So my understanding is that the PS3’s opening pretty much bombed, and a lot of the reason was Sony’s cockiness in thinking it could put an insanely high sticker price which the game fiends, much like depraved drug fiends, would pay no matter what. But they didn’t. People are just getting Wiis and Xboxes instead.
I would gladly buy a PS3 if the price were $300 or less (if for nothing else than to play GTA4. Yeah I could get an Xbox but I have always been a Playstation fan). But will this ever happen? I’ve heard that even at the current price Sony is losing money on each system (but how would that work? I’m dubious). Will they eventually give in and realize that in order to save the system’s future drastic steps are necessary?
Will the relatively small market cause game developers to focus more on making XBox and Wii games, creating a vicious cycle that seals the PS3’s fate? Or is bouncing back still an option?
Almost all game systems lose money for a couple of years before they sell enough software to make a profit. The PS2 didn’t become profitable until it sold about 25 million consoles. The XBox 360 is the only console to make a profit with so few (about 9.9 million units) sold. The PS3 has only been around for 4 months in Japan and the Americas. It just debuted a few days ago in Europe. I wouldn’t write it off so early. And no, I don’t have one or plan to buy one. And yes, Sony has made mistakes with the console’s launch. But in time, I expect the PS3 to catch up and at least be a moderate success.
It’ll probably tough it out and do fine. I’m starting to see it nudge the PS2 section over in stores. If it fails, it’s going to take a few years to do it.
Launches are a bit over-hyped. Only hardcore game players want to buy a console that has two games out for it. When the price drops (probably next Xmas) it’ll get more of a following.
I stopped by the A/V section of Target the other day while on an errand with my fiance. I haven’t kept up with any of it but I nearly shat myself when I saw a $599 pricetag. My immediate thought was, “Let’s see…PS2 is $120 now, XBox is $100…maybe I should just replace the old PS2 for now.”
Probably not what Sony wants to go through a consumer’s head.
It’s just too goddamned expensive. Without some sort of drastic price reduction or alternative version (a slimmed-down version that cuts out some of the gratuities?), I really think that it’s just plain doomed as a platform. Sony’s not infallible; the PSP and its proprietary UMD’s have been a complete debacle, and the sort of arrogance that they’ve shown going into the PS3 will probably be their undoing. Please understand that I say this as an enourmous Sony/PS2 fan - the PS2 was my choice of platform for this past generation because it had the best games and the greatest variety of games. So far, they have nothing, and only one system exclusive on the horizon (Metal Gear), which is guaranteed to show up on the Wii and 360 eventually.
I feel like each of these next-gen systems feels like it was completely rushed to the market, and the PS3 shows this worst of all.
The PS3’s future is grim but it’s a situation where it’s hard to say what is going to happen. Japan isn’t going to warm up to the 360, but Microsoft’s been poised for a price drop and has managed to steal the bulk of Sony’s thunder. All the game developers who were betting on the PS3 have retuned those games to focus on the XBox. That is giving the XBox a big advantage at the moment over the Wii which is almost requiring dedicated development efforts; all the heavily promoted, Triple-A titles that were in the pipeline have to shift and they’re going 360. If the PS3 hasn’t gained any momentum by the time the XBox drops $100 then that’s it; game over for the platform. What little market it could have built is going to be gone.
I don’t see it happening. My feeling is that the PS3 has priced themselves out of the market and it’s over. I think both Microsoft and Sony grossly misread the gaming market which is why the Wii has so much momentum right now, but Microsoft has been actively correcting mistakes and is closer to the mark than Sony. They’re going to hit it first.
I’m probably going to end up getting a 360 once the price drops, hopefully by the time the next GTA comes out. I’d really rather have a PS3 - I really love Sony’s systems and hope/assume that they’ll continue to get the sort of weirdo games like the Atlus and Nippon Ichi titles for this generation - but it’s just too expensive by a factor of several hundred dollars. It kind of sucks, too, because it really is the most physically powerful system - the recent port of Oblivion is second only to the PC version, and really blows away the 360 version. I imagine that GTA4 will probably look and run the best on the PS3, too - but who can afford tol be playing it on that system?
Not only is the PS 3 out of my price range, but if I were to purchase one I’d have to purchase a new television and a new stereo system so that I could take advantage of the blue ray picture and sound. One of these days I plan on having a fancy home theater set up, as opposed to my setup that was semi-fancy back in 1999, but until then I don’t need a monster like the PS3. I wish them luck though, I was very pleased with my PS2.
The thing is, at current technology, the Blu-Ray enabled PS3 @ $600 will NEVER make money. A basic blu-ray player costs $800. Sony is probably partially betting on Blu-Ray becoming the standard, thus ensuring the PS3 as a seller in to the future as a player of that format as well as a gaming platform. That said, the market is so small and games are still being released for the PS2 that currently, the PS3 doesn’t seem to be a viable gaming option.
As one of like five people in the country who shelled out for a Neo Geo and Neo Geo CD (and at a time when I was shuffling between a paper route and a student library job), I have to say that $600, while definitely upper end, isn’t completely outrageous considering what the system’s capable of. Sure, for hardcore gamers only, but it’s not like there’s a shortage of those. The games aren’t any more expensive than the PS2’s were when it was new, so as long as the games are there, there’s someone who can justify the price.
And that’s the hard part…what kind of games are there that justify the PS3? Somehow, I doubt Virtua Fighter 5 is going to cut it, and even Grand Theft Auto 4 won’t carry the burden alone. There may be a spectacular exclusive, but given how long it takes to program for this sytem, it’s not happening for a while.
So I say give it time. For crying out loud, the PS2 was out for a year before about 98% of the country could see one. (I can’t be the only one who remembers this…can I?) Frankly, I don’t see the point in rushing to judgment. History will tell.
On a personal note, I’m honestly unimpressed with any of the new systems so far. I really don’t like the the fact that the Wii seems to be all about gimmicks and fringe games and gee-whiz controllers. It’s completely missing the essentials. Fighting games. Action games. (in the Contra/Dynasty Warriors/Mega Man mold, not Halo). Music games. Shoot-'em-ups. Sports games. RPGs. A joystick. A multitap (and games that use it). This is the bread and butter, folks. You do not abandon it, no matter how creative or cutting edge or offbeat you’re trying to be. As for the X-Box 360, everything I’ve heard about every game for it paints it as a hardcore, nerves-on-edge, sweating-bullets, tie-your-guts-in-a-knot system from top to bottom (the whole Dead or Alive franchise, in particular, is particularly painful). I do not want that kind of experience. EVER. Maybe it’ll get better, but for now, you can include me out of the latest videogaming revolution.
(Oh, one more thing: Codebreaker support! Don’t make me come over there, all right? )
DKW: Metal Slug Anthology is out for the Wii. As well as a bunch of retro stuff for download. There’s a perfectly good joystick, and the multitap is built in to the wireless. (Up to four players at once) I’m a little disappointed in the lack of third party stuff, but Tiger Woods and Madden are out and good.
On the other hand, VF5 is no longer exclusive to the PS3. It’ll be out for the 360 in the summer.
We wandered into one of the games stores in town on Saturday, their basic PS3 package was around £450 with only one game. Other options went up to nearly £600 with a choice of five games but there was only a selection of six games to choose from.
Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be a great success - 'im indoors already has 19 consoles and hasn’t shown any inclination to go for number 20.
I was one of the Sony fanboys who lambasted the Xbox360 : haw, it’s got nothing on the mighty PS3.
Then the release got pushed back… and I decided : hey, I am not going to wait that long to see my HDTV do its thing, so I bought an Xbox360.
I was planning on selling it the moment the PS3 would be released.
But up til now I have not seen 1 single game which would motivate me to buy it.
All the exclusive titles look pretty much like crap, and all third-party games had already been released on the 360 and according to ign.com run better on the 360. (except for Oblivion).
I am waiting for KillZone before I am going to give my final judgement, but I am afraid Sony is just a bit “too little, too late”.
I don’t think it will flop, it is too early to tell. The success of Blu-Ray is imminent, which will bring some people around to it. The development of successful games for the platform is not a question of “If?” but rather “When?” Price wars between these two giants will prove to be interesting.
I’m neither a Sony fanboy nor an apologist (Why do discussions of game consoles degenerate into people calling each other fanboys – is that really an insult?). I own a PSP and think it is a huge waste of tech, but with the PS3 I do think that they will succeed.
Remember from your marketing class, that the early adopters are not the opinion leaders.
Success in this market means getting more and more of the common man, not hardcore gamers and computer nerds. I think the Internet community might be slightly overestimating the general public’s understand of, or interest in, Blu-Ray. Most people don’t know what it is and don’t give a shit.
I am sure one HD format or another WILL succeed eventually and Blu-Ray’s the likeliest pick right now, but it’s not “imminent” in the sense I’d understand the word.
Hey, I’m about the biggest Sony guy you’re going to find. I never got into the X-Box, and the last Nintendo product I owned was the SuperNintendo. Of the system-exclusive franchises, the Playstation ones - Final Fantasy in particular - are the ones that interest me. I could afford the PS3 without breaking my entertainment budget. I’d say I’m exactly the sort of person Sony needs to buy its product.
I wouldn’t even consider buying the PS3 unless its price were at least $200 less than it is right now. $600? Do you know how many baseball games I could see, with my wife and daughter, for that money? That’s three or four high end dinners, or three Broadway shows. Hell, I could buy the X-Box 360 and probably half a dozen games for it. I’ll be sad when FF13 or Kingdom Hearts 3 come out and I can’t play them, but not as sad as Square is going to be when they see the US sales figures for those games.
If they can’t sell it to me, how are they ever going to compete for users who don’t have a built-in preference for Sony? So my answer: no, the system has no real future. It’ll be a fringe system for the hardcore gamers that will exist for exactly as long as it takes Sony to develop a generation 4 console that people will actually buy.
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