What exactly happened to the Playstation 3?
EB Games/Game Stop is currently running a special when you trade in a working PS2 and extra Sony controller you will get a $100 off a Playstation 3? This console was just released a couple of months ago. Retailers need to find creative ways to sell these.
What exactly happened to the Playstation 3? It appears it has become a gigantic flop! I see them in practically every store I visit. Yes they are expensive, but I figured with the massive PS2 user base, early adaptors still would have paid the bucks to own the latest and greatest. Apparently, I was wrong. What ever happened to Sony fan-boys? Is the PS3 as good as dead or what??
Dave
What exactly happened to the Playstation 3? It appears it has become a gigantic flop! I see them in practically every store I visit. Yes they are expensive, but I figured with the massive PS2 user base, early adaptors still would have paid the bucks to own the latest and greatest. Apparently, I was wrong. What ever happened to Sony fan-boys? Is the PS3 as good as dead or what??
Dave
Comments
If Sony can hang on for a while until whenever the "killer" PS3 exclusive game comes out it will suceed. Otherwise it'll join the Sega Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, Turbografix 16, and Colecovision in silicon heaven.
The launch titles apparently all suck, which is make or break for a platform. The cost is a hundred bucks more than XBox 360, which had a couple of decent launch titles, Wii's innovative control structure and Wii Sports (which ships free with the console) and the new Zelda game are really popular and well reviewed. They launched with very limited stock, people were getting killed waiting in line for them.
If Sony can hang on for a while until whenever the "killer" PS3 exclusive game comes out it will suceed. Otherwise it'll join the Sega Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, Turbografix 16, and Colecovision in silicon heaven.
Most consoles have lousy launch titles (including the XBOX 360). With shear number of PS2 fan-boys out there, coupled with very limited quantities of the PS3 in the pipeline, I am just surprised with what seems to be a surplus of PS3 available.
Dave
Again, this is not worth much, but it certainly strikes me as very odd.
The PS3 is much the same. Lots of games lined up for the launch have failed to hit their ship dates because the machine is not as powerful as promised and difficult to create optimize code for. This should not be a big surprise because Sony have done very little right in the last 4 years.
But this time, the hype machine did not kill the xBox. In fact there are rumors of a new version of the Xbox360 - with a big hard drive, HDMi output, HD dvd drive and 65 nanometer chips which will run cooler (and hopefully mean a quieter fan)
I'll give Howard 6 months.
C.
"We have no Wiis"
"We do have 360s and PS3s"
HDTV adoption is very low. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are not in stores yet. This bodes well for the PS3 to actually hand a win to Blu-Ray in this market - the small amount of people who have HDTV, the early adopters, are also the kind of people who'd buy the PS3 even if it costs a little more than the other consoles.
If you don't care about Blu-Ray, the 360 is already better value, and stands to become even better through a revision (fixing noise problems, adding HDMI, bigger hard drive maybe? No way they'd be putting on a HD-DVD drive. Microsoft has very clearly said they are not going to make gamers pay for technology that might not even win the format war). For the average gamer the 360 without noise would be a really good deal.
The PS3 can run Linux. Maybe it'll become a decent media center? I don't know exactly what the 360 Media Extender functionality does, but I doubt it will do what I want, which is to grab divx from my Linux / OS X machine and stream it, and have some too-big-to-stream HD on the console hard drive ready to be played.
If either console had a fully unlocking modchip available, its shares would go up by about 200% in my book. I want media center functionality. I want to put in a huge hard drive, copy the game disc images in there and keep the optical media as backups. I want to play imports like I do on my PS2, and sadly all the non-handheld consoles still have region locking.
As the PS2 has staggeringly higher market penetration than the XBox, the PS3 has an edge in backwards compatibility. Also, I have the general impression that PS2 gamers buy controllers, which can represent signifcant sunk cost, while XBox gamers don't. I have over 200? sunk in controllers myself. Some of my friends have Guitar Hero guitars, dance mats, etc. The controllers I have actually make the price gap between the 360 and the PS3 disappear.
The slow start is a problem as the 360 gets too much marketshare, but PS3 can still have a good future through exclusive games and by expanding its functionality. Let's make this clear: I'm not expecting the latter from Sony, but from the modchip makers. Also I think they need to very clearly embrace the indie game market like Microsoft is doing with Live Arcade. That stuff is hot. They'll have Settlers of Catan on the Live Arcade soon. 8)
In Europe, the ST initially sold very well while the Amiga faltered because of its price being a better machine. However by the middle of their lifespans, the Amiga grew and totally killed the ST and still sold years after the ST had died.
Its a shame the PS3 has a wobbly start, but eventually I think as the price of the blu-ray comes down and the PS3 is reduced in price, the PS3 will kill the 360. I think this is a longer term gamble by sony, that wont pay back for a couple of years. The Ps3 is a machine that could easily last for 6-8 years, while the 360 might last 4-5 if lucky.
A recent Article over at Arstechnica, shows that this holiday, the biggest seller was the older PS2!
What exactly happened to the Playstation 3? It appears it has become a gigantic flop!
What did you THINK would happen to it?
Because sales statistics claim the Wii has been stagnant for the past few weeks, but the PS3 is still moving forward.
Not that the Wii still hasn't crushed PS3 sales by a factor of 2, but it seems like the PS3 has better sustained output while Nintendo had just stockpiled the Wii (smartly) before Christmas but is now is just unable to ship more than a trickle of units.
I still personally think the PS3 will do better long term. Wii's doing great right now because of Zelda, but the graphics suck and it has no lifespan. The price is tempting until you realize it's a slightly better GameCube. A year from now when real next-gen games like GTA and MGS4 come out, it'll just be an eyesore.
I might just get Zelda for my GameCube and skip the Wii (the only other games I'm apt to get for it are Mario Kart and Mario Galaxy, but I still don't have Mario Kart or Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube, so I'm not forking over my money for it just yet). The only other reason I'd do it is so I can throw out my NES, SNES, and N64, but I'm not exactly excited about spending a few hundred so I can spend another few hundred rebuying all my old games
I still personally think the PS3 will do better long term. Wii's doing great right now because of Zelda, but the graphics suck and it has no lifespan. The price is tempting until you realize it's a slightly better GameCube. A year from now when real next-gen games like GTA and MGS4 come out, it'll just be an eyesore.
It's not about the graphics though. It's about being fun to play. The Wii is definitely fun to play, and has a unique way of interacting with the console that definitely does help you feel more "in the game." Good graphics are only there to help the game feel more "real." The Wii accomplishes this same effect through the controller. And cuts the price significantly in doing so.
The Wii controller is innovative for sure, but everything I've heard is just that it's gimmicky and doesn't add any real value to the games.
Nintendo doesn't have a monopoly on "fun."
Also, it's a little disingenuous to say that they "cut the price" when they've essentially repackaged a GameCube with a faster processor.
The Wii is indeed just a repackaged GameCube internally, but externally that controller is a real asset.
I would definitely buy a Wii over a PS3 because of the price. Sony made a big mistake including a Blu-Ray drive in the PS3. It drives up the price without any real benefits. Even if price weren't an issue, the Wii would still get my vote, though by a narrower margin. I am willing to sacrifice graphics for the Wiimote, though it would be nice to have both.
PS3 really doesnt have anything going for it. To me it just seems like they wanted to sell you a blu-ray player. Not a PS3.
The PS3 is too over priced. Its getting its butt handed to it by the Wii. The Wii is still selling out and its almost at 5 million sold. The PS3 has harldy breached its 1st million. And its not because there arent as many available like the fanboys will tell you. I've seen numerous places with PS3's just sitting there while they were sold out of Wii's.
PS3 really doesnt have anything going for it. To me it just seems like they wanted to sell you a blu-ray player. Not a PS3.
You're comparing (incredibly exaggerated) world sales of the Wii to US sales of the Playstation.
The Wii has sold around 3.5 million world wide, but only 1.4 in the US, versus around .9 million PS3's in the US, or 1 million if you believe Sony's figures.
You're comparing (incredibly exaggerated) world sales of the Wii to US sales of the Playstation.
The Wii has sold around 3.5 million world wide, but only 1.4 in the US, versus around .9 million PS3's in the US, or 1 million if you believe Sony's figures.
I thought Wii hit 4 mill already? and Ps3 has hardly sold over 1 mill in NA and only half a Mill in Japan. Those are the only areas its available in. So yea no matter what way you slice it PS3 is still below 2 mill.
This is anecdotal evidence, which is worth almost nothing, but every time I have been in a Target or other big store with a video games section, I have seen at least one PS3. I have never seen a Wii.
Cost!!
PS3 will come down, will eventually have more games for it, and will sell. Wait and you see. As there's not a lot of good games yet, but come Christmas 2007 it will be cheaper, and there will be lots of games available.
I have a Wii, and I like it, but the buzz is starting to ware off. I don't think I will feel strongly about it next year.