Nintendo Profits Up 72%, Sony's Down 94% 290
Gamasutra is reporting on reporting, with financial information from some of the large gaming companies becoming available this week. Nintendo, who had already previously raised projections, saw their profits up 72% over last year. This dramatic increase was credited largely to the DS, with 10.9 million units sold in the first six months of this year alone. Sony, on the other hand, dropped profits by 94% over this time last year. The company attributes this largely to the battery recall and PS3 start-up costs. From the article: "The company's games division reported a ¥43.5 billion ($366.6m) loss, from a ¥8.2 million ($69,000) profit in 2005, thanks to research and development, manufacturing and marketing costs related to the launch of the PlayStation 3. Sales and operating revenue were down by 20.5 percent to ¥170.3 billion ($1.43bn). A decrease in hardware sales worldwide was attributed to a drop in price for the PlayStation 2 and PSP. Software sales also decreased overall, although individual PSP sales were up on the previous year. Combined profit from the PS2 and PSP business was described as 'relatively unchanged'."
They are having trouble... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:They are having trouble... (Score:4, Interesting)
Or poor marketing. If it wasn't for /., I'd probably not have read much about the PS3. Less than a month before launch, I've not seen a TV ad or recall seeing other adds. Or maybe I just don't buy and read game mags. much. I only get my one from EBgames.
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Guess it depends on where you are. In downtown Toronto, there are several large billboards for the X360 and the PS3 (the weird ones with the consoles in profile arranged in a "3"). Haven't seen any Nintendo ads now that you mention it though.
Re:They are having trouble... (Score:5, Funny)
Basically, there's a little baby sitting on the floor. Then it cuts to a PS3. Back to the baby, who's starting to mumble things, then back to the PS3. Back to the baby again, only now his eyes are glowing and shit, then back to the PS3, which has started to levitate.
It made me want to hide in the closet, not buy a PS3.
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Sigh.
Look, can someone just drop by their offices and tell Sony something like "It's the games, stupid!" and wake them up?
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Re:They are having trouble... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, any marketing they do at this point is going to be a waste. They already know their initial (and pre-Christmas) shipments will sell out many times over to the people who are already planning on buying one. Spending money trying to get more people to go out to the store and buy something that isn't there is a waste.
So I agree that they haven't ratcheted up the "buzz-meter" like they could have ... but with such a massive shortage already likely, they would just be throwing away any money they spent. Expect their marketing expenditures to go up significantly next year once there are boxes on the shelves for "casual" purchasers to buy.
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I think they'd like to keep the casual buyers out of the stores until their product is likely to be there for purchase.
It's only going to get worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, he're hoping for a bright future with the current lot of executives FIRED.
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Let us embrace the beloved Nintendo, who would never stoop so low as to sue Lik-Sang! [eurogamer.net]
Re:It's only going to get worse (Score:5, Informative)
1. That Lik-Sang is gone. They sold ModChips which were illegal. (Whether you and I believe they should be or not.) The Lik-Sang that Sony sued is a reputable dealer of imported goods, and the ONLY distributor of popular products like the TopGun LCD Light Gun.
2. Sony's lawsuit was only a minor issue. Their tactics were what pissed everyone off. They filed a suit against Lik-Sang in nearly every country in the European Union. Such tactics could only have one outcome: Lik-Sang will close down business to avoid having to fight dozens of costly lawsuits.
So no, I don't particularly care that Nintendo once sued Lik-Sang. I wouldn't even care that Sony sued Lik-Sang to stop the PS3 imports to Europe. I *do* care that Sony forced Lik-Sang out of business thus preventing them from selling hundreds of perfectly legal products for which many of them they are the only distributor.
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Lik-Sang could have lived on if they so chose, selling peripherals, cables, games and suchlike. I half expect that they probably will, and this winding up is all part of some convoluted ploy to get out of paying Sony any money. Expect to see a mysterious selled called Sik-Lang appear som
Re:It's only going to get worse (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, they are subject to those laws. Of course, they never had a chance to defend themselves. I repeat:
SONY FILED A LAWSUIT IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY
Did you get that? Probably not. Let me say it a few more times:
SONY FILED A LAWSUIT IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY
SONY FILED A LAWSUIT IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY
SONY FILED A LAWSUIT IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY
SONY FILED A LAWSUIT IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY
SONY FILED A LAWSUIT IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY
SONY FILED A LAWSUIT IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY
Did you get it that time?
Were they? Were they REALLY within their rights to FILE A LAWSUIT IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY?!? Sony exploited the looseness of the EU consolidation to pull a nasty, underhanded, disgusting legal tactic that was intended to make it too expensive to fight.
1. Sony won by default. Lik-Sang didn't show up, they disolved their company due to LAWSUITS IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY.
2. I will repeat, I DO NOT CARE whether Sony's lawsuit would have been upheld or not. Had Sony handled this properly, Lik-Sang may have had to stop the imports of Sony Consoles, plus pay Sony damages. Instead, SONY FILED A LAWSUIT IN NEARLY EVERY EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER COUNTRY IN ORDER TO PUT LIK-SANG OUT OF BUSINESS. Then they had the gall to turn around and claim that they had nothing to do with it [gamesindustry.biz].
I've got two words to describe my feelings about their long string of abuses: BOYCOTT SONY!!!
Can I hear an AMEN out there?
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So what? What is the point of bring suit against them in one country if they can continue with impunity selling their goods in another?
Re:It's only going to get worse (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a nice, but firm, way of doing things. You're not shaking a legal fist at them, you're giving them the opportunity to talk with you, discuss it, and reach a resolution without expensive court fees.
This is what Sony did. Sony said, "Lik-Sang, here are a dozen or more simultaneous lawsuits in different languages for the same thing. Good luck hiring a team of competent lawyers in every nation in the EU and flying back and forth like crazy between all the hearings, trials, and judgements. We know you can't afford it."
I don't know if you've ever seen the Monty Python skit where they use machine guns and rocket launchers to hunt a mosquito, but that is a good analogy for what Sony did here. They didn't have to put Lik-Sang out of business to stop them from importing PS3s to the EU. They could even have come out of this looking like a decent company that regrettably, but not selfishly, protected their interests.
What they did was unnecessary to stop Lik-Sang from importing. What they did was necessary to put Lik-Sang out of business.
Re:It's only going to get worse (Score:5, Informative)
And that's exactly what they did do [mcvuk.com]. Over a full year ago. Lik-Sang had over a year to cease and desist. It didn't.
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Well, in the US, which is one country, it would be a federal violation and it would only be one claim; international trade is not generally a state law issue.
If there were legitimate issues of violations of the laws of different states, then Sony could pursue them in separate cases in each of the 50 states, even if the action involved was similar in each state. Lik-Sang might have been abl
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However, in the present US, the federal government controls all inter-state commerce. Thus, filing in any state and showing that a federal law was violated stops the whole thing. However, the EU does not work that way! The EU member states are far more independent, and winning a case i
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Also Sony didn't force them out of business, they shut themselves down. They haven't paid anything to Sony, didn't pay any legal fees and Sony didn't get a court order to shut them down. Of course, this exactly what they did when Nintendo sued them as well. So Nintendo also "shut them down" back in the day.
God damn, some of fan bois are hypocrits. If yo
Re:It's only going to get worse (Score:4, Interesting)
No CE marking on (J) or (U) products (Score:2)
By which country's test laboratory? Underwriters Laboratories offers "UL Listed" service in Canada and the United States, but other countries may not recognize it. I've noticed that my Nintendo DS (for United States) doesn't carry the CE marking [wikipedia.org] required for goods sold in the European Economic Area. In fact, goods designed for one country might fail tests for another country, given that different countries have different standards for m
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Is it okay if I go and plug it in? Thanks.
I know if I made products destined for another market with different standards I'd want to make damn sure they were tested and certified to those standards. Especially if it has my name on it in big bright letters and there w
Re:It's only going to get worse (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, let's say that your argument holds up for a minute. (It doesn't, but we'll pretend, just for your sake.) Then let me ask you:
- Is Nintendo Guilty of distributing Rootkits?
- Is Nintendo Guilty of a massive coverup to hide the fact that they did not recall exploding batteries they knew about?
- Is Nintendo Guilty of arrogently telling its customers to "get a second job"?
- Is Nintendo Guilty of trading on their previous name for quality to produce overpriced, sub-standard electronics?
- Is Nintendo Guilty of giving consumers with defective LCD screens a "will not replace" runaround?
- Is Nintendo Guilty of forcing new firmware upgrades on existing equipment just to lock out the homebrew community?
- Is Nintendo Guilty of ignoring their warranty of fitness on CCD parts they produced?
I could go on and on and on about absuses in recent history that Sony is guilty of. Are you going to tell me that I should boycott Nintendo over the one issue when I'm boycotting Sony for a long string of abuses, with this latest one being the trigger that has pushed me over the edge?
That's inconsistency. Why shouldn't Nintendo get at least part of the slack that Sony has had to date?
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Go back to my first post in this topic, and start reading again. From the beginning, I've been clear that this is the latest of Sony's customer abuses, and that it is the catalyst that has caused (and I quote) "the movement to boycott Sony [to be] stronger than ever."
This isn't just about Lik-Sang. It's about a long string of abuses that S
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Re:It's only going to get worse (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hong Kong based Lik-Sang, a mail order company which distributes videogame software and hardware worldwide, has lost a crucial court case brought by Nintendo over the sale of devices which could copy Game Boy software."
That's right. OH GNOHS, Nintendo stopped Lik-Sang from selling devices MADE SOLELY TO PIRATE THEIR SOFTWARE (and run homebrew). Sony, on the other hand, has stopped Lik-Sang from selling their *FIRST PARTY* CONSOLES, SOFTWARE, and ACCESSORIES to other markets. These are not anywhere NEAR the same thing, at all.
Next time, read your article before you spam us with it.
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The Wii is advertised as a family/multiplayer system. As a result, consumers were hoping for either an extra controller or (at least) affordable controllers. Consumers got neither out of Nintendo. It hasn't generated any ill-will toward Nintendo (at least, none that I'm aware of), but it did cool some of the excitement about the system. I'd imagine that some of the consumers will wait on their Wii purchase for a little while long
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I hate to break it to you, but Sony's financial performance most likely has very little to do with customer ill-will. First, in 2005 no next-gen consoles were available so the PS2 was competing against its traditional foes the Xbox and GC. As of Q3 of 06 the 360 has been out for quite a while and the PS2 is at the end of its life, producing
Let's be serious ... boycotts aren't happening (Score:2)
The biggest thing your average gamer is going to notice, though, is simply the price and available of the console. First of all, it's expensive. And second, even if they wanted it, chances are they can't get it. But with the short
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Re:Wake up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wake up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wake up (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one of those (-1) + (-1) + (-1) = (-5) public perception situations.
Re:Wake up (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point. While I agree that Rootkit fiascos, Lik-Sang shut down, and even press blunders are only going to be heard by a very small percentage of their customers (even the public address blunders require that you be constantly tuned into tech news), it DOES reach the press, who starts to get an increasingly negative view of their products. When the press starts rooting against a console (or a politician, or anything), then the console's got problems, because that inherently negative attitude from the press will start to affect the popular consensus. A huge majority of tech news sites online have a very bad impression of the PS3. Hell, I was in GameStop yesterday, and one of the clerks was even voicing his feelings against the system... and when you have the very people who are supposed to be pushing your system's, voicing their opposition, you're SCREWED.
It's all a snowball effect. Maybe I was wrong to overlook the small, geeky concerns of one tiny demographic. Sure, in the end maybe only 0.1% of the population will know what a Root Kit is, but the negativity that trickles down through tech news sites because of that could have a huge impact on the long-term popularity of the system. Now, the people that are suggesting that a Root Kit debacle itself will have any impact on the minds of the masses, need to get their heads out of their collective asses... but it might be a bit short-sided to overlook the larger problems it could cause.
Brain dysfunction (Score:5, Funny)
Or to re-phrase
Sony's profits or losses are due to fairies and the movements of the celestial bodies. Nothing the company does affects their bottom line.
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No, I'm one of those "morons" who thinks that the LOUD calls for a boycott showing up on every gaming news and technology site carrying the story, is a pretty good indication that the customers have had ENOUGH. I may have led the charge for a boycott here, but that doesn't explain who led the charge over on digg. Or on NeoWin. Or on Kotaku. Or on Eurogamer. Or on Engadget. Or on MacRumors. Or on JoyStik.
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You're using an extremely biased sample - people who are passionate enough about their consumer goods and electronics that they bother coming onto the internet to discuss them. If you made all market judgements by polling the si
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You seem to be saying that a singificant number of those will say something like, "Sony is bad and I won't buy a PS3 because of it."
The guy you're responding to seems to be saying that a very small percentage will have anything negative to say about Sony, an even smaller percantage will even know about any boycotts, and most will hope they get a PS3 for Christmas.
Guess what?
Corporate Governance and Japan (Score:5, Interesting)
Over there, they take a longer term view and do not live and die by the quarter like they do here in the US. This is partially cultural. It's not necessarily a good thing but it is a factually true thing. They are more forgiving for this kind of financial result than investors in the US are.
However, another, and not necessarily helpful reason for this patient view is that the equity owners who normally would jump ship are often also the debt holders of the corporation. This is almost unheard of here in the US and the result in Japan is that corporations are more likely to ignore long term problems with a corporation because the best solution (dumping shares) would hurt their debt value so they tend to stay the course and hope for the best.
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Re:Corporate Governance and Japan (Score:4, Funny)
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The real news will come three or four years from now. If Sony hasn't made a net profit on the PS3 by then, then its fair to deride them for it. Until then, i
No link between the Nintendo and Sony numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:No link between the Nintendo and Sony numbers (Score:4, Funny)
This would be a good time to remind everyone that when GM tries to get its sales going again through offering that great "10 year, 100,000 mile warranty", you need to remind yourself that that really means, "10 year, 100,000 mile, or until we go bankrupt warranty".
GM is not going to go bankrupt... (Score:2)
GM is not an Enron or Worldcom, with billions of billions of net worth tied up in "IP" and "market rights" (aka fake money). Gm's value is largely badsed on real world assets. They have a huge number of plants, huge real estate holdings, global infrastructure. If they really got the screws turned on them they could just shut down 50% of the company, focus on a nieche US-only market, and they'd still be
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Damn!!
I'm still mad about the crappy 80s/90s GM cars I had to put up with.
Financial analysis by idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
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Again. Slashdot members tend to be a group consisting of some of the most mis-informed people on the planet when it comes to business and money. Slashdot is an indicator of the well-being of Sony no more than the contents of a box of Captain Crunch cereal is an indicator of the socio-political climate in the Middle East.
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And here we have a textbook example of console fanboy groupthink. I do not mean to pick on you specifically crazyjeremy, but your post has every element in it.
Let me pull a chunk from TFA:
The company's group net profit for the quarter was ¥1.7 billion ($14.3m), down from ¥28.5 billion ($240.2m) at the same time last year. The company lost ¥51 billion ($429.9m) alone on the recall of 9.6 million batteries. The recall prevented the company from enjoying any benefit from a 8 percent rise in sa
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I understand your points quite well. I'm not a Nintendo Fanboy though. I would just rather give my money to Nintendo because of Sony's recent business decisions. I may not represent the majority of
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First, Sony isn't failing. Sony made way more profit than Nintendo for much of the last six years. Was Nintendo failing when the PS2 was reaping record profits for Sony, and the Gamecube was stagnating? Of course not. Companies go through cycles, and some companies take more risk, and thus go through bigger cycles than others.
You're criticizing Sony for bad decision making "from the top down", but do you realize that the rootkit had nothing to do with top Sony management? It
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought that it cost money to develop (and market) videogames
The fact is that the Dreamcast failed in the market place (mostly)
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From a financial standpoint, I will believe that if I can strip the PS3 for parts and sell them back at market value, otherwise I still have a net loss of $500.
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Sony income from electronics was 8 billion yen. This is the unit that lost 51 billion yen due to the battery recall, with a revenue of 1.4 trillion. The previous year - same quarter, they did 28.1 billion, but with 1.2 trillion in revenue. I will swag that to an operating margin of about 2% for second quarter, 2005. In comparison, Microsoft did a margin of 28% last year with revenues of 44 billion USD (about 5.2 trillion yen) for the whole year. IBM did 8.7%. Google did 25%. Now bear with me, I am swagging
VG Cats covered this one pretty well already... (Score:5, Funny)
Not much more really needs to be said
Why should I care? (Score:5, Interesting)
(I'm actually surprised Sony hasn't received the Apple treatment - "Beleaguered Sony")
I care that they both have consoles launching and I am interested in trying both. I am interested in the launch lineup. I'm interested in specs. Controllers. Formats. But quarterly reports, do we really care that much?
Anyways, I hope Sony learns from their mistakes and improves. I will vote with my dollars accordingly until they stop behaving badly. I don't want them to "die", as some posters have mentioned; besides being exceedingly unlikely, Sony has made great things in the past. It would be nice to see a return to form, specifically for SCE and Sony Electronics. The media arms I have no use for.
How else will you know if your team is winning?!!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I half expect to start seeing 360 faceplates that say "Sony Sucks" and DS stickers that show Calvin pissing on a PSP. Gamers seem to be so caught up in the rhetoric these days that it's getting harder and harder to find sites where people are actually discussing... what are those things called.... oh yeah, games.
Re:How else will you know if your team is winning? (Score:2)
No kidding. Its rampant. Tribal identity and all that, I guess. I had a PS2, and I spent many a happy hour in front of that thing, but when Nintendo would release a nice GameCube game my first tho
DS *is* peeing all over the PSP (Score:2)
Wii know what you're talking about [wiisworld.com].
But which platform allows for homemade games, such as games by developers looking to demonstrate their skills in order to get a job at a game development studio?
Karma (Score:4, Funny)
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599
The jury is still out... (Score:2)
I know people who still like the Sony brand and don't know or care about Sony's problems. Things like DRM mean absolutely nothing to them because as far as they're concerned it isn't going to change anything.
I also know g
It's the batteries... (Score:2)
Ctrl Alt Del has a nice thought here (Score:5, Funny)
WTF? (Score:2, Interesting)
But don't worry - Sony will laugh all the way to the bank when you
In all seriousness it's expected for their profits to be in the gutter with the development of the next gen console... the real surprise here is that Nintendo's profits are UP when they have been developing the Wii - sure it's a less intensive system that is probably lower in price, but a 'next gen' console should still suck up a bit of profits.
Im not sure where commu
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The Wii isn't a new console, it's a refresh of the Gamecube hardware. As such, its development cost is very small compared to the billion dollar+ development costs of the PS3.
I for one welcome our new game console overlords (Score:2, Insightful)
People fail to remember that tech always goes thru revisions. Sometimes the player one year (IBM) loses to an upstart (MSFT) and they lose to another upstart (RHAT) who get their shorts handed to them by yet another former big player (ORCL).
MS earnings have just come in, and revenues are up (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a snippet from the article:
Obviously MS should get a nice sales boost of the 360 over the holiday season, especially from gamers who aren't able to get their hands on the extremely limited PS3. It'll be especially important to see how Japanese sales go, thanks to the new Blue Dragon bundle.
Globalisation is broken... (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies have the right to ship my job to a country where they can get stuff done cheaper. But I don't have a right to buy their products from a country where they are cheaper.
We've seen this with Levis and Tesco and with the BPI and CDWOW. Why can't I ALSO benefit from globalisation ?
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Re:Sony is more than just PlayStation... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sony is more than just PlayStation... (Score:5, Informative)
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0+00033e STACK OVERFLOW ERROR
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Nintendo is more anal-retentive about controlling their console than anybody else. That's why the Gamecube used a proprietary disk instead of a standard format (like DVD, or HD-DVD or Blu-Ray).
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The summary was very clear about the cause of the drop in Sony's profits. This wasn't 'left-out' unless most people read that and thought it would happen every year. It's not Zonk's fault Sony's taken several mis-steps this year.
Seriously man, pick your battles.
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Basically the story is really meaningless since the numbers they cite are not comparable. This is not News for Nerds, it's for Fanboys! [slashdot.org]
If the story had been JUST about one number or the other, I would have said nothing against its presence.
PS-Thwii one-time costs (Score:2)
Don't they also reflect analogous one-time costs for Nintendo, which is putting out its own new console?
With the record of poor corporate citizenship on Sony's part (including David Manning, the music disc rootkits, cat-and-mouse against freeware authors on PSP, nuisance lawsuits against Connectix and bleem!, attacking the gray market, poor warranty s
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I don't want Microsoft to be utterly dominant in yet another industry without serious competition (which I don't think Nintendo is at this point, even with the Wii). We all need Sony strong to keep Microsoft honest. Doesn't the idea of free Live appeal to you? If the Sony online service succeeds you may well see that, otherwise Microsoft can do as they please with fees
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Just one question, why don't you think Nintendo can be serious competition?
You never really explained that
It just seems like a comment that I regularly saw before the PSP was released that people were worried that Sony would dominate the handheld market because Nintendo couldn't be serious competition; and we all know how that is turning out
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Nintendo may very well be successful in the "casual gamer" market its targeting with the Wii, but the fact remains that the traditional console gaming market is still a multi-billion dollar industry which is still several times larger
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Only if it allows thorough support for freeware produced by amateurs. The PSP doesn't, and that's one of the reasons that goodwill among enthusiasts favors the Nintendo DS. It remains to be seen whether Linux for PlayStation 3 is a half-hearted port that is quickly dropped (like Linux for PS2, which did not receive an update for the slim model) or if Sony makes an attempt to maintain it right.
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