@itix

Quote:

PS3 is massively overpriced

It's relatively expesnsive for a gaming console, but considering production/distribution/promotion/etc costs are well higher than the price the consumer pays to Sony (reseller margins are quite low, taxes in Europe are high), so it's not actually overpriced.

@itix

Quote:

PS3 is massively overpriced and I expect Sony cuts prices before end of year. Especially if other blu-ray devices get price drop Sony must follow.

It's only a bit overpriced but price fairly in relation to Sony's other AV equipment, which also tends to be overpriced IMO. People seem to be happy to pay a slight premium for the Sony logo.

Don't know if your idea of the PS3 needing to track Blu-Ray is going to play out. But, if Sony and Toshiba do starting using the cell in other items it'll be interesting to see how that influences the pricing. Of course nothing is a vaccum in the market and other factors such as desire to beat the other guys will still be a factor. At this point it is clear that if Sony wants to retain their 70% marketshare something does have to be done. Some compelling PS3 only games might help.

I was planning on a PS3 this summer but there's nothing one needs to run out and get. Resistance Fall of Man is decent. Lair looks cools but I'll wait for some reviews and try it at my friend's house. Final Fantasy now looks to be when I'll get the PS3. I can't imagine Sony price dropping before one of their premeir games is launched but stranger things have happened.

@MikeB

I can build a PC for about $AUS600, but that is far from the real costs.

I need to get a computer each for my two boys for school, but they like games, so as time goes on, within a year I will be spending at least $150-300 on each, to store games (mostly), upgrade graphics, plus I can expect a useful working life of about three years. If I run XP I will have more headaches, the boys won't go for Linux because games are problematical (especially the ones they like).

On MS I can look forward to one update or another making one or two expensive games unplayable, or unstable, on a fairly regular basis

For $1000 I get a PS3, the price will come down, but it is a big slug.

However, I am not eating up storage to put in games, the machine is a given so the games will be playable in the long term. If need be I can run Linux for the productivity software. I can expect 5 years or more life from it before the next version makes it virtually redundant, but long after that for most uses I suspect.

When PS3 falls to about $700 there is no argument, I look at paying a $300 premium for getting in early, and that is about it, I would be paying more than for a machine to run Vista (if I was ever so crazy) and top quality graphics card would push that higher again.

Run OS4 on it, given a decent browser and WP etc and it is no contest at all (and no bloody Linux which would be a blessing). Plus I would still need a proper desktop/server, but I could start selling off and junking my PC collection, which would be nice indeed.

A computer console combo, makes sense, in the long run a much cheaper option. I can't see what the problem some are having with this, nor any real comparison between PS3 and other consoles. I have no particular loyalty to Sony or the PS series. I do like the Cell CPU though.

So where is the real problem? And if people think that the PS3 will not sell as a Combo computer/console, frankly they have got the wrong end of the stick.

_________________
Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@BrianK

Quote:

It's only a bit overpriced but price fairly in relation to Sony's other AV equipment, which also tends to be overpriced IMO. People seem to be happy to pay a slight premium for the Sony logo.

I find in general you get what you pay for. I've bought numerous Sony bits over the years and the more expensive ones usually do a good job and last a long time.

I've got a CD player which was played pretty much all day every day for 10 years and the only thing wrong with it now is the power button (which rather weirdly only switches part of it off).

I also have a DVD player which has been posted around Europe and went through 3 house moves. The eject mechanism failed after 5 years but it was only a small bit of plastic which broke.

I also have a camcorder which has been all over the place and was working fine last time I checked it. On the other hand I've had 2 cheap Sony walkmans both of which died, they're not perfect at everything.

I didn't buy any of these because of the label, they were the best specced for the price or whatever I could afford at the time.

Generally speaking I find buying cheap and cheerful stuff is not worth it. Some companies are just plain good at making certain products. Phillips TVs are generally excellent, their SCART sockets were usually fully wired up - this was not the case with other TVs which sometimes only have the composite section wired up.

I've also bought a Canon SLR and Apple laptop, both cost a small fortune but have done sterling service to date (except the original HD in the laptop which died).

I find paying more costs less in the long run because cheap stuff tends to fail earlier or not work as well in the first place.

_________________
Whyzzat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25LceCPO1ys

here is the new ps3 aos4.0 user, if aos get ported to the ps3...

_________________
I was a ZX Spectrum owner....

So, a bit less than a week 'til Euro launch.

Those pre-order stands are pretty much everywhere here, some advertisement on the television and the local games mags have covered it. Stores seem to anticipate limited availability, one place said they'd be getting only a small amount and even that wasn't sure. Local forums have quite a bit of negative sentinment concerning backwards compatibility chip removal - a bit anti-climatic feel. Let's see how the launch turns out, surprsingly many of my friends are right now gearing towards buying Xbox 360's to replace their old consoles. I guess the next gen really does begin when Sony says so... even if it means Xbox 360. BTW: Xbox 360 HD DVD drives launched here a couple of weeks ago and many seem to have bought them according to online posts. Quite a few HD DVD movies sold because of that too.

As for me, I still continue to watch the situation. Of the current launch games Motorstrom looks like something interesting, I might want to play that (read some reviews) - but alas the rumble is not there yet I guess, that game seems to really scream for rumble! If the machines are available + Motorstorm, maybe I'll still pick one up come Friday to put next to my Xbox 360 just to get that game. I don't think PS3 is selling all that well nor have I changed my opinion on its tech specs (Motorstorm sure doesn't seem to be anything special tech-wise... the fun part is the locale and the cars), but I still feel widening my future gaming selection (I'd like to see that Africa thing in the future) might be enough of a reason to get one.

With both Xbox 360 and PS3 pretty much all next-gen gaming would be available to choose from. Must resist Wii though... must... resist...

@jtsiren

I think the European launch is going to be pretty successful!

"After nearly twenty years in the business I've never known such charged anticipation for a console launch - it's getting a little crazy and we're still over a week away"

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=23523

I also think Resistance (currently beyond 700k copies) is going to be the PS3's first million seller this month. (Amazon.co.uk's bestseller list has largely remained the same for quite a while)

Amazon.co.uk's bestsellers

@minator

Quote:

I find in general you get what you pay for. I've bought numerous Sony bits over the years and the more expensive ones usually do a good job and last a long time.

All good examples but I have similar ones with less expensive equipment that are comparable. 1999 JVC DVD player still in service and moved 6 times no breakage. At the time the output was as good or better then the Sony offerings and the JVC was less.

As for Apple's record one of the reasons they have such a great record is they sell more expensive notebooks, $2-3K, not the cheapo $500 ones. When the higher end is your only market it's easier to make your numbers because you're not cheaping out the equipment. Apple uses ASUS for motherboards, Intel for CPUs and chipset, ATI for videocards, etc. The computer industry is pretty small. Many companies use the same sorts of things at the same level. Dell may have a worse record, for example. It's hard to do because it's not reported this way but I bet if you stacked up the $2-3K Dell solution you'd get a comparable repair record. Again because at this level Dell is able to take more time to ensure higher quality parts and processes are used something they skimp on to save money at that low end $500 level.

Often spending more you get better reliability I agree, but not always.

Last edited by BrianK on 17-Mar-2007 at 11:40 PM.
Last edited by BrianK on 17-Mar-2007 at 11:40 PM.

@MikeB

New rumors that Best Buy is discontining the 20GB models. Seems 80% or better of their sales are 60GB, 60GB seem to be shipping quickier from Sony, and the profit margin for BB is better on the 60GB model.

And it looks that Sony lost another exclusive. Beautiful Katamari is supposed to come out for all 3 consoles this fall. Darn! I love that PS2 game. Another exclusive lost to sharing, another reason to stick with a less expensive console.

Last edited by BrianK on 18-Mar-2007 at 12:02 AM.

@MikeB

I hope it is good for Sony's sake even though I am no fan of Sony. Excerpts from Tom's Hardware site:

"The Nintendo Wii has continued to outsell its rivals the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 during the usually quite lean month of February according to data released by the NPD group. The Wii sold 335,000 units in February, the Xbox 360 came in a full 100,000 units below with 228,000 units sold; and the PlayStation 3 came in last with 127,000 consoles sold."


"Overall the Xbox 360 maintains its lead in sales, having been released a year before the other two consoles, with 5.1 million Xbox 360's sold, versus 1.9 million Wii's and 1.1 million PlayStation 3's."

Maybe OS4 could help propel the Palystation 3 forward. By the looks of your poll not too many are all that interested wiyhout OS4 running on it. Are prices already dropping? http://www.midnightbox.com/

@MikeB

Zero interest since Sony makes crap products. The PS2 was a piece of crap compared to the Dreamcast, but sold based on reputation and killed off a much better machine that didn't have horrible jaggies in the graphics. People have wised up to Sony's hype and will not pay $600 for a console -- ridiculous price. Let the PS3 go the way of the Clie.

@jtsiren

The situation in the Benelux is like this (roughly 5% of the EU population), as of a few days ago already 44,000 PS3s had been pre-ordered despite the PS3's higher price tag, the amount of supply for day one will be enough to meet this massive demand though! Based on such figures, the PS3 launch will be more than triple the launch figures of both the XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

Last edited by MikeB on 18-Mar-2007 at 02:21 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

the PS3 launch will be more than triple the launch figures of both the XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii

That would be indeed impressive. Xbox 360 reportedly had 300,000 and the Wii had 350,000. I doubt that Sony will have your estimated 1.95 million available but if they do and if they sell that'd be impressive. (300 and 350 = 650 tripled is 1.95M)

Your favorite site vgacharts.com lists the PS3 at 2M sales you expect them to double their sales so far during European launch? Okay we'll see it'd be an impressive feat. I'm somehow more skeptical then double their total sales.

Last edited by BrianK on 18-Mar-2007 at 03:07 AM.

@MikeB

It's not going to be so hard to outdo the 360 launch in Europe (just like it was the case in the US). Why? Because Microsoft did a simultaneous world-wide release and only had so many units available per territory. It was an impressive logistics feat that was to the hardcore gamers' benefit, but on the other hand they couldn't pull off a focused launch for a single territory like Sony has had the time to do with a couple of months to breathe since the Japanese and US launches.

For that reason alone it's quite likely that the initial demand for PS3 will be enough to surpass the first couple of months of 360 sales. That by itself does not indicate a higher demand, though - merely that in one case supplies were more restrained.

Wii had the same issues - far greater demand than availability of machines and their launch was near simultaneous across the three territories. In fact they still suffer from an alarmingly low availability rate despite having sold five million machines to retail (and closing in on six). In the case of the Wii, we know it's not just sitting around in warehouses however.

Last edited by Trezzer on 18-Mar-2007 at 03:28 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: Of course from a game console perspective you are right, but I think the PS3 currently has a very impressive gaming line-up, many types of ganes which wouldn't suit a Nintendo Wii as well as they suit the PS3 (much better graphics, physics, AI, sound, etc). IMO the Nintendo Wii better serves the low end market and the PS3 serves the high end gaming market. Sony as a company still serves the low end market as well with the PS2. Low end => High end home consoles, currently still shipped PS2 => Nintendo Wii => XBox 360 Premium => PS3 Would you really have preferred a PS2.5 ranking in between the Nintendo Wii and the XBox 360 for let's say $300 dollar (no harddrive, no Cell, no Blu-Ray, no Wi-Fi, no HDMI 1.3)? Nintendo could not compete in terms of horse power and graphics, so they aimed for the low end market which is easier for general consumers to enter. Personally I would have been very dissapointed if a company like Sony would have aimed lower, placing their console in more direct competition with the Nintendo Wii (as well as the PS2, which in such a case could better be retired). IMO this would have made the PS3 much less interesting as a AmigaOS4 host platform and probably would add less value to the Amiga market, as there already is the Samantha product.

The Wii is already more powerful than any would-be-Amiga including the A1 with a G4. It's only limitation is RAM but I don't see how that is a limitation of a real Amiga as most real Amiga run fine with 1MB of RAM and the Wii has 88MB.

Please keep in mind that at launch all games (with the exception of the lighting effects in Red Steel) had GC graphics or ported PS2 graphics. Now there have been 2 or 3 announced middleware engines that maximize the platform and 1 brave company is in the process of porting the Unreal 3 engine to the Wii. The TEV unit within the Flipper/Hollywood gpu can do 6 programmable shader operations in a single pass. However because most GC/Wii games are/were ports, 3rd party developers never took advantage of it and just used PS2 graphics for most GC games. For that same reason (lazy developers) most Xbox games had the same look because they used the built-in hardware shaders.

Just look at Factor 5's Star Wars:Rogue Squadron 2 & 3 for the GC and keep in mind that 2 was a launch game for the GC and you'll quickly realize what it is capable of. Only 2 games exceeded the visuals of the launch game Star Wars: Rogue Squardon 2 on the GC, Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4. That's just lazy, quick porting, developers. The Wii is commanding dedicated development teams now. The fruits of that labor are beginning now with The Godfather: Blackhand Edition and Medal of Honor: Vanguard. Ported PS2 graphics for Nintendo platforms will be a thing of the past.

In the end Mike, it comes down to what is promised to what is delivered. Let me give you some exact quotes from Sony's management prior to the PS3 launch:

"The PS3 is capable of dual 1080p screens"
"The PS3 will support 7 controllers"

Now we look at the PS3 and it doesn't have dual-display capability and it's premier game, Motorstorm runs in 720p and only supports multiplayer online, not locally and if there is more than 1 crash happening, has serious framerate issues. Motorstorm didn't move units in Japan, it's not moving units in the USA. From the footage I've seen, I fail to understand how much more fun it is than Nintendo's Excite Truck, a launch game for the Wii. That game IS alot of fun.

Installing Linux on the PS3 is all well and good, but I have 3 PC's ranging from 933MHz to 2.4 GHz laying around that I can do that to as well as install AROS on them. I've downloaded the Wii's Trial Opera Browser but in the end, I have a spare 750MHz laptop with a wireless connection that I can use on the couch for surfing the web, no need for that from a Wii or PS3.

In the end, the games are what matters. Look at the DS vs. PSP. It's the games, not the "oh, ain't that nice?" media functions that are more convenient elsewhere that matter.

Games.

The PS3 is severely lacking in that department. 127K in sales from a supply of 100k a week is just bad. They've lost the exclusiveness of GTA4. Final Fantasy is just a matter of time. Dragon Quest goes from the PS2 to the DS, not the PS3.

Blu-Ray may win the format war, but MS can just release a $200 or less B-R player for the 360. What do they care? B-R movie players now cost as much as the PS3 and will only get cheaper where as the PS3 is not scheduled for a price cut until 2008.

When the PS3 is in the retailer's clearanced mark-down bin, then it will be worth it for those FEW Sony exlclusives like Gran Turismo 5 and ... ... ... well, we'll see.

For $600USD, the console had high expectations and little delivered. Home is too little too late. I don't understand how Sony expects John Q, Public to start using Home. The hardcore gamer market is shrinking, not expanding. Only hardcore users are interested in Home. Little Big Planet is interesting for about 10 minutes. People are lazy. No one is going to sit there and add significant content to a game because that requires work, not "fun". I especially love how they included a "bowling game" in Home. [sarcasm]How unique[/sarcasm]. Guess what? That bowling game is still not as much FUN as the Wii's WiiSports Bowling game with it's traditional controls.

Just by taking my Wii to several people's houses and playing Wii Sports, these people have already or plan to get a Wii. What PS3 feature/title has that power? For that matter, what 360 game has that power? And these people were both gamers and non-gamers.

I can appreciate that you "believe" the PS3 is the greatest invention since the wheel. Opinions vary. You've stated yours in about 5 different threads now. Should I start 5 threads about the Wii? No one is going to buy a PS3 because of these threads just like no one is going to buy a Wii or 360 because of them. 99% of people already know which system they want. The rest will only buy a PS3 IF AND ONLY IF that is the platform that OS 4 is released on. In the meantime, no need to count your chickens before they hatch.

PS,
For $600 I can play World of Warcraft for 4 years.

@Lou

Quote:

Lou wrote: PS, For $600 I can play World of Warcraft for 4 years.

That's alot of dead beetles!

(For $600 I can almost get a videocard capable of NWN2!)

_________________
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." - Oscar Wilde

@Lou

Quote:

The Wii is already more powerful than any would-be-Amiga including the A1 with a G4. It's only limitation is RAM but I don't see how that is a limitation of a real Amiga as most real Amiga run fine with 1MB of RAM and the Wii has 88MB.

Not against A1 equipped with Radeon 9200 (4 pixel shaders, 2 vertex shaders, Truform Hw, Hyper-Z-II).

Refer to http://www.digit-life.com/articles/atitruform/index.html
for Truform.

To quote the article
Quote:

We use up the power of modern accelerators and, first of all, their T&L blocks, without being limited by a weak CPU of the system.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3A+/Emu68)

Wii has certainly been the real surprise act this generation. Even if one does count Wii into a separate market segment away from PS3 and Xbox 360, it will still cannibalize sales from the latter two.

While some Wii purchasers are non-gamers that would never buy the higher-end consoles (or play traditional console games), this non-gamer market has also been especially important to the PlayStation brand ever since the Eyetoy and subsequent non-gamer franchises have emerged. It is a big reason for PS2's longetivity and why it still continues to sell well. If Wii can better compete in this market (against an aging PS2) where price and fun are more of a factor than HD graphics, that will mean lost sales for the higher-ends and especially for PlayStation 3.

PS3 will also get an initial push from Blu-ray early adopters, but this benefit will fade with time as even more affordable players get on the market. It is hard to say how much a good launch can predict success on the market later on. With Xbox 360 doing better than Xbox, Wii doing vastly better than GameCube and PS3 not living up to PS2 market-wise (even if it does do well enough), it is pretty clear that the market will be more evenly split this time around because Sony's competition will enlargen their share - even though the market too will expand somewhat when non-gamers flock to get Wii's...

Wii is still sold out the day stock arrives here in Finland. Three months after launch! Amazing. The word is this is just now beginning to change as shipment volumes improve.

@MikeB

Quote:

I think the European launch is going to be pretty successful!

I expect PS3 to generate queues, for sure. It would be very disappointing if this did not happen, Xbox 360 was far less hyped brand and product and it was very sought after too. I also expect it to sell more than Xbox 360 did on launch because of better volumes (Xbox 360 was sold out a long time) and also because of the brand. But what I guess is mostly interesting, from a market-discussion perspective, is how well it continues to perform compared to the competition and the past. Even if PS3 would sell more than Xbox 360 (which it doesn't seem to do in all markets outside Japan), if Xbox 360 sells significantly more than Xbox compared to PS2 did, this will be huge for Microsoft.

I still expect the PS3 to win the overall sold count against Xbox 360, it is a strong brand after all and will likely be sold longer than Xbox 360, but PS3 to really, really succeed (like PS2 did) it would have to beat Xbox 360 by a large margin. I'm not as sure that will happen. It will likely be a good product and business for Sony, but not necessarily the world-dominator PS1 and PS2 were.

Wii is a question-mark, who knows how long it can continue to pull like it does. It may have longetivity issues due to performance levels and perhaps limitations on how long the control mechanism can continue to entertain. Or maybe it will still rock in ten years, who knows.

***

If this chart is to be believed:

http://www.vgcharts.org/aconscomps.php?name1=PS3&name2=X360&type=0&align=1

PS3 is now selling in the U.S. , not only less than Xbox 360, but less than Xbox 360 was three months after its launch a year ago.

Last edited by jtsiren on 18-Mar-2007 at 10:29 AM.

@BrianK

Quote:

That would be indeed impressive. Xbox 360 reportedly had 300,000 and the Wii had 350,000. I doubt that Sony will have your estimated Of which 1.95 million available but if they do and if they sell that'd be impressive. (300 and 350 = 650 tripled is 1.95M)

1) I am talking about Benelux figures.
2) I said more than triple of both (actually more like 5x the number of Nintendo Wii available at launch in the Benelux), not both put together.
3) Microsoft in 2005 shipped 500,000 units to Europe during the holiday season of which 390K were sold, in 2006 1.95 Million units were sold in Europe. Almost 900K were sold in the UK for 2005 and 2006 combined (~36% of units, for about ~12% of Europe's population).

Europe will have an estimated 1 million or more units available around launch, Australia should have around 50,000 units, exact figures for the rest of the world is largely unknown, but for the end of March Sony targets to have shipped 6 million units to retail worldwide.

I expect good launch figures for at least Spain, the UK, the Benelux and Australia.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/148/424586442_dd29a84c59_o.jpg

Last edited by MikeB on 18-Mar-2007 at 01:17 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 18-Mar-2007 at 10:39 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

2) I said more than triple of both ..not both put together.

Thanks. The use of 'both' and 'and' are conjunctive. 'both the XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii' probably could have been worded better as 'either the 360 or Wii.' Thanks for clearing up what you meant.

Quote:

Microsoft in 2005 shipped 500,000 units to Europe during the holiday season of which 390K were sold,

The 360 numbers I could find was 300K shipped to Europe for launch. Counting them as sold the opening weekend seems fair enough as reports of shortages in nearly every country were reported opening weekend.

1M for launch good. The opening weekend sell them all (triple the 300K of the 360) seems unlikely but would be impressive. And of course that would be shy of the 350K tripled, 1.05M, Wii figure so likely they won't make your numbers for the Wii alone on launch.