Why the PS3 might fail

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 08 Jun 2006, 03:34

I've finally found an article that sums up the debate in the gaming community concerning the PS3. It began at E3 last month when it was revealed that the PS3 would retail for $599USD (599€ in Europe), making it bloody expensive. Whereas the complete Xbox 360 package is $400USD and the Wii will cost $200USD.

source wrote:One Last Thing | Setting the stage for another flop?
By Jonathan Last

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. One of life's more satisfying ironies, however, is that the same fate often befalls those who fixate on history. Consider the coming train wreck of Sony's PlayStation 3.

At this year's annual Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, Sony announced that its next-generation video-game console will begin retailing in November for $599 (or $499 for a stripped-down version). The news rippled through the gaming industry, the consensus being that Sony had doomed its new system with such a high price tag. Traditionally, home video-game consoles have sold for $199 to $299.

This news was of broader interest than you might think. According to the New York Times, video-game sales in the United States topped $10.5 billion last year. Since Sony released its first PlayStation in September 1995, the company has dominated that market. According to the marketing-information firm NPD Group, Sony's PlayStation 2, which has sold more than 101 million units, owns 55 percent of the current market share in video games.

Over the years, Sony's video-game unit has become increasingly important to the corporation and helped the company through tough times. In the down year of 2002, for instance, PlayStation generated more than half of Sony's profit.

So why would Sony price itself out of such an important market?

The answer is: History. It looks like suicide to offer a $600 video game - unless you are Sony.

The reason for the elevated price is that PlayStation 3 includes Sony's high-definition "Blu-ray" DVD player. As a separate item, these players are not yet available to consumers, but when they arrive in stores this year, they will be priced from upward of $1,000 a pop. Sony owns the Blu-ray disc-reading technology and is girding itself for war against a competing high-definition DVD format, Toshiba's HD-DVD, which arrived on the market in April.

HD-DVD is a less robust medium, but it is both first and cheaper. An HD-DVD player can be had for less than half of what Blu-ray players will cost. With such a disadvantage, Sony is leveraging Blu-ray by tying it to the company's next video-game system. Sony knows a little something about format jousts.

As Edward Jay Epstein details in his book The Big Picture, the company we know as Sony was born in 1945, when Akiro Morita launched Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Co. He sold the type of household gadgets needed in a war-ravaged country: rice cookers and heating pads. Eventually Morita became interested in recording devices. His first major success came when he found a way to use cheap paper tape to record sound. Building his company on recordable tape, Morita internalized the idea of "format über alles."

But he didn't have an opportunity to pursue a new format for many years - not until 1975, when Sony introduced a videorecording device called Betamax.

Like Edsel or New Coke, the word Betamax is now synonymous in business-school classrooms around the country with "corporate failure." It was the first home videorecording system, and it was technologically superior to its competitor, VHS, which did not arrive on the consumer scene until two years later.

But Betamax was also more expensive than VHS. And while Sony tried to keep the fruits of the format to itself, VHS was farmed out to other electronics manufacturers. As John Nathan notes in his book Sony, by 1980, "Betamax was being driven from the home video market."

Over the years, Sony met with other format failures: the mini-disc in 1991 and the memory stick in 1998. Neither was as costly as the Betamax disaster, but both were born of the same mania for proprietary formats.

Sony internalized these losses, but viewed them as the results of tactical, not strategic, defects. So the company looked for ways to bolster new formats. As the DVD revolution was dawning in the late 1980s, Sony spent $3.4 billion to buy the movie studio Columbia-TriStar Pictures. Sony believed its hardware simply needed software to go with it.

Sony wisely avoided the fight for a proprietary DVD format, instead partnering with Toshiba and Philips (the DVD already had one competitor, DivX). But always mindful of the past, Sony looked to establish Blu-ray as the next-generation format, putting it on a collision course with HD-DVD. To gird itself for this war, the company bought another movie studio, MGM, in 2004 for $5 billion and then decided to put Blu-ray drives into the PlayStation 3.

It's a strange way of thinking. Obsessed with owning proprietary formats, Sony keeps picking fights. It keeps losing. And yet it keeps coming back for more, convinced that all it needs to do is push a bigger stack of chips to the center of the table. If Blu-ray fails, it will be the biggest home-electronics failure since Betamax. If it drags PlayStation 3 down with it, it will be one of the biggest corporate blunders of our time.

The people who run Sony aren't stupid; quite the opposite. But every outlook carries its own internal logic, which can lead smart people in unsmart directions.

History teaches some lessons about that, too.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 08 Jun 2006, 12:11

the DVD already had one competitor, DivX

WTF??? You can't compare DivX to DVD.

You can't also compare the 360 to PS3 as the PS3 is based on old DVD technology.

That article conveniently mentions where Sony have failed but neglects to mention the Sony Discman still today a popular portable music solution. Sony were the first to create a portable CD player.

Since when was the Minidisc a failure? People think it failed just because it's been replaced, they're not the same thing. For a good 3-5 years Minidisc was the choice for portable music with many manufactures jumping on board and many people buying them.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 08 Jun 2006, 12:30

bradavon wrote:PS3 is based on old DVD technology.

No, PS3 uses blu-ray technology, that's why it's so bloody expensive. Sony seem to be banking on the hardcore home theatre guys going for the PS3 as it's the cheapest BRD (Blu-ray Disc) player by far. For them money is a non-issue so I don't see why they wouldn't spring for a dedicated BRD player.

360 just using DVD media is fine. Most 360 games hardly fill a DVD-9 in the first place.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 08 Jun 2006, 12:38

EvaUnit02 wrote:Sony seem to be banking on the hardcore home theatre guys going for the PS3 as it's the cheapest BRD (Blu-ray Disc) player by far.

The exact same principle worked wonderfully for Sony back when DVD was first released and expensive.

EvaUnit02 wrote:360 just using DVD media is fine. Most 360 games hardly fill a DVD-9 in the first place.

Exactly they should overfill a DVD-9.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 08 Jun 2006, 12:53

bradavon wrote: The exact same principle worked wonderfully for Sony back when DVD was first released and expensive.

Nah, that ploy with PS2 having DVD playback was to attract Joe Average consumer, which is cool cuz PS2 only cost $300USD at launch. Joe Average consumer won't shell out $600 to playback a movie format that would require him to buy an all new expensive HDTV. The majority still own SDTV's in North America.

EvaUnit02 wrote:Exactly they should overfill a DVD-9.

That's if they filled the games with loads of FMV. I'm sorry to tell you this but gimmicky interactive movie games haven't been made since the 90's, gaming has moved on dude. Real-time engine generated cutscenes is the standard practice now.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 08 Jun 2006, 13:04

bradavon wrote:
the DVD already had one competitor, DivX
WTF??? You can't compare DivX to DVD.

No Brad, they're talking about DIVX, the pay-to-play disc format. Not the MPEG4 video codec DivX. TOTALLY separate things.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 08 Jun 2006, 13:45

Ah yes good point. I forgot about that (dead) format.

I'm sorry to tell you this but gimmicky interactive movie games haven't been made since the 90's, gaming has moved on dude. Real-time engine generated cutscenes is the standard practice now.

That's not what I meant. They should increase the visual audio quality to fill the disc up, up to HD quality (assuming it would be backwards compatible).

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 08 Jun 2006, 13:54

bradavon wrote:They should increase the visual audio quality to fill the disc up, up to HD quality (assuming it would be backwards compatible).

The console was designed with HDTV in mind dude, the games already can output fantastic graphics at 720p and 1080i. Go play Project Gotham Racing 3 and see for yourself.

Yi-Long · Post by **Yi-Long** » 08 Jun 2006, 14:53

Personally, I think it will fale, simply because it's too expensive for a game-machine, which is still what people are going to associate the brand-name playstation with.

Also, the Xbox 360 is great quality. It's got a nice slick design, good specs, great controllers, and a big line-up of games. Plus it's cheaper then the PS3, and by the time the PS3 arrives, they might drop in price, plus lots of release games will most likely be budget-priced.

So I think that most gamers will choose a 360.

But perhaps Sony will reach a whole new audience with their PS3, who mainly buy it as Blue-Ray system or whatever.
But since so many people (mainstream) are still more then satisfied with normal DVD's, and probably have infested ALOT in those over the years, I dont really see them flocking eagerly to a new, better DVD system (be it HD-DVD or Blue-ray.

Only when most of us have HD tvs and the discs are reasonably priced and readily available, which could take another 2-3 years I guess, will people slowly swith over...

So ambitious plans from Sony to go with Blue-Ray, but I think gamers just want a gaming system that plays good games and is affordable.

Plus, what exclusive series does Sony have? Only Metal Gear Solid and Gran Tourismo? And perhaps Final Fantasy? I kinda prefer the Xbox exclusives I think. Plus with 360 such a huge hit in both Europe and USA, japanese developers will probably start developing more for 360 in the future, so they can survive in the non-asian markets.

Halo sucks ass though.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 08 Jun 2006, 16:50

Yi-Long wrote:Halo sucks ass though.

So true.

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 08 Jun 2006, 17:03

You lot are forgetting about Nintendo - WII (or whatever it is called), I agree PS3 may fail because it is tooo expensive. Gamecube is a good machine, and Nintendo doing back compt with Gamecube games and also having downloadable roms of n64, snes may push them to be a leader.

I still don't know about the XBox, but maybe time will tell. One good thing is the PS3 is providing tools for indie developers to develops games for the PS3. They are providing SDK libraries.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 08 Jun 2006, 17:08

I'm not so sure the PS1 decimated the competition and I think I'm right in saying the PS2 overall has sold more than the Xbox but times are changing Microsoft rarely lose for long. What do I care I've not played computer games (and never owned a console bar the Gameboy and Game gear) since the days when Nintendo and Sega were the big boys.

What went so wrong for those two companies? Particularly Sega.

p.s - Games still can't need much space if you can easily fit HD content on a DVD designed for SD.

Yi-Long · Post by **Yi-Long** » 08 Jun 2006, 17:35

slasher13 wrote:You lot are forgetting about Nintendo - WII (or whatever it is called), I agree PS3 may fail because it is tooo expensive. Gamecube is a good machine, and Nintendo doing back compt with Gamecube games and also having downloadable roms of n64, snes may push them to be a leader.

I still don't know about the XBox, but maybe time will tell. One good thing is the PS3 is providing tools for indie developers to develops games for the PS3. They are providing SDK libraries.

The Wii isnt really in direct competition with Xbox and/or PS3. It has a pretty different targetgroup, plus it also has all the loyal nintendo fanboys.

Personally, I'm not all that fond of the Cube: It has some classic games obviously, but far too little, and they're still too expensive. You can find many many big Xbox hits for 10-15 euro now (Hell, SSX3 and Burnout 3 are only 5 euro at the moment). The cube hardly has any good budget games, and the budgetgames they do have, are still 30 euro or something. Metroid Prime 2 has only recently been priced at 15 euro, and Resident Evil 4 is still 50-60 euros

Metroid Prime 1 is very hard to find btw, in local shops, and probably also not cheaper then 30 bucks or something.

So Cube is OK-ish. Not nearly enough games for it though, and all the 3rd party games are usually better on Xbox and/or PS2. Not to mention Cube doesnt have a good fighter, doesnt have a good racinggame, etc etc.

It has Zelda though

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 08 Jun 2006, 20:48

Yi-Long wrote:So Cube is OK-ish. Not nearly enough games for it though, and all the 3rd party games are usually better on Xbox and/or PS2. Not to mention Cube doesnt have a good fighter, doesnt have a good racinggame, etc etc.

I wouldn't say (and this is just my opinion) all the 3rd party games are better on other formats; NBA Street V3 had extra characters like Mario and Luigi, alongside all the airballing freaks that make-up the NBA. But usually, the games remained the same across the board, with the PS2's version of whichever game being the weakest graphically.
As for a fighter, it had the best version of Soul Calibur 2 of any platform. Racers were about the same, and whilst it didn't have (I don't think) an exclusive 'standard' racer, it did have Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and I would argue that you'd be hard-pressed to get more multiplayer fun out of the other racing games when compared to Mario Kart

Can't argue with the 'not enough games for it' side of things, though. This last year has been quite a drought, and so it's not a machine for having a large collection of games on (I've probably got about 2.5-3 times the number of PS2 games as I have for GC). However, the same can be said of the Xbox. Few exclusive games that are any good.
I'm not sure about the pricing problems you're having though; most places I've seen old GC games in have had 'em slashed down a less than £10 for a long time now (about €15 I think). Xbox games are falling to those prices as well, but there are a few at the standard 'budget' price of £20.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 09 Jun 2006, 01:43

Yi-Long wrote:japanese developers will probably start developing more for 360 in the future, so they can survive in the non-asian markets.

I agree. Especially since the Japanese gaming industry is in constant decline and it's on the constant rise in the West.

slasher13 wrote:You lot are forgetting about Nintendo - WII (or whatever it is called), I agree PS3 may fail because it is tooo expensive. Gamecube is a good machine, and Nintendo doing back compt with Gamecube games and also having downloadable roms of n64, snes may push them to be a leader.

I'll be getting both a 360 and a Wii eventually. I can't leave the fantastic Zelda franchise alone. But remember that Nintendo prefer doing their own thing (eg that odd motion-detecting controller) and aren't in direct competition with Sony & MS. As long as they remain leaders of the handheld market (DS is kicking the arse of the PSP), their core fan base will continue to support them for years to come in the home console department.

bradavon wrote:What went so wrong for those two companies? Particularly Sega.

Sega were simply out-marketed by Sony. Nintendo had inflated ego after winning the two previous console wars and thus thought themselves infallible (just like Sony does at the present time). They chose to stick with cartridges for the N64, thus developers left them in droves for the competing consoles which used CD-based media.

Kurgan wrote:
Yi-Long wrote:Halo sucks ass though.
So true.

It's a million times better than Killzone. Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy suck ass.

Unrealnils · Post by **Unrealnils** » 09 Jun 2006, 01:46

It wasnt that Sony beat sega i would go so far a to say sega scrwed themselves they boguth the rights to arsenal ashirts and thats it they didnt do any other advertsing

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 09 Jun 2006, 01:52

Yi-Long wrote:and they're still too expensive. You can find many many big Xbox hits for 10-15 euro now (Hell, SSX3 and Burnout 3 are only 5 euro at the moment). The cube hardly has any good budget games, and the budgetgames they do have, are still 30 euro or something. Metroid Prime 2 has only recently been priced at 15 euro, and Resident Evil 4 is still 50-60 euros
Metroid Prime 1 is very hard to find btw, in local shops, and probably also not cheaper then 30 bucks or something.

NTSC Cube games have been cheap for yonk. Get yourself a Datel Freeloader or Action Replay (which has an in-built Freeloader) and begin importing.

I've had a US Cube from the beginning and had to buy a Freeloader to play PAL games.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 09 Jun 2006, 03:21

EvaUnit02 wrote:It's a million times better than Killzone. Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy suck ass.

I don't deny that Killzone is crap; it's just that it's never been heralded as a new dawn in FPS games, whereas Halo has, and is praised for no good goddamn reason. Aside from the controlling issues (which plague all FPS games on consoles, not just this one), it just isn't that good. I think there's a level called the Library or something which one little segment is repeated ad nauseum. I might have expected something like that 10 years ago, but I was truly shocked to see it in such a recent game. It's just fucking lazy level design. And it's not the only level to suffer in such a way.
The best levels were the ones on the beach, which I think was in the demo. Really, the demo provides the best part of the game.

I think Metroid Prime has the best joypad based control system for FPS. It uses a lock-on feature which means that you can focus on evasion and maneuvering around to get a better shot.

As for the latter comment, I'll put that down to temporary insanity on your part

. Actually, whilst I don't think GT is at the level you mentioned, it certainly needs to get a lot better for me to get back into it. The last one I played was the third game and it was very good, but the 4th just didn't do anything for me. In fact, I never even really played the fourth; I just got Prologue. It was the same with the first and second games: loved the first game, didn't rate the second anywhere near as much.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 09 Jun 2006, 04:32

Ok, Gran Turismo doesn't suck total arse, but I passionately hate the series (and all other simulation racers of it's ilk). It's really fucking boring, intensely tune the car in the garage, do the insanely hard licence tests, blah blah.

I prefer insane arcade psychics of say Burnout and Need For Speed (before it became craptacular with all the shitty rap music and street racing. If I wanted, that I'd go watch awful movies like The Fast and The Furious.).

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 09 Jun 2006, 13:45

Unrealnils wrote:It wasnt that Sony beat sega i would go so far a to say sega scrwed themselves they boguth the rights to arsenal ashirts and thats it they didnt do any other advertsing

Huh? Now proof read. What's an Arsenal Ashirt?

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 09 Jun 2006, 15:18

bradavon wrote:What's an Arsenal Ashirt?

You know, the soccer club Arsenal?

Unrealnils · Post by **Unrealnils** » 09 Jun 2006, 15:45

I mean its all down to sega.

They bascially imploded becuase of there lack of adverstising and marketing.

As far as i remember they spent millions (all there budget really) to win the contract to sponser the football team arsenal but apart from that one stunt they didnt compete with sony in any way.

I rememebr loads of ads back inthe megadrive and snes days by Sega

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 09 Jun 2006, 16:05

For which console did they do this with? Saturn or Dreamcast? Cuz I remember seeing Dreamcast soccer jerseys around.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 09 Jun 2006, 16:12

EvaUnit02 wrote:You know, the soccer club Arsenal?

I know of the "football" club Arsenal yes but couldn't work out the connection.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 09 Jun 2006, 17:16

bradavon wrote:"football"

I'm used to calling it soccer. Prolly cuz I associate "football" with gridiron, from eons of watching American television and cinema.