Yes, because you like video games. Most people don’t want to spend “a hundred or two more”. :)
What’s your point? We’re talking about the influence on people disposed to buy consoles in the first place.
That is true, but nobody is going to go out of their way to buy a Blu-Ray player and watch 100% upscaled DVDs. Maybe they will when the players cost $100 so people buy them on a lark but not now. My point was, if you go to the store and buy a Blu-Ray player you are going to be watching HD content and you are buying it because you want to watch HD content.
It’s not that weird - we barely watch television at all. We bought the HDTV for movies and games.
I bought an HD-ready TV last year and I don’t have an HD television service. The only HD signal I actually have is my XBox. I just figured that since I was buying a TV (the tube had gone in my old one) and I had the money it made since to buy an HD-ready one. That way if I ever did decide that I simply couldn’t live without an HD service I wouldn’t have the double-whammy of getting SkyHD (the only HD service in my part of the world) and getting a compatible TV. It’s called future-proofing.
I’m referring to the challenges of getting the average consumer to adopt the new format, not people who Brad Grenz rightly referred to as “people disposed to buy consoles in the first place”. Maybe I derailed a bit :) But to me, Blu-ray “saving” PS3 is partly dependent on a greater adopter of Blu-ray in the first place, if one thinks that buying a cheaper Blu-ray player is the path to saving the PS3 from third-place this round.
Normal concsumers don’t replace their video library every time a new format comes along. Look at DVDs. Except for the early adopters, studios had to create all sorts of other reasons to get DVDs to be purchased (directors cuts, commentary, other foozles).
Financial analysts weigh in:
Mike Hickey, Janco Partners: The PS3 will eventually receive an awakening as Blu-ray becomes the winning format, this will lead to larger install base and motivate third-party developers to the PS3.
Michael Pachter, Wedbush Morgan Securities: Says Sony once said 70 - 80% of PS2 owners treated it as their first DVD player, he believes the same will hold true for HD movies – except that there is currently only a 10% penetration with 1080p televisions. He also says there will be a sales spike later this year coinciding with another price cut.
Colin Sebastian, Lazard Capital Markets: He says when consumers decide they “need” a Blu-ray player it certainly can’t hurt the PS3, especially if its games improve and hardware prices decline.
David Cole, DFC Intelligence: Doesn’t believe Blu-ray is a determining factor in the console wars, but it is a nice bonus. He believes if a consumer were stuck choosing between two gaming platforms that were equal, then the Blu-ray might tip them over to the PS3. But he says the list for consumers goes: Price, good exclusive games, and, finally, Blu-ray.
My sister bought an expensive HDTV (could get the same for less), and she
doesn’t have ONE HD channel. She even has the DVD player, perfectly
capable of using real outputs, hooked up through fucking SCART.
I hate her.
Unfortunately, only Lazard is the only bank there with any name recogntion. Why can’t we find analysts from JP Morgan, Citi or Goldman?
I think the OP’s actual question was, “Will the PS3 outsell the Wii and 360 this year?”
i agree with the analyst who said it comes down to 1. Price, 2. Exclusives, 3. Blu-Ray … though I would switch “exclusives” and “price” around.
this year really depends on Sony’s exclusives to come through. they cannot afford MGS4 getting a lukewarm reception or Home turning out to be a bust or Killzone 2 being panned or GT5 or FF13 getting further delayed.
Sony has a great game lineup – on paper – for 2008. these games need to live up to expectations. they need to make fencesitters and Wii/360 owners drool. if they don’t, it’s just going to further ingrain PS3’s reputation as nice hardware with nothing to play on it.
I question your 90% estimate. PS3 owners are often too busy playing games and watching DVD’s (and TV on DVD) to bother with cable. In fact, I don’t know of any of my friends who own both a PS3 and an HD cable subscription.
Our household has all the game systems, a 50" HDTV, internet access, and no cable. And it will always be that way.
I’ve got HD cable, Discovery HD alone makes it worth it.
Network television looks a lot better in HD, too.
Yeah, I think there is a bigger difference between the SD and HD broadcast of an NFL game than there is between a DVD and an HD disk. I can’t believe how bad CBS NFL SD feed is.
Purely anecdotal drivel:
I got a call from my least hi-tech friend tonight. He had recently goen on quite a stretch to get a Wii for the kids for Christmas. A few years ago I kidnapped him and drove him to Best Buy to get real cables for his DVD (he was using yellow/red/white). We ended up leaving with the cables and a minor surround sound system (formorly he was using his TV speakers, ick).
His news in the call was that he bought a PS3. I was floored. Apparently the breaking Blu-ray news was enough to convince him that Blu-ray was going to win the format wars and it didn’t make any sense to spend X dollars for a Blu-ray player when he could spend a little more and get a gaming system as well. Meanwhile he hasn’t bought any PS3 games nor does he have any plans to.
Strange but true.
Resistance is futile.
I bought a Toshiba A2 at that Walmart sale before xmas…and I was hoping HD-DVD would win but alas fortunes change…
If I get a blu ray player, it will be a PS3 even though I’m not into consoles much anymore…I think Blu Ray winning, if it does, will affect the PS3 a good deal.
Resistance is actually pretty good!
It was never as certainly doomed as some people would have had you believe. There were a lot of reasons why it was okay to have a slow start (almost a full year left of really strong PS2 sales among them), and the format war has always had only one outcome. The only question was how long that would take – and that always depended to a large degree on how many people the HD camp convinced to help them play spoiler for as long as possible.
Toshiba was never going to beat Sony, Philips, and Panasonic all at the same time. It just wasn’t going to happen – and the hardware partner list was available from day one to demonstrate that most of the industry felt the same way. The key lesson from VHS vs BETA wasn’t Sony, wasn’t format, wasn’t anything else. It was one thing: partners. And Sony’s lack of them wasn’t for a lack of trying. It’s a lesson that they learned well.
Either way, man is falling.