PlayStation 3 Launches in EU/AU

stpk4 wrote to mention some articles discussing the launch of the PlayStation 3 in Europe; London saw Phil Harrison handing out HD sets, while Microsoft's party barge and lackluster crowds marked the Parisian launch. The Australian launch went well but also saw disappointing crowds, with media, security, and store officials outnumbering the customers for much of the event. Eurogamer has a comprehensive list of launch titles, for those of you in the new territories thinking of picking up a console.

Whee

(crickets)

I knew Sony was desparate...

But not this [thegamewars.com] desparate...

Folding

Coinciding with the EU and AU release was the new firmware, including the PS3 Folding@home client. This has caused the project to explode, with PS3's putting up more than 20x the performance of a Windows PC [gizmodo.com]

Re:Folding

Indeed. To put it in perspective, the average GPU client is doing twice as well as the average PS3 client.

'Overall' power?

And what exactly is the 'overall' power of a system?

Performance always has a context (despite what some marketers will have you believe) and in this context, yes, the Cell in the PS3 really is that much more powerful than an x86 chip.

In my store...

we sold about 26 machines at our midnight launch this morning. That was only about a third of our pre-orders, and Sony got us 120 machines for day one. I know everyone's heralding the death of Sony's gaming division these days, but they've done a fantastic job with getting stock out there to stores (admittedly they've had months to put this in motion). I won't be buying one myself but I think Sony are starting to turn their fortunes around.

Just as long as they don't let any of their execs do anymore interviews.

Re:In my store...

Of course it's easy to ship enough stock when your demand is low.

PS3

Well, now having a Xbox 360 and Wii, and a lot of playing time on thePS3, I'd have to say the PS3 gets a worse rap than it deserves. Well, at least it doesn't deserve the ire it is shown. They could have been more competetive by making the Blu-Ray optional (which there is little use for as of yet). As far as the interface goes, the PS3 is a bit more versatile than the 360, but the 360 is much easier. Combined with a PSP, it can do some pretty sweet stuff. I hear you can do some sweet stuff on the 360 if you have a Windows Media Center PC as well, but I don't know and won't find out.

The PS3 is quieter than the Xbox, and has a much better hard drive setup. However, for all it's much advertised power, I certainly haven't noticed it. It could be the games, but nothing I have seen would lead me to believe it is more powerful. Which, I guess, brings up games. So far PS3 is far behind the 360 in games. And that's saying alot with the 360 not having a super line-up yet.

But, I'm still waiting for my Xbox back from MS after the dvd drive crapped out. Just like the original xbox, the DVD drives seem to be good for about a year, while my original PS2 drive is still working.

Anyway, for the money, I'd take a 360 and a Wii over the PS3 anyday. The 360 for playing alone & online, and the Wii for when friends are over.

Re: Wii is plenty powerful...

But the Wii just doesn't have the power and graphics to satify the gaming population.

Sure it does. In fact it already has about half the install base of the 360 and more than twice that of the PS3. Remember that if the 'most powerful machine' wins the race, Sony would never have been a contender. People seemed pretty content with their PS1/PS2's despite there being more powerful systems competing with them.

The cheapest way...

Intelligence says that some German retailer had a crazy stunt: Bring your Xbox360, smash it in front of the audience and get a PS3 for free! Limited to the first fifty people...

The first lesson?

Lesson #1: Rampant Microsoft fanboyism is best left to the fanboys, not Microsoft.

A whistle stop tour of electronic stores

I had the day off today due to the dryer at home deciding to stop working. This took me on a tour of Comet, Curry's, Woolworths and Big W.

All stores had huge signs outside saying "PS3 stock available inside". This was from 12 oclock through till 2pm. Everywhere had huge stands and what looked like large amounts of stock, I also only saw one person show interest.

Later this afternoon I decided to take a trip into Cardiff (S.Wales vally boy just so you know). Gamestation, Virgin, Game, HMV and more all had signs saying "stock available".

I think at this point that I should note that in all stores the Wii was totally sold out. Supply chain problems,lack of interest whatever. I think it speaks for itself that at £425 just for a base unit console the numbers are going to suck. People want value not extra's and to put a long story short, if you really do need that PS3 get to Newport and Cardiff in S.Wales.

Pete

The reviews...

...have been quite positive around here, but it's like:

Pro: It's a great $1000 package
Con: It's a $1000 package
(after 25% VAT)

Basicly, if you're going to use it as a HDTV movie box, buy it. If you're going to use it as a game console, get the 360 instead. The Wii was barely mentioned, for the PS3 target market they clearly saw it as PS3 vs 360. While the Blu-Ray drive is very competative to stand-alones, basicly if you're not going to use it then the prices will drop fairly quickly in a year or two, there's no point buying one today to save for later. That was the essence I read out of it.

Fuck

I'm still waiting for it to come out here in Kenya.

Re:wtf?!

The real question is: did they also provide the HD cables to connect the PS3 to those TVs? (since the PS3 doesn't come with them)

Re:wtf?!

My bet is that Sony realizes that the PS3 is only really a value for people needing HD, and many people simply aren't running HD yet. (I have a 36" standard def tube set at home which still looks great for everything I watch).

That known the best way to get people evangelizing about the product is to make sure they are using it in the most optimal scenario.

Also, I am willing to bet he knows the PR quagmire/sinkhole the PS3 is in and knew it would get him good publicity pop.

Re:wtf?!

That happened only in London, and even there the reception was rather cold (they had 100 tvs for the midnight lines in London and given the fact this was a secret even there were almost no lines). The biggest documented thing was in Paris, where 60 people basically bought a PS3 in a big launch event, where they had 1000 PS3s lingering around, to the worse, a Microsoft boat drove by before. Actually locally here (central europe) there were some boxes sold, but they had them stacked up so most of them basically were left alone. (Totally opposite to the Wii launch where the boxes were basically ripped from the floors within minutes and basically all of them sold out within the first 20 minutes and lots of people being left empty handed) I dont know the preorder numbers, but as it seems, and every report indicates it that the entire launch was rather cold. The main problem really is the price, Sony as a brand is strong, but HDTV is not and the season is not a shopping season, add to that the fact that the price here in Europe is 800 dollars, add to that the fact that the europen version is the first getting the software Emu and people over here have the feeling to get a worse version (compatbility still is worse although the potential for the thing is there, but you still can switch the us version to software only as well) and people rightfully feel like being screwed and ripped off by Sony left and right and hate them for it. Or in other words, many loyal PS2 fans simply were not interested at all anymore! I hope this is the right smack on the head for Sony, that they finally get the clue to cut down the influence of their media division into the rest of the company. This whole fiasco could have been avoided if they would not have misused the entire thing as trojan horse to push Blue Ray into the market! I personally think, that we might see a DVD version of the PS3 sometime, but it might be to late to save the PS3 then.

Re:wtf?!

Finally we find out why the PS3 costs so much more in the UK.
It has an HDTV bundled with it....

Re:wtf?!

Now HERE's the interesting thing. Those HD sets cost well more than the PS3s did. Essentially Sony was paying people to take PS3s.