Playstation 3 pricing announced

[Ashrem Bayle]

I saw an interview on G4 from E3. I forgot who it was but he said that Sony mad it harder for 3rd person devolpers to make games for the PS3 due to the way they designed the hardware. This will turn alot of devolpers off.

John Carmack, inventor of Doom. See my post above.

 

[trancejeremy]

I think people are missing that Sony is not dropping the PS2, like MS did with the Xbox. Sony's marketshare has probably increased since the 360 launch, because the PS2 has outsold the 360+ original Xbox.

The 360 might have a larger user base than the PS3, but it's still 70 million behind the PS2.

Besides, I think whatever the price, the PS3 will sell as many units as Sony can make for the first year or so. Look at the 360 - the limiting factor hasn't been price for it, but availability.

I think charging $600 a console is the only way Sony can stay in business. Because as someone else pointed out, Sony is not doing all that well (outside the game division) - they don't have billions in cash just lying around like MS does. They simply can't afford to lose a ton of money on each one, like MS can.

 

[drothgery]

I think people are missing that Sony is not dropping the PS2, like MS did with the Xbox. Sony's marketshare has probably increased since the 360 launch, because the PS2 has outsold the 360+ original Xbox.

Microsoft's trying to get rid of the original Xbox because they lose money the hardware. If they didn't, they'd at least have cut prices to clear out inventory. So now we've got a strange situation where the PS2 is significantly cheaper than the Xbox, and where the last good PS2 games are coming out soon (or have already been released in Japan).

Ready availability of the 360 (pretty nearly the case now), a $199 Wii, some availability of PS3s, and the drying up of new high-profile PS2 games after this year should cause PS2 sales to fall a lot after this year. Heck, after this year most PS2 sales will probably be replacements for people whose PS2 has broken after the warranty expired and who can't afford a PS3.

 

[trancejeremy]

Huh? Don't look at 1080p - that is tech that will be the average 3-5 years from now. That tech isn't needed to provide an HD picture. 720p or 1080i is the current sweet spot.

Any TV that has component inputs and can produce at least a 720p picture is considered HD.

As for your question about 480p - Have you seen a picture at 480 vs. 1080i/720p? There is a definite difference. It's also about the output. Downsampling is exactly what is sounds like: going downhill.

The best example I can think of is music. Compare a current stereo system with a tape deck and CD player. The same song on a cassette vs a CD.

1080p might not be common now, but that is what the new DVD formats and the PS3 is aiming for.

Normal widescreen DVDs are 720x480 I think.
Blue Ray/HD DVDs are 1920x1080
720p HDTVs are 1280x720

I actually don't know which is worse, upscaling to 720p from 480 or down from 1080. I do know that 360 games on a regular TV look pretty bad. And really, it also all depends on how big the TV is.

But my point was, the PS3 is really aimed at people with 1080p TVs - they will get the most benefit. And if you have one of those, then you can certainly afford a $600 console.

 

[John Crichton]

1080p might not be common now, but that is what the new DVD formats and the PS3 is aiming for.

Normal widescreen DVDs are 720x480 I think.
Blue Ray/HD DVDs are 1920x1080
720p HDTVs are 1280x720

I actually don't know which is worse, upscaling to 720p from 480 or down from 1080. I do know that 360 games on a regular TV look pretty bad. And really, it also all depends on how big the TV is.

But my point was, the PS3 is really aimed at people with 1080p TVs - they will get the most benefit. And if you have one of those, then you can certainly afford a $600 console.

It's not aimed at people with 1080p TVs. Why? Because they aren't in wide production or circulation yet. If you simply meant high-end TVs, please ignore this because if that is what you ment than I agree. That said, 1080p is great, but not mind-blowingly better than 720p or 1080p. I would say that the univentented 1560p would be a huge leap towards a relatively affordable upgrade to 720p/1080i which now are at the top of the visual heap.

In short - They are aiming at people with displays that can handle HD. The PS2 is for everything else (which we seem to agree on). Anyone wanting a PS3 already has a TV where DVDs look great and they are getting a HD signal for TV shows.

 

[John Crichton]

Microsoft's trying to get rid of the original Xbox because they lose money the hardware. If they didn't, they'd at least have cut prices to clear out inventory. So now we've got a strange situation where the PS2 is significantly cheaper than the Xbox, and where the last good PS2 games are coming out soon (or have already been released in Japan).

Naw, Japan still has some quality PS2 titles on the way. The only one I can think of right now is God of War 2, but there a few more.

Ready availability of the 360 (pretty nearly the case now), a $199 Wii, some availability of PS3s, and the drying up of new high-profile PS2 games after this year should cause PS2 sales to fall a lot after this year.

I dunno if the high-profile PS2 games will stop in 2006. If history is any indicator than the PS2 will still have top level releases for at least a year after the PS3 is out, which means that the holiday season of 2007 may still have some hits on the way.

It's hard to ignore the largest user base in the world - PS2 owners. The games will still sell if they are any good.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Maybe I'm not making my point entirely clear, or maybe I'm just being obtuse in understanding the rebuttal.

A thousand dollars is a lot of money. And if we're going to take the $500 30" CRT TV, that's $1000 for a barebones system (TV + console) to take advantage of the high-def features that are being toted as selling points for both the 360 and PS3. That is a lot of money... more than I think the average consumer is going to spend. Like I said before, maybe this has changed over two years, but in my experience, people did not often buy $500 dollar televisions. Because of this, features like HD don't mean as much as they are being toted to.

As to the arguement that they are playing to the HD crowd? Of course they are! At the prices that are being put forth, only the total enthusiasts are going to buying the stuff. Since they know that they are both dazzled by high-end technology and going to spend large sums of money on electronics, why not price it as high as it can go? I don't think it's a bad strategy... I just don't think that it's a winning one. The key to controlling a market isn't the fringe groups, it's the middle ground.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume most of the people in this thread are not average consumers. If you're not balking at a thousand dollars, either you're making quite a bit of money (not average) or electronics is a hobby/passion (not average). If you're spouting off display ratios and know the difference between plasma and LCD and DLP, you're probably not the average consumer. I think that's the biggest point that I'm trying to get across and failing. We (and yes, I do mean we... I plan on spending some good money tomorrow on an iPod) are not the average consumers. We can talk about 1080p all we want, but most people don't even know what the "p" stands for, let alone what it means. Those are the people who won't pay six-hundred dollars for a console. And there are a lot of them.

 

[John Crichton]

I think Sony made a big mistake with the PS3's CPU, and may get away with it because Microsoft and Nintendo made smaller ones; they probably won't get away with it, because the PS3's price will consign the PS3 to second place at best outside of Japan, and because even at $600, they're taking a loss that they really can't afford to on each console. No one has ever made money selling consoles at a launch; only Microsoft has ever built marketshare that way.

I am curious: what should have Sony and Microsoft done? And keep in mind that you only have the release dates to work with. You have to launch the console when they did. What hardware changes should Sony have made for the PS3 that would make the most sense?

It's also worth noting that Sony's not doing very well lately, oustside of the PS2. Their consumer electronics lines are in trouble due to Samsung, Apple, and a bunch of others. The movie industry isn't doing well, and Sony's properties are no exception. Same goes for music. They're far less capable of taking big losses from consoles than Microsoft.

I don't think it's that big of a deal. They still have viable revenue streams from the PS2 and the PSP, which is selling well. That means the gaming division is okay. And to boot, I'll wait until Sony starts not making stuff and selling it at a premium to declare they aren't doing well financially. They make not be making as much as in the past, sure. I don't think that makes a huge difference when discussing the launch price of the PS3. The Blu-Ray player alone will cost $900-1000 to the public.

Researchers have been putting enormous amounts of effort into finding ways to make multi-threaded programming easier for decades. And they haven't gotten very far in doing it. So I'm extremely skeptical of any major breakthroughs in the next five years.

And when the biggest names in PC game programming say that there's very little benefit to multi-threading in games -- and almost none beyond two threads -- I believe them.

That's all well and good but how does that effect games? Make them look crappy? Makes the AI harder to program? I know I sound like I'm just arguing at this point but what does multithreading actually do? How will it makes gaming better? I'm really curious.

 

[Zappo]

Maybe I'm not making my point entirely clear, or maybe I'm just being obtuse in understanding the rebuttal.

A thousand dollars is a lot of money. And if we're going to take the $500 30" CRT TV, that's $1000 for a barebones system (TV + console) to take advantage of the high-def features that are being toted as selling points for both the 360 and PS3. That is a lot of money... more than I think the average consumer is going to spend. Like I said before, maybe this has changed over two years, but in my experience, people did not often buy $500 dollar televisions. Because of this, features like HD don't mean as much as they are being toted to.

I agree. I wouldn't spend a thousand for a gaming system, or for a video system. Luckily, I don't really care that much about HD. So, in buying the "cheaper" PS3, I will be spending 500$ for both a gaming system and a video system that matches my requirements (of being the best that my TV can display). I would have liked it to be cheaper, but I can't honestly say it's a bad deal.

 

[John Crichton]

Maybe I'm not making my point entirely clear, or maybe I'm just being obtuse in understanding the rebuttal.

A thousand dollars is a lot of money...

[snipped logic]

..We can talk about 1080p all we want, but most people don't even know what the "p" stands for, let alone what it means. Those are the people who won't pay six-hundred dollars for a console. And there are a lot of them.

It's too early in the morning for me to read your pesky logic and thoughfully respond. Therefore, I will resort to violence! Ha, HA!

* uses force lightning on LP *

Bet you didn't see that coming!