Not sure if I agree with this. Microsoft, all across the board, wants to be profitable on the Xbox business. Halo 3 is going to help (I remember that their only previous profitable quarter was due to Halo 2) but a 20% price cut would kill this plan I think.
I think they’ll depend on having most of the big third party games (all, really, except for Final Fantasy) and Halo 3. Maybe a minor price cut (Elite to $400).
I’ll bite when it’s either under $300 or when/if they steal something like dead rising 2 or get mercs 2 exclusive again or some dickfuck move like that.
I really want to jump in and defend the PS3, and point out how I’m going to be playing Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII and (presumably) Kingdom Hearts 3 and Ratchet & Clank and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Metal Gear Solid 4 and Heavenly Sword and God of War III and others that aren’t coming to mind right now.
And then someone would probably say, “Well yeah, but what the hell are you playing now on your PS3?”
And I’d stall and sputter and then eventually admit that I’m playing old PS2 games on my shiny and fancy PS3.
So, yeah. I know I’ll eventually have plenty of games to play for it, but dammit, I’d like one NOW. I wouldn’t recommend anyone pick one up now – wait until something actually comes out beyond Resistance and Motorstorm (neither of which are worth $600).
$480 for a Blue-ray player (assuming BR wins the format war), and a console that can play GoW3 does sound a bit tempting.
I find it hard to believe that the size of a console has ever been that much of an issue in Japan. You can put a PSP in your pocket, nobody’s buying it. The 360 is marginally larger than a PS2. If there were compelling games and price point for the PS3, people would make space for it… maybe?
The Japanese gaming market seems to be Nintendo’s vision of the future of the gaming market. Easy, pickup and play games, or totally portable persistent games. Which is why even Nintendo said the new Zelda didn’t do as well in Japan as the previous ones.
Yeah, space seems like an unlikely reason when the Wii encourages you to move around a lot. And the Xbox is failing because of the size of the AC adapter? Somebody was bored and decided to yank the chain of some poor interviewer…
Is that strictly true? I mean it’s not selling DS numbers, but it’s still selling decently.
PSP hardware sales continue to be ‘okay’. Software sales are dismal.
That’s my thinking too. I’m waiting for the PS3 to drop in price, so that the 360 will undercut and I can get it for cheaper (in marital karma, as well as $).
Those who don’t think MS will offer a corresponding cut are IMHO del^H^H^Hmistaken. MS absolutely will move to punish Sony and try to dominate the market – this matters far more to Gates et al than quarterly return on investment.
I’m hoping that will turn around once God of War and that action Final Fantasy game come out. I think the problem is really that the system needs to have more established units for a developer to commit to the kind of budget a PSP game needs in order to do well. It may be a handheld, but the games take as much to make as any other full non-handheld game.
Would you want to walk around with a PSP in your pocket though? The thing is not small enough to be convenient to carry around on an everyday basis. It’s not like a cell phone, or wallet-sized.
I have no idea how you go from discussing the size of a portable device, in which size and form is a tremendous factor, to discussing the size of home consoles that are going to sit on a shelf. The reasons why people would care are dramatically different.
The real question, however, is whether or not the goatse guy could fit a PS3 in his ass. If he can’t then you know it’s too large.
At that price point as a gamer when that price finally comes it would prolly be better for me to just wait till the PS4 and rely on the backwards compatability.
A lot of PSP games seem to be the antithesis of what a portable game should be. Even with the DS and PSP sleep modes, you really should be able to play the game in bursts. You can close the lid in the middle of a game of Pokemon and not worry that when you open it up, you’ll be in the middle of some big complicated battle.
Also, the battery life is awful. I go months at a time without turning it on. It’s too much hassle
Battery life is probably the biggest issue with the PSP. It isn’t long enough to take on say, a long plane ride with you (especially with newer games that access the UMD often) so you end up playing in your couch. The problem is that you could have arguably better versions of every PSP game to play on your PS2.
I couldn’t agree less. I think Microsoft is already a lot closer to break-even than they were on the Xbox at this point in the cycle, and I am quite sure they are planning a whopper price cut (say, $100 on ALL models) right when Halo 3 ships.
I mean, they know that the real way to profitability is to turn the 360 into the next PS2… a console that sells for seven to ten years, pushing out 100 million units. This Christmas is a huge step on that road. Halo 3 is their chance to quadruple their market size with a significantly cheaper console (e.g. Core for <$200) and they know it. Once they have 4x the units in the field, they become the dominant next-gen platform (Wii is in its own category) and THEN they REALLY start raking it in, as they drop the production cost even more with their now increased volume. Price elasticity, price elasticity, price elasticity. The PS3 is hardly even on their radar anymore compared to the overall drive to lower price.
In fact, I’d make a bet with you that we see a $100 price cut on the Premium no later than a month after Halo 3 ships. $50 bet sound good to you? I make one $50 bet on the 360 per year, the last one I lost to Brad Grenz by a WHISKER, I tell you, a STINKING WHISKER.
The low-end PS3 (when it was available) was not flying off shelves either, and it was $499. Is a price-drop of the high-end version to $479 somehow going to be massively more appealing?
I can see an uptick of sales due to this, but not salvation.
But hey, maybe in Japan the situation is different.
Neither is a DS?
I have no idea how you go from discussing the size of a portable device, in which size and form is a tremendous factor, to discussing the size of home consoles that are going to sit on a shelf. The reasons why people would care are dramatically different.
Because the developer of Parrapa saying the only reason the Wii is outselling the PS3 is the size. That is fucking ridiculous. The PSP is of comparable size to a DS (I thought most people would draw the obvious comparison) and it does not sell even nearly as well. Now, is that because it’s 3 cm longer? Or is it because the DS has Animal Crossing and Nintendogs?
I don’t think I’ll buy a PS3 until they are $400 or less and there are some exclusive games for it that I really need to play. And as someone who isn’t much of an MGS or FF fan, I have no idea when that might occur – most of the “must play” games that forced me to buy a PS2 were smaller more ecclectic titles that seem more likely to pop up on the Wii (that I already own) than the PS3 this generation. Once it gets down to $350 or so, I’d purchase it just for the Bluray, but until then we wait…
The PS3 almost feels like the Atari 5200 again, for those old enough to remember the second console generation. Atari had a massive market lead and all the momentum, and was destroyed in the 2nd generation by screwing up the 5200 launch, even though it was a technically far superior machine to its competitors (mainly colecovision).
Right now, I wouldn’t buy a PS3 for any price. It needs about 10 games I want to play and two or three that I absolutely have to play. Right now it has nothing.