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PS3's now meeting demand (1 Viewer)

John Berggren

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I think Sony is in a tough spot. I myself am stacking up best buy gift cards, and once I hit the magic number, I'm going to buy a 60g PS3. Clearly, however, the price point is beyond what a typical video game buyer is willing to swallow.
I think they probably will need to consider a price drop to get the ball rolling, but of course they are already losing a huge amount on this hardware at this price point. Also, an early price drop could be seen as admitting defeat.
$599 is a great price for a Blu Ray player, all things considered, so pending my gift card situation, I'm on board. I just think this is an unfortunately soft launch for a powerhouse like Sony.
 

Ryan-G

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Sony's in alot more than a tough spot, short of the second coming of FF7, they're in a no win spot.

The price inhibits the purchase, the lack of units sold inhibits exclusives, which in turn inhibits future purchases because "Why spend more on a PS3 when 360 has that plus exclusives?"

Sony loses a significant amount of money on every PS3 sold at it's current price.

MS has already rode out a year of production costs, and per unit pricing is even cheaper now. MS also has extremely deep pockets and their booming micro-transactions(Apparently).

Sony cuts price $100, so can MS. No matter what Sony does to try to compete with the 360 in pricing, MS can match them, and more.

Sony's only chance is exclusives, and few studios are doing PS3 exclusives, the less units that sell, the less exclusive 3rd party studios there will be.

On the home front, PS3's taking a beating compared to the Wii(Of all things).

Plus, in this critical year, Sony's struggling just to get it's big name exclusives released, and it's lost it's headline title Grand Turismo until at least next year. Mean time, MS is making headlines with GoW, and still has Halo 3 and Fable 2 in the bank with quite a few other promising titles in the works.

Yes, I know I said I wouldn't post on this thread again. But I'm *really* bored right now.
 

Tony J Case

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Now meeting demand? More like rotting on the vine. I can't turn around at a Toys R Us or Gamestop without tripping over one it seems.

It might sound fanboi-ish, but I'm pleased to see Nintendo completely and utterly p0wn Sony like this. Having gotten a chance to play both extensively, the Wii is simply a more innovative game system. Sure it doesnt quite look as sexy, but I'll take gameplay over graphics any day of the week (and twice on the weekends).

That and 600-800 bucks for a game system? Are they on crack? Do they think people are made of money?
 

Chris

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I played with both. If the PS3 is a Blueray player, Sony really loses, because they don't sell enough games to make up the $$ they were hoping on royalty sales.

The thing is, having played both the Wii and the PS3, I'd take the Wii over everything out there. Way more family friendly and a hell of a lot more fun (get your wife to play Wii Sports or invite friends over for a drinking game of Wario and you'll understand).

I already ordered a second Wii for my nieces, because it's affordable enough to make a great gift. A PS3 is too big of an investment, I haven't bought one for myself.. maybe I will later if price comes down ;) But no rush, and I certainly wouldn't spend that much on a gift for kids.
 

RAF

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Point taken, Brett. Even with the smiley so I know you were kidding (at least a bit) you do make a valid point. We do have a Video Game Hardware section (as well as a Video Game Software section) where members can duke it out (moderated, of course) regarding which is the better gaming machine. I own all the major consoles (360, Wii and PS3) so I don't have a specific horse in this race (although I will agree with those who state that people who would never ever think of themselves as "gamers" are participating in Wii experiences. I thought that my daughter's piercing glance would kill me when I promised by grandkids a Wii for Christmas but after installing it yesterday we can't pry her away from Wii Bowling!) ;)

Back to the HW:

The reason that the PS3 (and all the side discussions involving gaming) is being allowed to be discussed in the HT HD HW section is that there is no denying that it is an excellent Blu-ray player. Yes, when I purchased mine in December I was forced to buy a bundle of games but the primary reason in my case was to get a Blu-ray player (with games as a bonus). The hardware was $600 (I wanted wireless and the bigger HD) and for this I got an HD Blu-ray player with HDMI 1.3 1080p output. To me this was an absolute no brainer and I still marvel at what a great job the PS3 does as a Blu-ray player both visually and aurally. I even spent $25 at Amazon to buy Sony's "standard" (albeit Bluetooth) DVD remote but I find myself adapting to the game controller as a DVD remote much easier than I first thought.

Yes, for $600 the PS3 might be a marginal buy for gamers with so many other options out there. But as a $600 Blu-ray player the PS3 is still a nice way to get into the technology at the higher end without the higher cost. And as a multipurpose device it will be inevitable that there will be some gaming talk here and, perhaps, some Blu-ray talk over in the Videogame HW section of the forum.

Comes with the territory (but let's try not to go overboard talking about gaming in HT HW and vice versa, gang.)
 

John Berggren

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I am certainly on the side of there being too many units on the shelves for Sony to declare this launch a success.
This is not to say that I'm not building a stack of Best Buy gift cards between now and March 10, because damn I want a nice blu ray player.
I just wonder that Sony is going to have to bite the bullet and drop the price sooner than later. While Sony can sustain to be an also-ran in the market more so than most video game console providers, the stink of failure is profound and quick in the video game industry.
I realize again, we are not talking about it strictly as a video game device, as we are discussing it as an HT device (and being the primary reason I will buy one). However, third parties will drop off to microsoft, and the gamers will thumb their nose at it mighty quick. This is the danger I foresee.
 

Paul_Dunlop

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isn't this what happened to Microsoft the first time around?

I seem to remember the PS2 came out first, then XBOX, and MS had to meet Sonys price drops and were getting killed

Having game systems provide more features is making them more expensive and maybe that's not good - Nintendo will do very well since their cost is half the other systems

I guess we will see what happens to the prices this summer - I would think they will be down by about $150 CDN by July

I am an original XBOX owner, but the PS3 has a lot of features that make it something I may buy in the future
 

Jason Harbaugh

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Yeah Sony was able to sit on the high price of the PS2 for 18 months, while the Xbox only had 6 months at that price level then had to match Sony's drop.

PS2 was $300 at launch in Oct 2000. Their first price drop was to $200 in May of 2002. The Xbox was $300 at launch in Nov 2001. Their first price drop was at the same time as the PS2 to $200 in May of 2002.

I doubt we'll ever see the consoles at the same price, but relatively speaking I expect Sony to drop $100 to match whatever MS does. They will always have the excuse of having a BD player and larger hard drive to justify the price difference.

As for the rotting on the vine comment above, just goes to show that people see what they want to see. itrackr lists the 60gig as 29% in stock nationwide and 30% in my area. Hardly tripping on them. The NYC area has only 1 store listed out of 54. Seems like they are doing alright to me.
 
C

Chris*Liberti

It is the same in my area. The areas with a large gaming community and more income tends to not ever have them in stock for long, SF Bay area. When I go to the central valley where income is lower and gaming isn't as die hard I can find the 60GB PS3 no problem with the occasional 20GB and Wii.
 

John Berggren

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Has anyone seen the GDC news about "HOME". Looks like a surefire way to move some of these units and favor BluRay.
 

John Garcia

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Yep. Home sounds very interesting, and based on what I see with the Sony Store (which I am very much enjoying so far), it didn't take a whole lot to see where they were going with it.
 

ppltd

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These numbers (40 % below industry expectations), while slightly higher in January than February, show a disappointing sales point for the new PS3. The numbers of sales in Japan fair no better. The availability bares this out for the PS3.
 

John Berggren

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One potential consideration for a price drop would be a rebuild this summer that would shift the hardware chipset that supports PS2 games to a software solution which is not as effective. I think I'd be inclined to have the original chipset rather than the price drop.
 

ppltd

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Sony has already done this with the European release. They will not include the Emotion chip set, but will rely on software to play PS2 games. No news yet on how many, if any, PS2 games will play day 1 of the release.
 

ppltd

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Another 'Sony plans on' future ware. Last I read, there would be very limited, if any support on the day of release, and suppurt would come sometime in the future. But we will know for sure soon.
 

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