MikeB said: @ starcraft This may not be the thread for it, but that is a very misinformed statement. Thats not how console generations work. Generally in this industry, success breeds success, failure or mediocre achievement does not breed success. The PS3 is way higher specced and ahead of its time than the original Playstation (and PS2) was for its time of release and thus more highly priced (twice as highly priced for the US at launch than the PSX). Despite this the PS3 sold nearly triple the amount by the end of fiscal year 2007 than Sony sold Playstations by the 31th of March 1996. What you call to be a mediocre performance is a much better performance than your much praised 360 did at a much lower entry pricing and nearly all big sequels already out on the market and a complete lack of support for the original XBox (compared to the still alive and supported PS2). I feel confident to say your precious 360 will end up being a distant third for this generation. We'll see who's right and who's wrong when Final Fantasy XIII and a slimline PS3 launches.

This has become something of the classic Sony fan response to criticism of the PS3. Deviate from the point by attacking the Xbox 360. There wasn't a single mention of the Wii in your response, despite its success being the main point of my post.

You continue to laud the technical specifications of the PS3 as a reason for its guarenteed long-term success, despite the fact its been shown to be similar in capabilities to the Xbox 360, and the fact that previous generations (not to mention the handheld market) have shown us technical specifications rarely play a part in determining sales. Given you're tendency to misrepresent launch periods and sales, I'll withhold comment on your PSX point unless you're willing to specify which regions you are referring to specifically. But I will point out that you once again ignored the fact that a far more relevant comparison would have been to place the PS3 against its current competitor, the Wii, which has outsold it by 3 to 1 so far in Japan. This despite the immense strength of Sony's brandname built up over the course of 12 years of console industry dominance.

Ignoring the clear evidence that the Xbox 360 has stolen masses of PS2 customers, and will continue to do so for at least 2-3 years to come, we'll deal with you're fundamental failure to grasp the tendencies of the industry to lean towards an established victor.

The PS3 is losing exclusives to multiplatform status, and losing games entirely to Microsoft moneyhatting or Wii-dominance. Its now accepted wisdom that all third party games that are not bought will either go to the Wii, the Xbox 360+PS3 combo, or the PC+Xbox 360 combo. This, combined with the expense of the PS3 and the blow Sony's prestige has taken over the last eighteen months has proven sufficient to ensure that the PS3 will never approach the Wii's sales, and will never gain a lead over the Xbox 360 sufficient enough to warrant PS3-exclusive third party titles on economic viability grounds. The same factors combine to ensure that the PS3 will not have nearly the tail that the PS2 has. The PS2's tail has little to do with the fact its a Sony console, and much to do with the fact it is inexpensive and received masses of exclusive third party support. The PS3 will never be as cheap as either the Wii or Xbox 360, and will never have as many third party exclusives as either of those two consoles. It won't have as many as the Wii because of its incredible sales and it wont have as many as the Xbox 360 because of its one year head start.

 

@ starcraft

I am very happy with Nintendo's great performance with the Wii, but I don't see it stand in the way of the PS3's long term strategy at all. The PS3 wasn't designed to sell at Wii levels anyway, that would be far too costly early on in the game.

The 360 is much more geared towards a similar gaming experience, but IMO the PS3 is far better specced despite some early 360 to PS3 porting issues and what this suggest to you. I also applaud third parties going multi-platform for games where it makes sense (not holding back potential advantage related to Blu-Ray, Cell, bandwidth, default harddrive or motion sensing controls) and does not translate into sacrifices regarding the PS3 version like for the upcoming Ghostbusters game, IMO it would have been better for that game to be PS3 HD game engine exclusive.

MikeB said: @ starcraft I am very happy with Nintendo's great performance with the Wii, but I don't see it stand in the way of the PS3's long term strategy at all. The PS3 wasn't designed to sell at Wii levels anyway, that would be far too costly early on in the game. The 360 is much more geared towards a similar gaming experience, but IMO the PS3 is far better specced despite what some early 360 to PS3 porting issues and what this suggest to you. I also applaud third parties going multi-platform for games where it makes sense (due to Blu-Ray, Cell, default harddrive or motion sensing controls) and does not translate into sacrifices regarding the PS3 version like for the upcoming Ghostbusters game, IMO it would have been better for that game to be PS3 exclusive.

Better for who?  Sony?  Or for the consumers that would be forced to buy a very expensive console to play Ghostbusters?

At the end of the day, Sony produced a system that is economically unsustainable for all but the largest of publishers to produce on exclusively, and shoe-horns in an expensive media device that has thus far proven unnecessary for large scale high definition games, the cost of which must now be borne by gamers rather than the industry or film consumers.

You've simply jumped on the bandwagon of PS3 fans that have switched from "PS3 will dominate" to, "PS3 will dominate, but Wii doesn't count."

It is OBVIOUSLY in direct competition with the Wii, and it is failing.

MikeB said: @ starcraft I am very happy with Nintendo's great performance with the Wii, but I don't see it stand in the way of the PS3's long term strategy at all. The PS3 wasn't designed to sell at Wii levels anyway, that would be far too costly early on in the game. The 360 is much more geared towards a similar gaming experience, but IMO the PS3 is far better specced despite some early 360 to PS3 porting issues and what this suggest to you. I also applaud third parties going multi-platform for games where it makes sense (not holding back potential advantage related to Blu-Ray, Cell, bandwidth, default harddrive or motion sensing controls) and does not translate into sacrifices regarding the PS3 version like for the upcoming Ghostbusters game, IMO it would have been better for that game to be PS3 HD game engine exclusive.

If I remember correctly, you predicted the PS3 would dominate the Wii starting from Christmas 2008. Is that what you mean by PS3's long term strategy, or has domination been delayed again?

 

@ starcraft

The PS3 will eventually have a much bigger install base and lower entry pricing. IMO a more impressive version of Ghostbusters would be better for consumers, if the publisher/developing company doesn't have to deal with some sort of financial issues.



The install base will increase like you can see at a healthy pace and production costs will come down further through improved middleware, this roadmap is perfectly sustainable for Sony. Creating simpler games distributed on the PSN is a cheap alternative for smaller companies. PS3 owners expect much more from full price Blu-Ray releases, a Wii or PS2 like game would be (rightly so) unacceptable.



Games will become far more demanding in the upcoming years, you don't make such judgements this early in a console lifecycle. Those tapping into the potentials and those devs who complain about the 360 specifications, see the value in the long term potential of the default harddrive and the default Blu-Ray drive. Some multi-platform developers complain about the CPU differences between the PS3 and 360, but all acknowledge the Cell is potentially far more powerful just like IBM the manufacturer of both chips also underlines. IMO they have themselves to blame, taking the easy route early on isn't always the better route for the long run.



Do you really think those who bought a Wii would have flocked en masse to the PS3 if there was no Wii? I don't think so and even if that would be the case, Sony would not have produced enough hardware to meet demand.

NJ5 said: MikeB said: @ starcraft I am very happy with Nintendo's great performance with the Wii, but I don't see it stand in the way of the PS3's long term strategy at all. The PS3 wasn't designed to sell at Wii levels anyway, that would be far too costly early on in the game. The 360 is much more geared towards a similar gaming experience, but IMO the PS3 is far better specced despite some early 360 to PS3 porting issues and what this suggest to you. I also applaud third parties going multi-platform for games where it makes sense (not holding back potential advantage related to Blu-Ray, Cell, bandwidth, default harddrive or motion sensing controls) and does not translate into sacrifices regarding the PS3 version like for the upcoming Ghostbusters game, IMO it would have been better for that game to be PS3 HD game engine exclusive. If I remember correctly, you predicted the PS3 would dominate the Wii starting from Christmas 2008. Is that what you mean by PS3's long term strategy, or has domination been delayed again?

No your comments are far more extreme compared to what I stated. Last year I stated that I believe the PS3 would start to outsell the Wii globally around christmas 2008 (so far I have been correct). This like I said back in 2006 that I believed the PS3 to outsell the 360 for christmas 2007 (with regard to which I was correct).

I'm not sure if I have to adjust this perspective considering the Final Fantasy and Killzone release shedule and so I leave my prediction as is for now.

Yeah, globally... So, globally, how many Wiis and PS3s do you think will be sold in November+December this year?

PS: How can you be "so far correct" on a prediction which relates to a period of time which didn't start yet?

 

Must say that i never expected hw to boost so much preadicted like 50k not more.

NJ5 said: Yeah, globally... So, globally, how many Wiis and PS3s do you think will be sold in November+December this year? PS: How can you be "so far correct" on a prediction which relates to a period of time which didn't start yet?

I would have been wrong if the PS3 would be significantly outselling the Wii ahead of anticipation.

Impressive first week performance for both PS3 hardware and MGS4. This is second best Ps3 week ever after the launch one.

However it is interesting to see MGS4 legs and PS3 hardware drops in coming weeks.