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PS3's now meeting demand (1 Viewer)

Shawn Perron

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We all knew there was going to be a point when most of the people that had the money and were willing to pay $500-$600 had thier consoles. Luckily for Sony income tax season is about to start in the USA. I guarantee that a lot of people will be dropping a nice chunk of thier return on a PS3 in the coming months. Also in Sony's favor are the huge sales of "flat screen" HDTVs that took place over the christmas shopping season. People are going to be looking for something to validate thier purchase, and buying a PS3 or XBOX 360 may be the way they go.

Sony's big problem is going to be that huge price tag and lack of must have titles during the usual dry period between may and september. I can see large amounts of PS3s languishing on store shelves during that period.
 

Edwin-S

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The difference is that the Blu-ray drive is integrated for both gaming and movies on the PS3. On the gaming side that means that bigger more detailed games will eventually be available. The XBOX add on is good only for movies. Also everyone seems to be forgetting that the PS3 has a motion control capability via the six axis controller. That gives the PS3 some ability to compete with the Wii in motion adaptive games. Although it remains to be seen if the six axis controller capabilities are equal to the Wii's unique controller set up. XBOX360 doesn't have any of that capability. It doesn't surprise me that XBOX360 is being wiped out in the Japanese gaming market. In the long run the PS3 may end being the better value, even though the upfront cost is higher, since the system has more extendability right from the start.

The biggest boner on the PS3 is the lack of 720p>1080i/p conversion. That may be correctable with a firmware update.
 

Richard Kim

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The PS3 isn't doing so hot in Japan either. Due to its lackluster performance, many publishers are no longer doing Sony exclusive titles and are even jumping ship to the Wii and other systems. Case in point, the next Dragon Quest will be on the Nintendo DS and NOT the PS3. This is a huge coup since DQ is a cultural phenomenon in Japan.
 

Carlo_M

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Sony also lost a lot of goodwill with the very limited number of systems for release in Japan (whereas the numbers for the US, although also very small, were larger).

They have a lot of ground to make up.

On a side note, I did find my one PS3 at a Best Buy in Manhattan Beach. They had one left, I drove like a maniac yesterday morning for it, and got there. The guy said they'd gotten 5 calls but I was the first one there.

The only reason this BB had one (as opposed to the other 7 I tried) was probably because it was a new store that was hidden behind high construction walls (a whole shopping center in front of it is under construction). I was familiar with the area (there's a Frys that I go to on that intersection) and when the guy told me where the BB was on the phone, I thought "I don't remember a BB on that intersection!"

So I got lucky here in L.A. to find my console. Bought the 2 year replacement plan (a must for these newfangled systems IMHO) and returned the EB PS3 and 1 year PRP. 6 months same as cash is much easier on my wallet than having to fork over $700 next month.
 

HDMS Carl Mulder

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I brought a ps3 and to be honest the games are terrible, and system setups are a real bind. It's all part of the hype machine and is a complete dissapointment, the graphics only equal the xbox 360 launch games, 1 year ago.
In terms of high def graphics, the 360 destroys the ps3, Gears Of War has probably the best graphics I've ever seen, and is way beyond the ps3 launch titles.
I think people have been paid to say resistence is so good, I went back to my 360 after 2 days and in my opinion the graphics are so basic.
The only thing I'm happy with on the ps3 is the blu ray movie's, and the ps3 is a great blu ray player.

If there's any playstation fan boys out there, don't you feel scared at the fact that the ps3 has no good games? All the 3rd party games are on the xbox 360, and look better on the 360, and 1st party games don't come close to microsofts 1st party, And resistence doesn't touch halo 2 which is an old xbox game.

It's really pathetic.
 

Carlo_M

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Well I'm no PS FB (it's my first PS, though my roommate owned the PS2). I have owned/do own the XBox, Cube, N64, Genesis, SNES, and some others I'm sure I'm forgetting. So there is no fanboy in me for any of the systems, I'm equal opportunity.

That said, I do remember looking at the 360 launch titles and having ZERO interest in those, just like I have zero interest in the PS3 launch titles. So in that sense, I think they're on equal footing as far as launch games in that I think both batches sucked! :D

If 360 even had 1 launch game I was interested in I'd already have bought one. but the fact that it wasn't HD-DVD capable until recently really made it a no-purchase for me. And when the HD-DVD did come out, I was more attracted to the built-in BluRay capability of the PS3 than the add-on of the 360.

I only bought Marvel Ultimate Alliance because even though I am using my PS3 for its BD capabilities, I felt that I had to have at least ONE game for it. And it is fun.

However, the demos for Motorstorm and Gran Turismo HD have me not so worried about the future. Gears of War is great! It also came out one year after the console. So to be fair, you have to give PS3 at least a little bit of time before judging so harshly. If by mid-year there are still no good games, then I will consider the PS3 a bust (or rather, a really inexpensive BD player :P).
 

SVTStingRay

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people need to put things in perspective. ps3 is a new system with a lack of quality games and a high price. after christmas last year, the same thing happened to xbox360 IE high price, lack of good games, every store i went to had a stack of them and they still do.

give ps3 1 year and lets see where they are at. sony unfortunately has done everything you could possibly do wrong in this launch and they still have the advantage.
 

Jeremy Little

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Best Buy store #220 in Oklahoma City still has 9 in stock. We've made a sign and placed it on the door, but it has made no impact in traffic into the gaming area.
 

jervis961

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If I remember correctly PS3 games are region free which takes up a lot of space on the disk with different audio tracks and such. Also the PS3 drive takes longer to load information than the 360. I was expecting a lot more from the PS3 games because if you recall it was supposed to come out last Spring and got held back due to the BluRay drive so they had at least an extra 6 months to work on them. If you want a good comparison check out high def videos on IGN of Fight Night Round 3 for both consoles. The PS3 does have some more details but lacks the color, draw distance, 3D crowds and fluid motion of the 360 version. Check out comparison videos for PS3 games vs the "realtime" videos they kept showing at E3 and then try to say that Sony didn't lie.;) I will also eat my hat if a firmware upgrade will make a video scaler magically appear in the PS3. Nothing against anyone here, Sony just pissed me off with how arrogant and sloppy they have become.:angry:
 

LarryH

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This must be BB policy. As I was leaving my BB today there was a sign on the outgoing door that the PS3 was in stock. After depositing my first purchase in my car I went back and asked a salesguy about it. He went to the back room (with an associate - he said they had to take another person) and got me one. OK, so I fell for it. Anyhow, I got a few RZ points and 6 months to pay. I'm looking forward to seeing its performance as a BD player.

BTW - does anybody know how much the 2-yr extended warranty costs? I didn't get it yet, but now I'm having nervous thoughts.
 

Carlo_M

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Hundred bucks ($99 or $99.99). Not taxed (at least in CA). Well worth it, I think, for piece of mind. I know the PS3 hasn't received the overheating notoriety that the 360 did, but I can tell you mine runs very warm (wouldn't call it hot). I normally don't buy service plans except for laptops. But I don't see the PS3 dipping in price too much over the next 2 years. They might knock $100 off the price by 2008, but that's still $499 to replace mine. I figure the service plan comes out to $4 and change a month for 2 years of insurance.
 

Will d s

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I finally saw a few ps3's at target and CC. People have been posting for awhile about them being in stock and there have been none in this area until today. I guess we will see if it stays that way. The quality of the grafix for launch games on the ps3 should be better then 360 if all the hype was true. The xbox came out a year after the ps2 and it had better graffix.
 

ppltd

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Problem is, the released performance numbers for both systems are hype. There have been many good technical documents written on both systems that turn the hype and pipe dreams of the manufacturers posted performance numbers into some real facts. As a rule of thumb, divide the manufacturers therorical numbers by 3 to get to real world performance.
 

Trevor Harveaux

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I've seen multiple PS3s at different Targets around the Twin Cities.

I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it was months before I saw a 360 on store shelves.
 

ppltd

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I rarely buy extended war., but, as with the 360, the defect rate on the PS3 has been pretty high (according to my BB guy). I am on my third 360 replacement, and wouldn't own a PS3 without one. I think the 360 war. was 49.99, don't remember what the PS3 was.
 

Carlo_M

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Thomas, I too espouse buying the warranty (see my post above), but I certainly wouldn't do it based on what the Best Buy guy says. He'll tell you everything has a high fail rate if it will sell the warranty.

What's funny is when you turn the tables on them and say "well if so-n-so fails so often, why do you sell it?" :D
 

dkny75

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Best Buy has them available online if any of you are still looking for one. It's not too hard to get one in NYC if that tells you anything.
 

Dave Mack

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Best Buy and all those other big box stores make their living off extended warranties. Of course they're gonna sell you a load of hooey. I'd just say, "well if it's that unreliable, I don't think I'll bother..." and turn and start to leave. I wonder what the guy would say..."WOAH! It's not THAT unreliable...!!!"

:)
 

Jason Harbaugh

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That's because Microsoft couldn't keep shipments coming. Currently, Sony has shipped/sold more than MS did in the same period of time, in other words it took MS till March to ship as many units as Sony has shipped to-date.

It looks like the PS3 is selling at steady rate. There's probably a limit to how many people will spend $500-$600 on a console though.
 

Ryan-G

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This is a fallacy Sony's been trying to spread for a while.

There's no need on the gaming front for 50 gigabyte media at all. DVD's have been available for how many years now? And only in very, very, rare cases have games approached requiring the capacity of a single DVD, a very few games have shipped on 6-7 CD's. Not a single game has exceeded it. That's only around 4 gigs, now Sony wants everyone to believe they must have 10 times the space overnight?

Nor is there anything that's going to come remotely close to filling that space today, tomorrow, or next year. Sure they can store native renders of cutscenes for 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p, they could even store uncompressed cutscenes and sound. It'd start approaching the limits of the capacity, but it wouldn't matter at all. It wouldn't add any gameplay, make a game a moment longer, or make it look significantly better. In fact, It's nothing more than creatively trying to make it look like there's a need for 50 gigabytes and combating piracy.

Unfortunately, that won't change either. Games today take 2-4 years to develop and chew millions of dollars. All to end up in < 4 gigabytes of space. To add gameplay and significant cutscenes to require 50 gigabytes would easily push development time to well over 5 years and with the added artists, put development costs in the tens of millions of dollars. No one can afford that, studios are going bankrupt as it is.

It's also a very major misconception that size == gameplay. The vast majority of space eaten by a game is used by graphics and sound files, the actual game code is a tiny fraction of the space. I have sitting on my computer at this very moment the entire gameplay codebase for a 4x space strategy game and it takes all of 10.2 megabytes of space. This isn't the graphics engine, the graphics, or the sound, they aren't done yet. This is the gameplay, it's really not all that big. Now given, an RPG is going to be somewhat larger, we're still only talking perhaps a few hundred megs. Gameplay was long ago eclipsed by the time and effort the graphics portion of a game takes, companies like Sony just won't tell you that, they'll let you believe 50 gigabytes means more gameplay. Which it doesn't because to fill it would mean 10x more effort and time in artwork.

Sony's Sixaxis controller will likely prove to be useless as well. Wii's controller benefits from being a one handed effort, Sony's controller retains traditional use. While Wii can be swung around like a racket or a sword, Sony's will require the user to switch from traditional use to motion sensor use and back again. It's simply not designed well for motion sensor use like the Wii controller is.

Additionally, the 360 can add that functionality tomorrow if it likes. Just like Sony could add a true one tomorrow if it liked. The USB ports, updatable OS, and wireless capabilities leave them the flexibility to jump on that ship anytime if it proves to have legs. Sony's Sixaxis was just a bad idea from the get go, Sony should've just released a seperate controller for motion sensoring, and stuck with the force feedback.
 

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