@GregS

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GregS wrote: @Thalos and others However the PS3 is selling at the moment, whatever deficits it has as a games console (though I can see none) and despite its initial high price, everybody seems to be missing the point, it is designed to run computer OSes. The teenage market, is also the market where education is pressing that every child and their dog has to have a computer. Put two and two together - when the price drops you have convergence, the love of games and the need for a computer, and as a bonus sans Windows. A console-computer is a new market and slotted in very well to a demand that is already established - teenagers who need a computer for school work, plus those that need a computer occassionally and like playing games a lot. My sons' PS3 came today, within a few minutes it was wireless linked into our home router, and I am very slowly downloading Yellow Dog at the moment. A menu item on the PS3 is devoted to installing OSes, if it is as easy to use as the rest within a short time our console will also be a very reasonable computer. Put the price of a computer to the price of the cheapest console and you will see it makes the PS3 a much cheaper option - that is the real market, are market that will not take long to form itself once the penny drops. What after all was the Amiga?

The idea is indeed good, but the problem is that Sony added alot of artifical restrictions, which makes it a very stripped down computer. The Amiga on the other hand was both completely open, so even a bedroom programmer could be able to write games and access things like the chipset and gfx chip. The Amiga was also upgradeable while the ps3 will always be limited with the 256meg of ram accessible to the third part OS. 256 meg of ram is very low even for linux these days.

@MikeB


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Last night at a launch event held at Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street , London Sony handed out everyone who attended a free £2,000 46-inch flat panel TV set to compliment their brand-new £425 PS3! Wow, I am very happy for them I am sure they don't feel bad about the delay anymore!

Pretty damn unfair.. The only thing they gave away here, was a single console to one of the people in the queue.

Oh and the response seemed pretty lukewarm here as well.. Some stores still had some in stock, even though they did not get that many consoles.

Last edited by Tomas on 23-Mar-2007 at 02:08 PM.

@MikeB

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Today the remaining unsold HD-DVD copies have been placed within the new Blu-Ray dedicated section and thus based on this it looks like it's now "game over" for HD-DVD at Media Markt

Yeah you're totally right. Clearly 1 store moving some HD-DVD, which are outselling Blu-Ray in Europe, means that the less then 1% of total DVD sales which are HD war has been decidely given to Blu-Ray.

Can't wait to see the sadness on the faces of PS3 owners when Lord of the Rings HD-DVD only release comes out this year..

@Thalos

We are not too far apart on most of his, and I agree the US going bottom up is not likely to have the effect of 1929 on the world, but living in the US this would be a different story.

My analysis is full of "ifs", but I am sitting here watching my son play round and possibilities just seem enormous, apparent someone has just got XP running as an emulation on the thing through Linux Here

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Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@GregS

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My analysis is full of "ifs", but I am sitting here watching my son play round and possibilities just seem enormous, apparent someone has just got XP running as an emulation on the thing through Linux Here

Ugh. Is that video in real time? I mean, does it really take 1:50 minutes to fully boot Feodora on the PS3? Running Windows XP with QEMU and as little as 256MB of RAM doesn't look like a huge pleasure either...

@MikeB

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Sony handed out everyone who attended a free £2,000 46-inch flat panel TV

Sounds like besides free TVs the website http://www.shkyw.org/ handed out free chairs too. .


Oblivion PS3 vs 360.
http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=3450
Somethings the PS3 looks a bit better somethings the 360. No indication if GameTrailers has the new update that came out yesterday for the 360 which improves the distance graphical details. In general the PS3 looks a bit better at distances but appears overly bright and the 360 seems to look better at close details, people and the cobblestone road, some may see the 360 as dark.

With senior citizens:
Wii: 1+
PS3: 0

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17753137/

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Here for the whimpering end

All right, picked up a 60 GB PS3 as anticipated with Motorstorm and also Resistance: Fall of Man so I can finally stop guessing and give my comments. Supplies are good, plenty of games etc. available. The box is still unopened due to time contraints, so I will comment when I get a moment or two for some tryouts. Skipped buying an extra controller, I will wait for a Rumbleaxis to arrive.

@hatschi


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Ugh. Is that video in real time? I mean, does it really take 1:50 minutes to fully boot Feodora on the PS3? Running Windows XP with QEMU and as little as 256MB of RAM doesn't look like a huge pleasure either...

Did you think I was suggesting it as a good idea?

As I keep saying Linux basically sux's big time. Given fixed HW, I dare say even Linux can be trained to load faster - I have heard reports that Yellow Dog's version loads very fast (for Linux that is) but I would not know as only 29% of the ISO has been downloaded so far.

I am not making any claims that the PS3 is a miracle machine, though Cell has always appealed to me as a better CPU design. What I am suggesting is that the PS3 represents a shift and a new market that makes it a bit pointless comparing launches and initial sales.

Maybe you are suggesting that a decent console that positively invites OSes to be installed is somehow a bad thing, or that other consoles that do not do this are somehow a good thing?

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Greg Schofield, Perth Australia

@Donar

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The PS3's now spit out more than double TFlops than the Windows boxes.

I found the GPU numbers pretty interesting. Look at the number of GPUs vs the TFlops they output.

@jtsiren

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Reports from Australia:

More reports from Australia:

GAMERS queued in droves outside retail shops across Australia to buy Sony's PlayStation 3 from the stroke of midnight (AEDT).



@Tomas

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Pretty damn unfair.. The only thing they gave away here, was a single console to one of the people in the queue.

Don't be jealous remember Sony already makes a loss on PS3s currently sold, you can see this as an investment in your gaming and multimedia experience for the future. The PS3 is expensive yet underpriced. Sounds ironic I know.

@MikeB

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Don't be jealous

How about "don't treat your customers differently"?

Why should a select few get to walk away with goodies worth a fortune while others have to pay *more* than them and get absolutely nothing? Wouldn't it have made more sense to spend the money spent on TVs to lower the cost across the board so it would be to everyone's benefit?

I was out tonight and asked from a couple of more stores. Both had plenty of PS3's available tonight and the one I asked said only a few had been sold. The machines and accessories are plentiful as are games everywhere.

@Trezzer

Naah... I think the TV giveaway was a nice gesture. Sure, Sony could have instead righted a few wrongs (how about not pricing the PS3 not so hideously in Europe vs. U.S.), but that would have likely costed far more anyways. I'm not one to be jealous. It was nice for those who stood in line there, why not allow people a lucky break sometimes.

Edit:

Reading online... Apparently background downloading does not work while playing a game (some games?).

Last edited by jtsiren on 23-Mar-2007 at 06:08 PM.

@MikeB
Quote:

More reports from Australia: GAMERS queued in droves outside retail shops across Australia to buy Sony's PlayStation 3 from the stroke of midnight (AEDT).

I like this picture better:



I forgot to add the context:
"Sony Execs Battle for Control of Wii-mote in the Boardroom"

Last edited by jorkany on 23-Mar-2007 at 06:29 PM.

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Here for the whimpering end

@jtsiren

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Sure, Sony could have instead righted a few wrongs (how about not pricing the PS3 not so hideously in Europe vs. U.S.)

The US is a more homogenous market, it's cheaper for them to support and distribute, also taxes are pretty high and included in the retail price in European countries.

Quote:

Reading online... Apparently background downloading does not work while playing a game (some games?)

Downloads will halt when playing PS2 games or when playing online games, the downloads support auto-resume.

More info here.

Last edited by MikeB on 23-Mar-2007 at 06:49 PM.

@MikeB

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Downloads will halt when playing PS2 games or when playing online games, the downloads support auto-resume.

Ah, they managed to fix it so it will download while playing PS3 games after all? That's nice. It was said it would only work while in the dashboard/movies/music etc.

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also taxes are pretty high and included in the retail price in European countries.

After adding 25% Danish VAT to the PS3 it lands at 4180DKK. That's for a lesser machine than the US model. Retail price? 1320 DKK higher. That's $237.

I don't really think there's any excuse for that. Microsoft and Nintendo's machines are slightly more expensive than their US prices here, but nowhere near what the PS3 costs extra.

Last edited by Trezzer on 23-Mar-2007 at 06:41 PM.

@Trezzer

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Ah, they managed to fix it so it will download while playing PS3 games after all?

Come on, for the XBox 360 this feature was added through a firmware update as well. Things like DVD upscaling will be added at a later date as well and a few other nice things.

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hat's for a lesser machine than the US model.

In the future the US model will not come with PS2 chip neither, it was a temporary measure.

@MikeB

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Come on, for the XBox 360 this feature was added through a firmware update as well.

Yes I know. From what I read it was only going to be on the XMB and during movie/music playback. If they have indeed fixed it so it works during PS3 games then that's a very nice improvement.

@MikeB

Quote:

GAMERS queued in droves outside retail shops across Australia to buy Sony's PlayStation 3 from the stroke of midnight (AEDT).

A quote from a guy at the Australian Lauch - 'The crowd is probably at around 80 or so which, for the official PS3 launch in Australia's biggest city, was a piss-poor turnout' -- obviously the crowd appears to have a different picture then the Sony PR team.

How about France? Reportedly At French events, one store sold 50 consoles out of 1000, and another store sold 300 out of 1000. At the massive under-attended event at the Eiffel Tower, where they were told to expect 3000 people, roughly 40 people turned out ..

Quote:

this feature was added through a firmware update as well. Things like DVD upscaling will be added at a later date as well and a few other nice things...the US model will not come with PS2 chip neither, it was a temporary measure

Come on you seriously complain when someone sayd the PS3 looks half baked? 5+ years planning and they can't frickin' scale a DVD? Seems like a checkbox that SHOULD have been on day #1 not months after launch.

Last edited by BrianK on 23-Mar-2007 at 07:19 PM.
Last edited by BrianK on 23-Mar-2007 at 07:15 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Don't be jealous remember Sony already makes a loss on PS3s currently sold, you can see this as an investment in your gaming and multimedia experience for the future. The PS3 is expensive yet underpriced. Sounds ironic I know.

The problem is that i do not yet care about blueray, which makes the price not worth it all, as a much cheaper console can do the same at a much lower price.
We do not yet even know if it is blueray or hd-dvd that ends up winning, so it would be quite a risk to take and you could end up with a expensive player that only plays a handful of movie+the old outdated dvd format.