Where do you live and do you own a gun or a baseball bat?
;)
San Diego, no, and yes.
Sure I’ll drop by Fry’s, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Circuit City after work once a week just to keep a hand in, but it seems to me like there’s a lot of people in this city in the same situation as me. I’m trying not to get frustrated, so I figure it happens when it happens.
I decided to stop looking until they become plentiful and all those package deals go away, and maybe even a price drop happens.
Ad in the local paper today said that our CompUSA was opening at 8am and would have 50 X360’s. I got there at 8:45 and was just in time to see other people standing in line to buy theirs.
If MS could fix its supply problems, it would be kicking ass right now. The demand is clearly still high even after Christmas.
It’s beyond ridiculous that these things aren’t all over the place by now.
Didn’t Bill Gates say not to expect lots of availability until next Christmas at the CES?
What or whomever it is that the Sony execs are praying to, I’m going to start praying to them, because it’s working out quite nicely.
It won’t matter if Sony delays.
What makes you think that Sony’s going to have it any easier?
Yeah, but all are retreads. You don’t need a Sooper PC with a $500 video card to run Call of Duty 2, either. Infinity Ward did a great job with that game. Looks fantastic – better than FEAR, IMHO – yet doesn’t kill wimpier systems. And come on – $600 or whatever it would be for a 360, a racing game, a fighter, a shooter sequel, plus arcade games that have been available via MAME and about a dozen cheap console and handheld collections for years?
Sorry, buying a 360 isn’t a sensible purchase right now, even for a hardcore gamer. Maybe in six months. Though I think next Xmas is more like it, given the supply issues. And then MS is likely going to encounter the PS3, so who knows what the situation will look like?
Well first, see the post above yours.
Secondly they won’t have an MS launch hanging over their heads.
Third, I don’t doubt it will be a rough launch, and that the cell chip isn’t going to be the miracle they want us to believe it is, but Sony has a lot more built in consumer good will burn in a launch screwup MS does.
Lastly, just around the time of the Sony launch the devs will be making the kind of XBox 360 games that will probably port fairly nicely over to the PS3. A few of those along with some of the vast sea of Franchise titles should add a little heat within the first few months of the platform’s life.
What makes you think ports will be easy or that MS will allow a bunch of ports? Everything right now points to PS3 being harder to develop for. I wouldn’t assume ports (other than EA) until we see some evidence. Same thing with the “vast sea of franchise titles”. What makes you think we’ll see more than the traditional 20 or so launch games followed by maybe 10 more games in the month or two after?
Assuming the PS3 launches in the US by Xmas 2006 (a big assumption right now) that’s 20 titles versus what, 60? 80? for Xb360 by next Christmas?
Yes, MS could have done a better job with systems for this Christmas but we are a long way from saying they blew their chance of beating Sony this generation. There are many scenarios that could put Sony in a bad situation.
MS will allow? I don’t think we’re quite at the point where you need MS’s permission to port a product quite yet.
No one is going to be 360 exclusive this generation that isn’t owned by MS. Even though the PS3 may be harder to develop for, if your assets are already paid for, it makes it far more attractive to do the technology work you’re going to end up having to do anyway.
And even if the platform begins as a bitch to develop on Sony has always come through on developer support for their platforms sooner or later.
Same thing with the “vast sea of franchise titles”. What makes you think we’ll see more than the traditional 20 or so launch games followed by maybe 10 more games in the month or two after?
Sorry. I didn’t mean that we’ll see the entire vast sea on launch, just that more titles will be from high profile franchises over the first six months because there are more high profile franchises for Sony to draw from.
Assuming the PS3 launches in the US by Xmas 2006 (a big assumption right now) that’s 20 titles versus what, 60? 80? for Xb360 by next Christmas?
I don’t think numbers matter as much as the consumer awareness of those titles. What Sony needs is a couple of big sequels by next holiday season, and I’m betting they’ll have them.
Yes, MS could have done a better job with systems for this Christmas but we are a long way from saying they blew their chance of beating Sony this generation. There are many scenarios that could put Sony in a bad situation.
From everything I’ve read even MS doesn’t think they’re going to beat Sony this generation.
MS is hoping to beat Sony in Worldwide numbers though. They will definitely concede Japan (for obvious reasons) and perhaps the US as well…I guess it all depends on what kind of a year the 360 has in the US leading to the launch.
Andrew, have you paid attention to any of Sony’s prior launches? I haven’t seen a positive Sony system launch yet and they’ve had three systems.
The cost and difficulty to develop for PS3 is pretty much well known.
I thought the PSP launch was pretty damn stellar. Plenty of systems available (1 million in North America IIRC) and a pretty damn good launch lineup. Post launch game support has sucked but it doesn’t change what was certainly a positive launch.
Which is pretty much my point exactly. At least in the case of the PS2 it was their ability to drive the franchise titles (after the initial drought) that’s put them on top and kept them there.
The cost and difficulty to develop for PS3 is pretty much well known.
If you talked to me aroiund the time of the PS2 launch I would have agreed that this was an issue. But Sony seems to be willing to work to support their dev community, even if it starts out as a mess.
Yeah, but they are going to have an MS price cut plus a bunch of full development lifecycle 360 games. Even at $399 (which I think is on the low side) up against a $299 or $349 premium 360 with Halo 3 and a big library of games it is going to be ugly.
– Xaroc
By saying that MS would need to allow it I was not suggesting they have the ability to force exclusivity but they do have the ability to make permanent or even temporary exclusivity very attractive. Depending upon how aggressive they want to be, MS could create some exclusives that way. At this point my impression is that both Sony and MS are pushing for exclusive franchises, such as Epic doing Gears of War for XB360 but another title for PS3 or Tecmo doing DOA 4 for XB360 but Tekken being a PS exclusive.
Which exclusives become hits could very well determine relative sales for this generation. System selling games account for a high percentage of early system sales which gives the console manufacturer an advantage.
Let me use another example: if PS2 had launched with it’s line-up at the same time XBox had launched with it’s line-up the XBox would have done better overall than it did because Halo was a better system selling game than anything Sony had when PS2 launched. Arguably, it wasn’t until 8 months after the PS2 launched that it’s first real system selling title came out (GT3, hence Sony bundling them from the start). The long-term effect would have been more wide-spread XBox support by developers.
Um, an “example” is something that happened. What you’re doing is called conjecture.
But let’s talk about it. One of the problems that MS has is that doesn’t really own much in terms of IP except for Halo. (Why do you think they bought Rare?) Everything else isn’t really “exlusive”. Sure, they can lock down DOA4 for a while, but ask any Dreamcast owner how long it is before the “deluxe” versionappears on another platform all dolled up with extra costumes and bigger levels.
Meanwhile Sony has a bunch of IP that will only ever appear on a Sony platform. Although, as has been pointed out to me by a good friend of mine, they haven’t really managed to generate much fresh IP on the PS2. God of War is the only one that comes to mind.