Reflections on a Failing Game Console

[Darth Marsden]

Yes it's biased, yes it's silly, but dammit all if there isn't a grain of truth buried under the madness. (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/playstation-failure.php)

Highlights:

In March, 2007 the PS3 sold 130,000 units. To put that into perspective the Gameboy Advance sold 148,000 units. The PS3 is basically getting beat by a fucking Super Nintendo.

Nobody gives a damn about the beauty of games. It's mostly goons and that's it. The rest of the video game buying public bought a PlayStation 2 because playing a couple games on a Saturday night while smoking weed and hanging out with your buddies is about the most exciting thing to them, and they aren't thinking about the artistic meaning of Ico, but how much fun it is to get drunk, get high, and play Madden.

It's Star Fox Adventures all over again. In the end, it's just another blunder in the hilarious timeline of the PlayStation 3.

[Warlock]

The Starfox Adventures comment is actually in reference to Warhawk, which made a complete 180 in design from a flight-simulator-esce game to tactical shooter. And that's a pretty apt analogy :)

It is a biased article but I think that was supposed to be the point. At the very least, they don't call any of the others "better", and even call Xbox 360 crappy (but "better because the price tag is $200 cheaper" :D), so it's not like you have a Nintendo or Microsoft fanboy spouting out against the competition. It's only biased in the fact that they already think the PS3 is crap going into it, and just point out some reasons why.

Those Kutaragi quotes crack me up every time I read them tho :)

[Pineconn]

"I believe we made the most beautiful thing [the PS3] in the world. Nobody would criticize a renowned architect's blueprint that the position of a gate is wrong. It's the same as that."

Hehe. :p

[The_Amaster]

I think it most suffered form over-hype. If they hadn't made it out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread than people wouldn't be so dissapointed in it's mediocrity. Or, rather, some awsome stuff and some horrible stuff that average out to mediocre. I still umm, hate is a strong word, umm dislike Sony quite a bit, tho.

[MottZilla]

I think it most suffered form over-hype.

No, it suffered most from the 600$ price tag. It clearly didn't have enough hype to get enough people to buy a 600$ machine. It still doesn't. It's pretty obviously until the price drops very significantly the system is for the hardcore and no one else.

[Aegix Drakan]

It also doens't help that there are no good games for it yet...

[Orion]

I would have to agree with Mott here. If the PS3 were $300-400, it would be right up there with the Wii in sales. Because let's face it, Wii doesn't have much online support either, or that many original games. The vast majority of games out are projects brought over from the Cube.

I actually ponder what would happen if Sony made a model that dropped the Blu-ray drive. I know it would be impossible because it wouldn't be able to play the games already on Blu-ray discs, but I think Sony would be in a much smaller hole. Besides, I'm still holding out for the day where I can download my movies and games onto an internal HDD.

[Glenn the Great]

I actually ponder what would happen if Sony made a model that dropped the Blu-ray drive. I know it would be impossible because it wouldn't be able to play the games already on Blu-ray discs, but I think Sony would be in a much smaller hole.

This is what I have felt. The world isn't ready for Blu-ray yet, and I feel there is more that can be done with DVDs. Sony should have capitalized on the other areas of the hardware, and it would have brought the final price down significantly.

I agree that pricing was the primary issue. There is a critical breaking point where a price becomes so high that people just won't buy it, and the PS3 surpassed that.

While the game selection is poor, I honestly think that if the only thing Sony did differently was give the PS3 a decent price, then everyone would be raving about Fall of Man right now.

[MottZilla]

I think it's thought by many that the PS3 could have been like the instant success of the PS2 if they'd managed to get that price down. Taking of Blu-ray could have done just that too. I forget exactly what it costs Sony for doing Blu-ray opposed to DVD, but it's atleast 100$ added to the unit cost. Later on down the line the Blu-ray will ofcourse be cheaper and not such a problem.

Really though the key to PS3's success is all in the price and when and how much they lower it. The Xbox 360 offers a very similar (and in many eyes better) experience for 200$ less. 200$ is a serious chunk of change. The interesting thing is Sony "has no plans to cut price" anytime soon. They really aren't going to put out any games that will make people pay 600$ for a console. In Europe strangely they have retailers doing price cuts on PS3s. Strangely no such thing in the states.

[Darth Marsden]

That's because retailers are willing to take a loss on the console in order to get rid of them. People over here have realized it's not as great as it could have been, and are going for the other consoles - the 360 and the Wii. It's not that difficult to pick up a PS3 over here - it's just a matter of wanting to. And people don't. Hence the desperate price-cuts by stores to try and get people interested in them. I don't know if it's working, but I'm really hoping it won't.

[mrz84]

In Europe strangely they have retailers doing price cuts on PS3s. Strangely no such thing in the states.

Maybe that will open Sony's eyes sooner in America and drop the price sooner....that is if they can get their heads outta their asses. I think they're just not dropping the prices and all that due to a little thing called pride, one of supposedly seven deadly sins. :kitty:

[Orion]

I think if Sony does it just right, they can recoup some of their losses. Once they drop the price, maybe by $100 (hopefully more, if they're smart) down the line, it'll be like a new console launch all over again. It would be fairly big news and I think people would be excited over it (because let's face it, most of the Sony audience doesn't keep up with gaming news and therefore doesn't hold a grudge with them because of the moronic things they have said lately). Except by that time, there should be some worthwhile games in the library already.

Dammit how I wish I wouldn't have sold my 360. I've got a craving to play it again.

[Cloral]

Price is definately hampering its sales. I spoke recently with a friend of my from college who now lives in Florida. He was thinking of getting one of the new game systems because of the new Naruto game coming out (and yes, he only cares about it because he is a Naruto fan) and asked me how much the 360 elite was. I told him it was like $470, and he responded that he thought that the 360 was supposed to be the cheaper console. I told him it was, that the PS3 was $130 more than that, and he basically said that there was no way he would spend that much on a console. So for a casual gamer like him, $600 is simply an intractable amount to pay. And I think that's one of the reasons why the Wii has done so well. $250 is a reasonable amount to pay to most people, while $600 or even $400 is not.

[Beldaran]

The problem with the PS3 is, to quote Ken Kutaragi, "it's not a gaming system". Well, god damn it, I want to buy a gaming system. I don't want to buy a $600 "gaming system" that comes with $300 worth of horse shit.

If sony wants to pimp their blue ray players, they should market them like blue ray players and stop trying to cram them up the ass of the gaming public.

[MottZilla]

But that's where you're wrong. Sony had a large base with PS and PS2, and by including Blu-ray technology in the PS3, they make their user base their bitch base, forcing them to take Blu-ray in hopes that when they start buying high definition movie discs they will buy Blu-ray versions. It's not a stupid thing to do, just the wrong thing to do atleast in the early launch time of the system.

Everyone generally agrees dropping Blu-ray would have allowed the system to be priced lower and that would have increased sales since launch certainly. Infact I can't believe that the PS3 models 60GB and 20GB, that there really was more interest in the 60GB model. Honestly I could see alot of people more interested in the 20GB which is now discontinued. The only reason I can think is that early adopters are ofcourse less likely to worry about the high cost.

But down the road I'm sure people would like that $100 cheaper model.

[Beldaran]

And Motzilla wins "Avatar of the Month"