| SRLemmiwinks said: I had a very hard time getting through that, but I doubt thats the case. The failure rate is horrendous (its actually 100% of all systems they sold before about August, not 33%, thats just what they average per what ever length of time they record that info) but the system has had some killer games released on it. Your assumption that Microsoft doesnt make money off 3rd party games is incorrect too, they have a very nice percentage guaranteed per game sold on their system. Its not as good as lets say Halo 3, which temporarily pushed them into the Black (amazing how they havnt talked about their money since then uh?) but its still good. Now the assumption that the PS3 will pass the 360 next year is probably correct, the biggest of the big guns are being pulled next year for the PS3 and most of them are first party, its going to be a phenomenal year for them, but that doesnt mean the 360 cant continue to do well enough that they can start to recoup losses. Im not sure why the 360 hasnt been refined enough to start turning profit on each unit, unlike the PS3 which is now just shy of breaking even and will most definitely next year start turning one on each system with the 45nm chips that are being developed for it. Maybe the fix they had to do to kill the Red Ring of Death is so drastic that they have to start from scratch for their refinement, I dont know. But to say that they wont be able to start by next year is probably foolish. If anything will come of their failure to make a dependable system it will be when all those thousands if not hundreds of thousands of 360 owners next year get their red ring and see Gran Turismo 5, LittleBigPlanet, Killzone 2, Home, Metal Gear Solid 4 and maybe Final Fantasy XIII will buy a PS3 and end up sticking with the system. I dont know if someone has said this, but I think the big thing that everyone should be looking for is when the PS3 hits 299 a unit. I think thats about right for people that are still plugging in their Playstation 2's to start buying the PS3, and Ive heard somewhere that 120,000,000 people as an installed user base is a big deal... |
100% of all systems sold before August? Where did you hear that? My 360 Pro is over a year old and hasn't failed yet.
As far as the PS3 being just shy of breaking even, I would be very surprised if this were true. Sony has pulled out all the stops, such as removing PS2-game compatibility, just to get the price down to $400. Blu-ray hardware and the Cell processor aren't *that* cheap yet. If Sony were close to turning a profit on the $400 PS3, then they should be able to make a $200 stand-alone Blu-ray player. They're not even close.
Even if my machine finally gets the RROD, I have a 3-year warranty from MS that will cover the repair. Why would I throw that away, buy a PS3 for $500 (I won't buy one unless it can play my collection of PS2 games, so the $400 model is a dead-end deal as far as I'm concerned), and then no longer be able to take my 360 to the all-night Halo 3 parties I attend every 3 months with about 12 of the guys from my office? I think PS3 fans seriously underestimate the addictive nature of Halo.
Concerning the massive PS2 user base, why would PS2 owners dump their PS2's for the low-end PS3 that doesn't play their large collection of PS2 games? That doesn't make any sense. Sony has really sacrificed too much to get the price down to $400. Even if they slash another $100 dollars off in the next few months, those low end systems still won't play the PS2 games.
To be honest, the PS3 will likely be a successful console for Sony in the end. Will it be a runaway success like the PS2? I doubt it. 3 of the engineers in our department bought PS3s after I bought my 360. I'm still playing it on a daily basis, but they've been complaining lately that their PS3s are becoming just expensive Blu-ray players. They want split screen FPS games (for home gaming parties), but are *really* frustrated that the feature is missing in the PS3 flavors of the games they review, COD3 being one of them. The 360 COD3 has it, but not the PS3 version.
One of them just bought the PC Oblivion Game of the Year and dumped the PS3 version he was playing. He got sick of me talking about playing all the 360 Oblivion downloadable content that hasn't come out for the PS3. I've been trying to get them excited about Drake's Fortune or Heavenly Sword, but about the only thing that interests them is COD4. They complain that they really want to play something like Halo 3. My guess is they'll buy the PC version when it comes out.
So... I'm not sure what Sony's killer strategy actually is. To push PS3 as the successor to PS2? No backwards compatibility on the low end. To be the king of Blu-ray? They might just pull this off, but what about gaming? To get the 3rd-party publishers excited about pushing titles on the PS3? Better get those sales numbers over a million if the games are going to cost over $10 million to make.
I hope the PS3 succeeds, but I'm very puzzled by the pronouncement of it's title as King of the Hill when it's struggling to get out of 3rd place.
