So, i was thinking about selling my car to buy a PS3 B) I cant believe this, I remember back in the 90's when Neo Geo came out and it was like 600 dollars and everyone said it was for rich kids...now its getting like that again. Any word if new games are gonna be $60?
It has been rumoured for about a year about the $59.95 games and the new pricing schemes for both the 360 and the ps3, and the reason why they've stated the price increase is because they are taking bigger losses on the hardware side of things.
Their thoughts on this is if you buy a new system and just 1 or 2 full-priced games, you're ripping the company off, but if you buy 5 or more games at full price, they actually get to make a little bit of money. I believe they call it subsidizing the hardware, but it seems to be a standard in today's gaming.
I really hope that these new prices are only initial prices and that the hardware companies will do like they did on the last round. With all of the competition with ps2, gamecube, and xbox, you had some games coming out at $19.99, and even a lot of the ones that came out at $49 soon became $29, and then $19.99. A lot of those skipped the $39.99 and $29.99 price marks completely.
I believe that pricing competition was mainly because of the XBOX and its likeness to the PC. Since the xbox and its software are considered appx 95% PC code, and only 5% xbox-only or xbox-encryption, it's both economically cheaper and easier to release software at a more affordable price.
The difference in this next round is that all of the game companies are using other types of processors, and it will actually cost more money and time programming xbox 360 games, and a lot of time and money developping ps3 games, because sony made their console very very hard to program (ala n64 all over again) for, and then there are the cpu/speed limitations of the nintendo WII, which could also almost eliminate nintendo from competing with sony and microsoft in high-graphical games. If some one is developping games for around the 3ghz cpu (360, ps3) they're probably not going to want to port a lot of those games to a 500mhz cpu (wii).
That may mean the end of economical gaming, or at the very least, a longer wait for the prices to fall. The only upside to subsidized gaming is that sooner or later, game companies have to figure out a way to make back their money from the gamers that only bought a console for 1 or 2 games. If their prices don't decrease, to cater to the needs of the people who only bought 1-2 games, then they have to sell more full priced games to the people who bought 5 games initially.
Sony would probably consider me some one who has ripped them off, not because I did any modding or any thing to their ps2, but because I've only bought like 3 new games for their system total. Two of those were bargain basement games. So, that's only really 1 full priced game.
However, Microsoft would probably consider me a good customer. I've bought the system pretty early on, and appx 30 or so new games, at least half of them full priced, the other half bargain basement, and my xbox is modded. It's like one of the greatest networked media players and console emulator machines in the world. It plays snes, nes, neo geo, neocd, sega genesis, sega cd, 32x, playstation, turbo duo, atari 2600, coleco, gba, arcade, and a ton of stuff great. Not all of the arcade stuff plays full speed, but most of them do.
One of the bad things I'm hearing about Sony now, according a few articles on the web, is that Sony is trying to impliment a system which it will be illegal to re-sell or rent out PS3 games. They're going to try to play a Microsoft Windows and say "When you buy a game, you're only buying the license to play it, and never actually own any physical media or data on that media" - These ps2 blu-ray discs are likely to have a write once area on them, that basically will allow a certain code to be copied to the drive (or to the media) only one time, tying that media to one gaming machine.
What this means is if your machine ever bites the dust, you will not be able to play your games on a new machine. I'm sure sony will have some type of backup plan like "send us $39 per game, the original disc, and the receipt, and we'll send you out new games".
This also means you can't trade or borrow other peoples games, or take your games to a friend's house to play on his/her machine. I see a lot of nightmares in this setup, and it's also possible that sony will abandon this before the ps3's release. I think it's a good idea, if you plan on buying a PS3, to e-mail sony with your concerns about it. Tell them you're going to boycott their company if they go through with it. Ultimately, if they do go through with it, I believe that would make them more of a target for illegal modding than any other company in gaming history.
So, let's review what we know about sony's ps3.
#1: Very expensive ($600+ range)
#2: Very very hard to program for (ala n64)
#3: The new system comes out a lot later than the 360, which is pretty much established now
#4: Sony has lost several exclusive rights to game companies (meaning these companies will not release games only to sony's systems any more)
#5: Blu-Ray Technologies are not perfected (buggy and no true dual layer yet)
#6: At least one video game TV series has predicted a 50% decrease in sony's marketshare (electric playground)
#7: Not only is the game system expensive in today's economy, but also is a lot more expensive than both the 360 and the WII (wii rumoured to be around $250)
#8: Sony doesn't want you to buy, rent, or trade used games, potentially eliminating current gen sales from winter 06 to possibly forever on, if other video game developers follow
#9: Sony will possibly make it extremely difficult to replace games, due to each game being tyed in to the first gaming system they are played in. How much are they going to charge to replace each and every game? and how long will they support this? Some people still play their original atari 2600 systems, 30 years on. That likely won't happen with the ps3, if they go forward.
#10: Just like any gaming system, buying in to the first release or 2nd or 3rd revisions will lead to a lot of problems, I predict, based on video game history.
#11: They ripped off the look of the turbo duo.
#12: Not only have they lost a few exclusive rights, but they have also lost a few developers completely to the 360. (Meaning a few developers have ditched sony for some thing that's easier to program and more economical)
Do you still want a PS3? It may sound like I'm trying to dump on Sony, but I'm pretty much neutral about game systems. I hate to see one company in the spotlight for so long, especially for this technology that has progressed out of the stupidity of nintendo. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, in the SNES days, nintendo was working with philips and sony to develop an optical SNES drive. Nintendo backed out, and both Philips and Sony made their own machines, because they had licenses to both nintendo's characters and hardware designs.
Well, Philips made the CD-I and quite a few nintendo character titles (zelda, mario) and sony made the playstation. The CD-I was a machine marketted towards edutainment. A lot of education games, a few laserdisc ports, and vcds, which was a flop. With nintendo's demise (aka not wanting to move with the technology, then later building the n64, another flop) square enix moved along with sony, which is ultimately why the playstation became so popular. It wasn't really because of cd-rom drives, as you can see from the very limited success of the turbo grafx cd, turbo duo, 3do, neo geo cd, and sega cd in the US, although I imagine that helped when you started seeing some of the video in 32-bit+.
A big thing that some of the older gaming systems tried to market was "cd-rom sound". The genesis sound pretty much sucked, but back then, no one really cared about sound, and even today, as surround sound is getting more popular, most gamers don't even have surround systems. There were a few games that people probably would have liked. I think Lords of Thunder had a pretty bad-a$$ heavy metal soundtrack. If you also remember, the sega cd tried to use qsound, which is basically a virtual surround sound that comes from just stereo speakers. Sonic CD was one of the games that used it, and several arcades used it. I wasn't impressed.
The NeoGeo.. man, if you had a neo geo cartridge system when it came out (and the money to buy games for it), I'm sure you would have been the king (or queen) of the block (or in my case, the whole city, population 270 or so lol).
I remember playing samurai showdown and magician lord a lot in the arcades a lot, and metal slug a little bit... I think there was also a neo geo football game I use to play.
I believe the 3do was also considered the rich kids gaming system when it first came out. John Madden 3DO commercials use to come on quite a bit, and I thought "wow, this football game looks real," but I never got a chance to play it. However, Road Rash would have been my reason for really wanting to buy one, if I could have afforded the system back then. I had to settle for the sega cd version, which was probably one of the most awesome sega cd games at the time too. Star Control was also a great game, but there isn't much else that impressed me about the 3DO.
Good points....but I only like sony due to the anime games, I dont see xbox getting too many japanese games.
This is ridiculous, they see the Playstation name and just assume everyone will go crazy and pony up that type of cash. I predict Sony's 2 Gen run of being the Console leader will end this time around.
I'm not sure you can blame any company about how much their console is, because pretty much all game companies subsidize their consoles. What that means is that they put out more money, initially at least, than they charge.
Now, what you can blame sony on is competing against the almighty microsoft, because more mhz doesn't mean that the console is going to be better or worse than any other. Besides, sony is an established video game company now. So, they have less to prove.
And then, you have the buggy blu-ray technology, which cost an arm and a leg alone. I believe I read some where that just the blu-ray drive alone is costing sony appx $100.
So, let's take a look at some of the things sony could have done to make it cheaper. They could have went with a 2 or 2.4ghz (they're using 3.2ghz) processor, maybe settled with a slightly less expensive video chip, main ram, and/or video ram, take out bluetooth support and/or support for 7 controllers built in. Really, how many people actually play more than 1 or 2 players? But 7? Come on.. Six USB slots...... What the hell... They could have just had 2 usb ports and support for a hub, if any one ever needed more. Cell-Based Sound Processing??? What the hell is that? Full HD X 2 Channels?!?!?!? Ethernet 1xinput and 2xoutput?!?!?! lol... Plus 802.11g/b wifi, plus PSP Wi-Fi. HDMI out X 2. This is getting rediculous.
It seems as though Sony wanted you to have every thing every person would ever want, with out having to buy many other accessories, but it's only going to really cater to the needs of some rich turds that have 2 hi-def 1080p televisions side by side that some times uses wired lan, other times uses wifi lan, and some times uses wired controllers, while other times uses bluetooth, and some times likes to connect his psp to his ps3, has it hooked to a surround sound theater system, and frequently plays with 6 other players in john madden or nba 08, and also uses 6 usb items. All I can think of that would even use USB possibly are eyetoy and a keyboard.
So, take blu-ray out, and that would probably save $95. Take the hdmi splitter out, and that may save as much as $15-$20, have 2 usb ports and just allow USB hubs to be bought seperately ($4-$6-$8 saved?) lower the processor to 2 or 2.4ghz = $50-$75-$100 saved? Take this bluetooth crap out and allow it as a buyable accessory (usb adapter) = $???. I really like the wifi option, but make it a buyable accessory for $60-$70. Take those things away, and those alone would probably make consoles $250+ cheaper for consumers.
I don't know about you, but I'm not going to be playing any 7 player games.
In the end, it's the choices Sony has made which will tell you how much they will charge for the consoles. The first thing is the features they've decided to impliment, as I've talked about, and then the 2nd thing is how they were able to negotiate prices of the chip/part makers and where the consoles are made. Are they being made in Japan, or are they going to be made in Taiwan or Hong Kong. If made in Japan, they'll be more expensive to manufacture. If made in Hong Kong or Taiwan, then generally cheaper to make.
The point is, in some point in time, probably at least a year ago, Sony had to have a good idea of how much it was going to cost for each console. They made their choice to go forward with it, instead of taking out some of the features.