usually when I ask if they're looking forward to it I get "oh, I thought they stopped making home consoles since nobody bought the Gamecube."
And finally Namco, who primarily makes games for the Xbox 360.
Namco... Xbox 360? I thought all their good games were on Sony's hardware
Ace Combat
Arc The Lad
Katamari
One Piece
Soul Calibur
Tales of Legendia
Tekken
Time Crisis
XENOSAGA
etc.
All they've released for the Xbox 360 is Ridge Racer... unless I'm missing something. Heck even their PC and Xbox 1 support was pathetic. Namco's support might have some merit considering they've been pretty apathetic to MS products thus far.
I'm not saying the PS3 will fail, and I'm not saying it will fall under the weight of the 360 and Wii. I'm simply saying that with all the technical problems they're having with processor Yield and Blu-Ray etc. the Actual product desire might prove to be a bigger stumbling block for them, they wont be able to run away with the market uncontested like they did with the PS2:)
Maybe you should get out more often... head over to your local Best Buy and see the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD setups side by side... I shouldn't need to post links to articles when you can walk to the store and form your own opinions with everything laid out in front of you to touch and feel on your own.
It's a fact that every Blu Ray movie released so far is on a single layer disc, and that the currently available players are only able to read single layer discs. It's a fact that every Blue Ray movie released so far is using the MPEG2 format. Sure the players can support VC-1 but it doesn't actually help the quality if they're NOT USING IT. As for price. the HD-DVD entry point is $500. The PS3's entry point is $500, but if you want HDMI you'll be paying $600.. Stand alone Blu Ray players are more expensive then that. By christmas the HD-DVD price point is expected to drop. you'd be foolish to thing the PS3's price will drop by the end of the year.
I'd also like to see your reasoning as to how most of the members in one of the largest AV forums on the internet were "fueled by Microsoft money".
Well the PS2 launched at the same price as the PS1: $300. In addition to that the PS2's only competition was the hanging by a thread Sega Dreamcast, which was following up one of the worst selling consoles in their history. MS wasn't even on the radar during the PS2 launch, and neither was Nintendo. PS2's only competition was the Dreamcast, a great console but poorly marketed, with little to no 3rd party support and following up one of the WORST selling consoles of the previous generation. Again again the PS2 wasn't expensive. It was the same price their previous console launched at, it wasn't surprising at all.
The PS3 doesn't have a market in their favor this time. Towards the end of the Xbox 1's life it was selling just as many units as the PS2 on a day to day basis, hardly a comparison to the brow-beating the Saturn got in comparison to the PS1.
As for the PS2 outselling the 360... need I remind you that the PS1 outsold the PS2 for the first year of the PS2's life, uptake on expensive new consoles is slow and it's expected that last gen consoles will still sell very well into the start of the following generation. I think it's actually impressive that the 360 is selling ALMOST AS MANY units As the PS2 considering it's more then twice the price.
I'd have to disagree, the PS2 launched with one non-competitor (the dreamcast) and 2 distant non-competitors (the unproven Xbox from that crap company MS and Nintendo's un-inventive Gamecube). The PS3 by comparison has a very serious competitor with a head start in the (Xbox 360) and they also have another very serious contender with the Nintendo Wii...
Basically Blu Ray is only single layer, loaded with advertisement (less room for movie content) and using the MPEG2 codec while HD-DVD is dual layer and using the VC-1 codec. walk into your local Best Buy and you should see some displays side by side, the differences are astounding... particularly because we waited longer for Blu Ray, it costs more and HD-DVD is still better quality.
I apologize for not citing sources for the HD-DVD over Blu-Ray debate. I figured it was commonknowledge at this point, what with the AV forums buzzing about it.
The whole thing about Cell yields isn't that they're low (of course we expect them to be low when starting production) it's that its look like they'reFARLOWERTHEN EXPECTED.
And since you asked, I don't have a link but IIRC the last cost estimated the Cell and RSX chips cost Sony ~$110 a piece. No idea about how the RSX yeilds are. I'd almost be more conserned about RAM yeilds though.
Sony seems to forget that what made their past consoles so popular was because it appealed to the "casual gamer". People who were looking to get in at a reasonable price point and people who only bought one because it's what their friends had. A lot of people bought the PS2 because at the time it was a cheap DVD player. and while the PS3 might be a cheap Blu-Ray player it's still more expensive then the (now proven to be) superior HD-DVD players, not to mention neither next gen movie formats have met much excitement.
Aside from the Playstation name Sony is ignoring just about everything that made their past consoles so popular.
Yeah they had the same goals for the PS2 at it's launch... and then the Emotion engine had yield problems. On top of the question of yields I wonder if the market is really as excited about this console as people are assuming it is.
Sure there are die-hard, rabid, Playstation fanatics who would still buy one if the price was your first born. But if you look at the fact that Sony has always had lame launch titles, the PSP's consumer excitement around it's launch could be described as "apathetic" with the die hard fans camping out for a product that didn't even sell out.... Root kit lost a lot of fans... as did Sony's double talk arrogance and bad mouthing of their competition, and lets not forget the clear rip-offs of Nintendo's Wii-mote and Microsoft's Guide button, and perhaps most importantly THE PRICE. Heck the reason for the high price was because of the Blu-Ray drive, and reviews thus far have shown that HD-DVD is stomping all over Blu-Ray. HD-DVD has 2 layer discs (15gig per layer/30gig total) and uses the awesome VC-1 codec. Blu-Ray can't get good yields on dual layer discs and even single layer discs have yield problems forcing them to only be able to use 80% of it... ~20gig. Not to mention they're using the woefully outdated MPEG2 codec and most reviews have said that some of the movies DVD counterparts look better then the Blu-Ray versions.. Even early Blu-Ray players can only read single layer discs, so will the PS3 be stuck to only reading single layer discs as well? NOT GOOD FOR PS3 SALES particularly if Sony was banking on people buying it as a cheap Blu-Ray player. nobody wants another UMD movie format.
I think low yield might be the least of their problems. Every day I see more and more of the die-hard Playstation fans going from "of course I'm getting one" too "I'll wait and see" or in some cases "I decided to get an 360/Wii instead".
Heck you can tell how much the fan base has soured from the dramatically decreasing number of ignorant and belligerent fanboy comments to PS3 news.
Perhaps the issue isn't so much the standards, but the browsers.
BINGO!
Of course, if every browser supported all of the standards, then there wouldn't be much difference between them
Gee... being able to choose which browser you use based purely on it's features and merrits as opposed to which pages they support... I'm sure if that ever happened Billy G's heart would be rolling in it's grave.
Perhaps a BETTER institution would be one that tells you how to code your pages to work with 100% of browsers as they are today (broken features in all) and in addition to that makes suggestions for where browsers should go next.
W3C standards are nice and all but IMO a web standard is only as good as the % of browsers in use that support it. You can speak perfect french but if everyone trying to talk to you is Japanese it doesn't do you much good. Sure I can make my webpage conform to a standard (w3C or otherwise) but that doesn't mean the page will actually work when viewed with browser X or Y. A much more USEFUL and BENEFICIAL tool would be one that tells me what I have to do to make my page work with everything out there. Tell me this line of code wont work when viewed using IE4 on tuesdays after 4PM... and maybe even give me an estimate on what % of users will be left out in the cold based on recent web browser usage estimates.
The W3C and other standards are good for making suggestions as to where the next generation of browsers should go but it's fairly useless in practice if the browsers people are using TODAY don't fully support it.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah the numbers are skewed.. though the Silver accounts are free you still have to SIGN UP for it and the console is quite content playing games without a silver account. Of course it doesn't make any sense to NOT do it considering the vast number of features you're missing out on. Even still I know a good 5 or 6 people IRL who own Xbox 360s and have no Xbox Live account at all, some of them don't even have broadband... heathens!
I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I have a Gold account, and my significant other has a Gold account too. I also have 2 Silver accounts registered as Europe and Japan so I can access the marketplace content from those countries AND I have 4 or so other Silver accounts that were made by some of my friends who frequently come over to play the console despite not owning one themselves. So on my console alone I have 8 Xbox Live accounts... I know quite a few other people who've made multiple Silver accounts for accessing other marketplace content or for friends to use etc.
So the real question is: does that 60% represent the percent of consoles that have one or more accounts on it, or does that 60% represent the total number of accounts over the total number of consoles?
ahh.. at work I have no speakers... I got no voice over.
Yeah americans do like good games as opposed to games from a particular country. But you'd be foolish to think that a game developer familiarity with their countrymen's likes and dislikes doesn't help sell games in that country. US games developers are generally more in tune to the US game market, and Japanese Game developers are generally more in tune with the Japanese game market. Microsoft might not need Japanese developers to sell more consoles in the US but it's pretty clear that they'll need them to sell more consoles in... Japan.
meh I'll just wait for it to come out on a console...
you must be new here...
We don't have time to read the summaries just the title then we're off to the next article to mine for more karma.
Wow, I've played through Prey and the portals in that game really mess with your mind but being able to create portals at will certainly makes for some messed up stuff. Reminds me of the black circles they used to have in old cartoons were they'd just throw it in the ground or onto a wall and walk through.
I'm curious how they plan to let you get yourself out of an infinite portal loop like a portal in the floor the drops from the ceiling back into the portal in the floor. etc. unless of course said portals are only good for X number of uses. Even still This one looks to be much cooler then the gravity gun.
well I'd agree partially... The Xbox does concentrate mostly on FPS and Racers, and the GC mostly on party, platformer... etc. But the PS2 doesn't really concentrate in any one area. Sure it's got more fighters then both Xbox and GC put together but it's also got just as many racing games as fighters. Most of the best selling PS2 games were cross platform games. Like Madden and Grand Theft Auto. There are almost as many rhythm games on Xbox (DDR, Karaoke games, Music Mixer, etc.) and GC (DDR, Donkey Konga etc.) as there are on the PS2 but I don't see those selling very well on ANY platform.
My point was that the PS2 appealed to a broader audience because it offered the largest catalog of games with enough variety to appeal to everyone. If I only want to play Madden I can choose any console I want. I'm most likely to choose the same console my friend has.
The PS2 ran away with the market early on, the dreamcast was a star for a couple of months before it faded away then the PS2 was the ONLY console in town for over a year with two non-competitors (the unproven Xbox and the child's console GameCube). 3rd parties only had 1 option during that time and consumers only had 1 option during that time. buy the time the other consoles came out Sony had the biggest back-catalog and consumer base. Casual gamers typically buy what their more video-game savvy friends own and or the console with the widest variety of cheap games. It's not hard to see how Sony's market share snowballed into what it is today. Ask any causal gamer you know who owns a PS2 why they bought that instead of an Xbox or a Gamecube and in my experience the answer is usually "because that's what all my friends had".
Here you go
The analysit's prediction DOES have merit. You can't compare it to the auto industry because all cars can take you down the same roads. Not all consoles can let you play the same games. You can't compare a console's games to features in a car, a console's purpose is to play games, a car's purpose is to take you places. If there was a car on the market that was the only one capable of traveling through a certain set of roads, I'm sure people who wanted to travel down those roads would buy that car over any other, or wait until they could afford it. Similarly if there are particular games you will ONLY be able to play on a PS3 there will be a group of people who will buy the PS3 because of it or sit on their cash until they can afford it... thus shrinking the market.
It sounds like you've been downloading too much communism.
Even still the GP has a point. I think Sony forgets that most of the market-share they got from the PS1 and PS2 were from those people who can barely feed their kids (but still somehow found a way to afford a game console). I'm not saying their entire market is made up of people in that situation but in general the Playstation crow are those people who didn't always have the latest technology. They were looking for a reasonably price unit with a lot of good, cheap games to choose from.
hmm maybe. Nothing says those people can't keep their PS2s kicking around. It's a lot easier to leave an extra square-foot of shelf space for a dusty PS2 then a whole desk area for an old computer.
Sure, it's convenient to buy the predecessor and use a single machine to play all your games but convenience only wins out over price to a point. I think the high price of entry WILL stagnate the market a bit with people, as you said, choosing not get any new console at all. But I think that will only effect a small-ish percentage of PS2 fans who refuse to get anything but a PS3 and can't afford one until it drops to X$$. Everyone else will either A. Bite the bullet and just buy a PS3 even if their bank account takes a beating. B. Hock their PS2 and all the games on ebay/some pawn shop to help afford a PS3 (lots of people do this when buying a new console and the PS2 will still be a great seller this holiday and beyond). or C. Give the other consoles a look and deal with having more then one taking up space in their TV stand.
It's not so weird that the PS2 is outselling the Xbox 360 and it wont be weird when it outsells the PS3 this holiday. The PS1 outsold the PS2 it's first year out too...
The PS3 can only sell as well as the number of consoles they make. I suspect it will sell out but only because they're dividing the 1.6million they're suspected being able to actually deliver by christmas across three continents. I would imagine with much more simple hardware the Wii will be able to meet whatever demand arises. and with MS having been at this for a while now 360 store stock should be able to keep up with demand as well.
The 360 has decent word of mouth so far, the PS3 will sell out on brand name alone, but if Nintendo wants to take this holiday season by storm they need to put a Kiosk in every store with the wii-mote and $199 this holiday in big bold print. As it is right now I don't think they have much mind share outside of us nerds as most people look at me funny when I bring up Nintendo's next console. Usually when I ask if they're looking forward to it I get "oh, I thought they stopped making home consoles since nobody bought the Gamecube."
IIRC The Nintendo Wii will have browser capabilities via a version of Opera as well...
I wonder if they'll leave the bit-torrent feature intact, that could be dangerious
Maybe you should have read my sig before wasting your time with that post.
Of course, how could I forget those classics :)
Then again it's surprising that those great titles haven't even made their way to the Xbox 360's Live Arcade... sad really.
Ace Combat
Arc The Lad
Katamari
One Piece
Soul Calibur
Tales of Legendia
Tekken
Time Crisis
XENOSAGA
etc.
All they've released for the Xbox 360 is Ridge Racer... unless I'm missing something. Heck even their PC and Xbox 1 support was pathetic. Namco's support might have some merit considering they've been pretty apathetic to MS products thus far.
I'm not saying the PS3 will fail, and I'm not saying it will fall under the weight of the 360 and Wii. I'm simply saying that with all the technical problems they're having with processor Yield and Blu-Ray etc. the Actual product desire might prove to be a bigger stumbling block for them, they wont be able to run away with the market uncontested like they did with the PS2 :)
Maybe you should get out more often... head over to your local Best Buy and see the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD setups side by side... I shouldn't need to post links to articles when you can walk to the store and form your own opinions with everything laid out in front of you to touch and feel on your own.
It's a fact that every Blu Ray movie released so far is on a single layer disc, and that the currently available players are only able to read single layer discs. It's a fact that every Blue Ray movie released so far is using the MPEG2 format. Sure the players can support VC-1 but it doesn't actually help the quality if they're NOT USING IT. As for price. the HD-DVD entry point is $500. The PS3's entry point is $500, but if you want HDMI you'll be paying $600.. Stand alone Blu Ray players are more expensive then that. By christmas the HD-DVD price point is expected to drop. you'd be foolish to thing the PS3's price will drop by the end of the year.
I'd also like to see your reasoning as to how most of the members in one of the largest AV forums on the internet were "fueled by Microsoft money".
Well the PS2 launched at the same price as the PS1: $300. In addition to that the PS2's only competition was the hanging by a thread Sega Dreamcast, which was following up one of the worst selling consoles in their history. MS wasn't even on the radar during the PS2 launch, and neither was Nintendo. PS2's only competition was the Dreamcast, a great console but poorly marketed, with little to no 3rd party support and following up one of the WORST selling consoles of the previous generation. Again again the PS2 wasn't expensive. It was the same price their previous console launched at, it wasn't surprising at all.
The PS3 doesn't have a market in their favor this time. Towards the end of the Xbox 1's life it was selling just as many units as the PS2 on a day to day basis, hardly a comparison to the brow-beating the Saturn got in comparison to the PS1.
As for the PS2 outselling the 360... need I remind you that the PS1 outsold the PS2 for the first year of the PS2's life, uptake on expensive new consoles is slow and it's expected that last gen consoles will still sell very well into the start of the following generation. I think it's actually impressive that the 360 is selling ALMOST AS MANY units As the PS2 considering it's more then twice the price.
I'd have to disagree, the PS2 launched with one non-competitor (the dreamcast) and 2 distant non-competitors (the unproven Xbox from that crap company MS and Nintendo's un-inventive Gamecube). The PS3 by comparison has a very serious competitor with a head start in the (Xbox 360) and they also have another very serious contender with the Nintendo Wii...
http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_2.htms s/14950018.htm
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/busine
Basically Blu Ray is only single layer, loaded with advertisement (less room for movie content) and using the MPEG2 codec while HD-DVD is dual layer and using the VC-1 codec. walk into your local Best Buy and you should see some displays side by side, the differences are astounding... particularly because we waited longer for Blu Ray, it costs more and HD-DVD is still better quality.
I apologize for not citing sources for the HD-DVD over Blu-Ray debate. I figured it was common knowledge at this point, what with the AV forums buzzing about it.
The whole thing about Cell yields isn't that they're low (of course we expect them to be low when starting production) it's that its look like they'reFAR LOWER THEN EXPECTED.
And since you asked, I don't have a link but IIRC the last cost estimated the Cell and RSX chips cost Sony ~$110 a piece. No idea about how the RSX yeilds are. I'd almost be more conserned about RAM yeilds though.
I completely agree.
Sony seems to forget that what made their past consoles so popular was because it appealed to the "casual gamer". People who were looking to get in at a reasonable price point and people who only bought one because it's what their friends had. A lot of people bought the PS2 because at the time it was a cheap DVD player. and while the PS3 might be a cheap Blu-Ray player it's still more expensive then the (now proven to be) superior HD-DVD players, not to mention neither next gen movie formats have met much excitement.
Aside from the Playstation name Sony is ignoring just about everything that made their past consoles so popular.
Yeah they had the same goals for the PS2 at it's launch... and then the Emotion engine had yield problems. On top of the question of yields I wonder if the market is really as excited about this console as people are assuming it is.
Sure there are die-hard, rabid, Playstation fanatics who would still buy one if the price was your first born. But if you look at the fact that Sony has always had lame launch titles, the PSP's consumer excitement around it's launch could be described as "apathetic" with the die hard fans camping out for a product that didn't even sell out.... Root kit lost a lot of fans... as did Sony's double talk arrogance and bad mouthing of their competition, and lets not forget the clear rip-offs of Nintendo's Wii-mote and Microsoft's Guide button, and perhaps most importantly THE PRICE. Heck the reason for the high price was because of the Blu-Ray drive, and reviews thus far have shown that HD-DVD is stomping all over Blu-Ray. HD-DVD has 2 layer discs (15gig per layer/30gig total) and uses the awesome VC-1 codec. Blu-Ray can't get good yields on dual layer discs and even single layer discs have yield problems forcing them to only be able to use 80% of it... ~20gig. Not to mention they're using the woefully outdated MPEG2 codec and most reviews have said that some of the movies DVD counterparts look better then the Blu-Ray versions.. Even early Blu-Ray players can only read single layer discs, so will the PS3 be stuck to only reading single layer discs as well? NOT GOOD FOR PS3 SALES particularly if Sony was banking on people buying it as a cheap Blu-Ray player. nobody wants another UMD movie format.
I think low yield might be the least of their problems. Every day I see more and more of the die-hard Playstation fans going from "of course I'm getting one" too "I'll wait and see" or in some cases "I decided to get an 360/Wii instead".
Heck you can tell how much the fan base has soured from the dramatically decreasing number of ignorant and belligerent fanboy comments to PS3 news.
Perhaps a BETTER institution would be one that tells you how to code your pages to work with 100% of browsers as they are today (broken features in all) and in addition to that makes suggestions for where browsers should go next.
W3C standards are nice and all but IMO a web standard is only as good as the % of browsers in use that support it. You can speak perfect french but if everyone trying to talk to you is Japanese it doesn't do you much good. Sure I can make my webpage conform to a standard (w3C or otherwise) but that doesn't mean the page will actually work when viewed with browser X or Y. A much more USEFUL and BENEFICIAL tool would be one that tells me what I have to do to make my page work with everything out there. Tell me this line of code wont work when viewed using IE4 on tuesdays after 4PM... and maybe even give me an estimate on what % of users will be left out in the cold based on recent web browser usage estimates.
The W3C and other standards are good for making suggestions as to where the next generation of browsers should go but it's fairly useless in practice if the browsers people are using TODAY don't fully support it.