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PS 3 stuff

Ahhhhh, I can already hear the sound of Sony fanboys' heads starting to melt.

I don't want to say "I told you so", but I will.

I knew when I read that the PS3's components came out to $800 US that there was no way they were going to be able to sell their system for less than $500.

It's going to be hard for little timmy to convince his mom to drop half a grand for christmas, methinks.

I know that Sony has a huge following, but at that price point it seems unlikely they will surpass the 360's installed base this christmas at least. In fact, they may not even sell more PS3s than 360 this Christmas if Microsoft is able to drop the price of the 360 by that time.

And we still haven't really seen actual games being played on the system yet. This E3 may end up being as disappointing for Sony as the last one was for Microsoft. . .

$600?

No thanks, I need an actual desktop.

 

So Yak, can you respond to this post:

all you xbox fanboys fail to realize that MS charges $400 for the 360, $100 for the wifi adaptor and will be a minimum of $100 for hddvd drive...all this equals $600 and you're still short 40gb of storage and you're paying to play on xbox live, something that you can do for free on the ps3. you've gotta look into the price, dont just take it at first glance and be in shock, because every single person that has the xbox 360 premium system with wifi is paying this much and not gettin anywhere near what you get with the ps3 - Will

I really know nothing about the 360, its capabilities, its 'required' upgrades, or its pricing. Does this guy's post ring true?

From what he says, it seems that with the PS3 you are simply paying upfront for everything that you must buy after-the-fact for the 360.

 

Sticker shock? Absolutely.

Poorly marketed so far? Definitely.

But in the end, aren't you paying the same for both systems?

all you xbox fanboys fail to realize that MS charges $400 for the 360, $100 for the wifi adaptor and will be a minimum of $100 for hddvd drive...all this equals $600 and you're still short 40gb of storage and you're paying to play on xbox live, something that you can do for free on the ps3. you've gotta look into the price, dont just take it at first glance and be in shock, because every single person that has the xbox 360 premium system with wifi is paying this much and not gettin anywhere near what you get with the ps3 - Will

1) You don't need a wi-fi adaptor, in fact, I don't like wireless..too slow. I prefer the good 'ol cat-6 any day. So there's $100 you don't need to spend.

2) HD-DVD...why do I want this? I'm not sure. What I see is a company (Sony) that has invented a new technology (Blueray) and is trying to package it as a must have by bundling it into their system. Good thing Sony never invented a non-adopted technology before. *cough* Betamax *cough*

$400 is everything you need for the ultimate in 360 gaming...period. You can of course get extra do-dads, just as I'm sure you'll be able to on the PS3, but isn't it nice to have a choice?

X-box live has 2 levels: Free (downloads, upgrades, demos all free) and Gold ($50/year). Gold lets you play every game made for the 360 except for MMORPG's at no extra cost.

There is also talk that MS may drop or eliminate the price for live eventually, to compete with the Sony service.

However Live is AWESOME, and I find it well worth the price. MS has a 5 year head start on Sony perfecting the service, I doubt Sony will be able to beat them on that front.

Sony will have to work VERY hard to prove that the PS3 has REAL (i.e. non-gimicky) advantages over the 360 to justify the price differential. MS made some very strategic decisions in what to inlcude and not to include to hit their price. Sony decided to go with more bells and whistles. The problem is...does anyone really need them?

I personally think they added it all because at purely a technical performance level the systems will be so similar that neither will blow the other away. Games will look and play amazing on both. That price may really hurt Sony.

Also just noticed that the PS3 has 2 price points. The $499 model has no wifi and a 20 gig hard drive. This is EXACTLY the same as the 360, but $100 more!!

It's an additional $100 to kick the PS3 up to a larger HD and built in wireless networking.

Also, those articles on the controlers (see links at bottom of article) don't make the PS3 look too good. The sensor motion idea seems kinda cool, although I think Nintendo was talking about that before Sony.

I think as long as MS doesn't stumble, this round of the console wars may go to them. One big advantage: At last years E3, when all learned about the 360, it launched only months later. The PS3 is still almost a year away, plenty of time for MS to respond with new add ons and price drops.

Well there are fan boys on both sides of the fence, and I'll admit I have no love for Microsoft. But the price point is actually really good. I've been looking at getting an HDDVD system. The cheepest one avilable is 900 bucks. Suddenly 500-600 for a PS3 doesn't sound too shabby. I think what Sony is trying to do is just get an installed base for its Blue-ray tech. PS3 is a good start. I think they are looking at long term here and not looking at just gamers, if they can get an installed prefrence for the Blue-ray they will already have an advantage over HDDVD in the upcoming years.

Also, 500-600 bucks is easy to come by. I just dumped that much on a computer upgrade earlier this year. All I got was a Motherboard, memory, CPU, and Video card. The PS3 is a whole package. Supports all forms of HDTV. I see it as a centerpiece for the home entertainment center.

Maybe Sony isn't targeting the 12-16 year olds, possilby they are going after the same audience that the PSP got. The 26+ age group that has that sort of money and will happily dump it into this system.

I find it funny that people think that 500+ bucks is high on a board that follows GW pricing index. We are used to paying a lot for our toys.

Personally I'll be looking at the 500 dollar system. Its looking really good and if I look into the future of my electronic entertainment, its actually a really good fit.

Jayden63 has a good point. One of the reasons I got the PS2 when I did is that (on top of having games I wanted to play) it was a DVD player, when DVD's were still kinda new. I didn't have a DVD player yet, and I don't think many of my friends did either. So I was getting two things I wanted at the same time, making it a good deal. If HDDVD's become as big as DVD's are now, that might be insentive enough for me to get a PS3 (especially if they do another Silent Hill for it). I think that could be a big factor for some people, or the HDDVD's might not take off, like betamax. Only time will tell on that.

Unfortunatly the High Density DVDs are here. They are not going anywhere. Its the newest technology. Old style DVDs will be phased out, its just a matter of time. So at some point you will have to get a High Density DVD player if you want to watch home movies. The question is which one. The Blue-Ray that Sony (and its long list of movie houses and followers) or HDDVD which is being backed by a lot of other guys. There will be only one, and I think that if you can get a player installed for the low price of 500 bucks, your off to a good start. Its all about getting your name out there and I see the PS3 as a very strong way to get your format already in place.

Sony has a history of failed media formats (Betamax, Minidisc, etc).

Their most successful media format was the memory stick.

Know anyone who uses a memory stick? Yeah, neither do I.

I have a sony camera. But that's all I use it for.

"Know anyone who uses a memory stick? Yeah, neither do I."

Are you kidding? 

I'm assuming by "memory stick," you mean a flash drive or a thumb drive right?

I don't know very many people who don't use those.

The Sony memory stick. The one that's used only for Sony devices.

Flash drive is a usb drive, as in universal. The memory stick is propietary.

Aha...I've never even heard of such a thing (which just goes to prove Jeff's point.)

That sucks for Sony though.  Every time I hear the word Betamax or someone mention Beta tapes, I can't help but chuckle.  It will now be the same for the Sony memory stick.


Silly Sony.  I am looking forward for the PS3 though.  Probably won't buy one, but I'm still looking forward to it.

They used Betamax pretty extensively in the Philippines after that whole
debacle. You could rent stuff at the local videostore in betamax. All pirate
editions.