80 Gig PS3 For South Korea, Slow April for Sony 145
The South Koreans are about to see the PlayStation 3 launched in their nation, and they're getting a treat the rest of the world will have to wait on: a PS3 with an 80 gig hard drive. Meanwhile, NPD numbers show that the company's games division suffered greatly during April, likely as a result of few titles released during that month. "Though the company saw a bump in PSP sales, Nintendo DS continues to curb stomp the portable PlayStation. More disappointing, however, must have been seeing PlayStation 3 decline in sales of almost 50,000 units between March and April ... If April was tough, May looks bleaker. Karraker wouldn't speculate on sales, but outside of MLB 07: The Show's release at the end of April, there are no first-party releases coming to PS3 in May. In fact, there are only two May PS3 games period: Surf's Up and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Both are multi-platform releases."
And yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
Console News (Score:5, Interesting)
What I've found interesting is that I've been reading a lot of news about upcoming PS3 releases recently, (not necessarily releases coming this month of course.) Conversely, it seems that news about the Wii have been tapering off - certainly from what the volume when it was first released. xbox360 news seems to have been holding steady.
This is, of course, an entirely subjective observation. Anyone care to corroborate or counter what I've noticed?
Re:Console News (Score:2, Interesting)
However: Nintendo announced its (and a few 3rd party titles as well) Summer release schedule, and during this or before (I've forgotten) we found that Smash Bros, Galaxies, and Metroid are still set to ship this year
Re:Console News (Score:4, Interesting)
Sony did their Gamer's Day press conference last week (or the week before, I really can't remember) and many third parties joined in on releasing a lot of information about upcomming PS3/PSP games
Nintendo is doing a very similar conference today and tomorow and will (likely) have a similar number of titles announced.
Even without new titles, if you check out release dates the Wii has roughly the same number of titles announced until the end of the year as the PS3. The main difference is the Wii has far (FAR) more titles being released before September than the PS3 does; it is hypothetically possible that the Wii's (post september) line-up will grow at Nintendo's conference, E3 and TGS until it is far greater than the PS3's (post september) line-up.
Re:Price + Lack of games (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the Wii will probably have to have a shorted lifecycle than the PS3. It just doesn't have the power for AI or graphics. While those elements don't have anything to do with fun...a lot of developers do want to have more capability and the Wii is going to be limited to more casual games. This isn't a criticism of the Wii...I am glad Nintendo viewed next gen as how you control the game and that MS and Sony viewed next gen as power and HD. I just think the Wii is going to lose steam as soon as third party vendors realize they won't sell as many games on the Wii and that they are limited by the older hardware. And this isn't really speculation...this has happened on every Nintendo console (i.e. Third parties peform poorly compared to first party games in sales more than on other platforms)
As a side note, I find it interesting how many people love the Wii on here compared to the gamers I know in real life. A lot of them don't like the Wii because they feel the controller isn't responsive enough. Most don't want one and are happy with just their 360. The PS3 has nothing worth buying it for so they just mainly 360 and PC game. Maybe my friends are in the minority or maybe posts that don't claim Wii as the second coming of christ just don't get modded up!
Re:Price + Lack of games (Score:2, Interesting)
Two years from now, we'll be treated to a WiiHD (or whatever) that's just as powerful as the PS3 and 360, but at half the cost.
You really think the Wii was MADE to last for 8-12 years, like the 360 and PS3? By the time Sony is financially able to justify a PS4, we'll be on Nintendo's 3rd console of the generation... guess who'll have the huge graphic-to-price advantage, then?
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, right now, the PS3 is being outsold in the US by the GBA. THE GBA! It's underperforming the gamecube in Japan, hitting sales targets *weeks* after the cube did. And, like the PSP was by the DS, it's being absolutely destroyed by the Wii. And the HD movie market is *NOTHING* compared to the DVD market. It's like a sick joke.
It's very easy and fun to play with sales data and especially pacing and trends. But ultimately, it's meaningless. In what countries, by what metric? Are we adjusting for the increased market size since the X came out?
As much as I'd like to have a PS3 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Price + Lack of games (Score:3, Interesting)
Some Nintendo games have totally flopped, but typically they do well, because typically, they are high quality games.
I'm 99.9% sure I remember hearing third parties happy with their sales on the Wii this past holiday...
Anyhow, I do agree that it's debatable whether the Wii will continue to steam roll the competition. My guess is that it will, but I am less sure than guessing about the PS3 placing a distant 3rd (given the 360's installed base, cheaper price, comparable hardware, comparable exclusives, etc. etc.)
Personally, I haven't been using mine mcuh recently (barring drunken weekends), but this comes with the territory when you are dealing with a first year console during the spring/early summer draught.
PS: On a side note, you discuss processing power and implications to AI. Do you know of any titles that would be limited in AI due to the Wii's processing? I can't think of any, and always had my doubts about AI being a bullet behind the pros of better hardware. Better theoretical AI maybe
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Or, you could look at sales per month, and see that the Wii sold 82% as many units in April as in January (360k vs. 436k), while the the PS3 dropped to 34% (82k vs. 244k).
Or, that last month they moved 23% as many PS3s as Wiis (82k vs. 360k).
Or that since the beginning of the year, PS2s have outsold PS3s by 70% (989k vs. 583k).
Or that the Wii outsold the PS3 by 138% (1390k vs. 583k).
Or that the DS has outsold the PSP by 124% (1703k vs. 760k).
Pick your metric. Every single one of them is awful, and if anyone left at Sony still has plans of staying in the game business, they need to stem the hemorrhaging soon.
Re:Price + Lack of games (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you mean to say that Nintendo is going to have the best games?? I hardly think that will cause the Wii to slow down.
I just think the Wii is going to lose steam as soon as third party vendors realize they won't sell as many games on the Wii and that they are limited by the older hardware.
If the Wii becomes the dominant console nobody is going to abandon it. Look at how quickly 3rd parties took notice of wii and ramped up wii game production once it became obvious that it was selling far beyond expectations. They didn't all leak their brains out and forget that competing on nintendo means competing with nintendo... they KNOW what they're dealing with. They've got the same history you do.
But they know that supporting the dominant console will pay off.
and the people who own a PS3 are going to buy more games per console.
Only relevant if they buy enough more to make up for the fact that there are less of them.
(And if the games are 'worthless' compared to what nintendo releases, I'd hope even a PS3 owner would stay the hell away from them.)
As for limited by the older hardware? The ONLY situation that is going to affect is that it gets even harder to make lousy multi-platform ports on the cheap. Losing the 'Lousy ports' isn't going to harm the platform.
Also, the Wii will probably have to have a shorted lifecycle than the PS3. It just doesn't have the power for AI or graphics.
By that logic the Honda civic should have been discontinued by now. And why does anyone buy a handheld when all they do is let us play last generation games technology? Seriously. Yes, its 'limiting', but entertainment value per dollar is high. As long as that can be sustained the system will do well.
Just look at the popularity of the virtual console.
I find it interesting how many people love the Wii on here compared to the gamers I know in real life.
Comparing the
so they just mainly 360 and PC game
Seems pretty redundant to buy two boxes for that.
And furthermore, if your own 'real world group' has already self-selected into 'gamers who play 360 + PC games' do you really think THEY are representative of the larger audience for the Wii?
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, the tables have turned. Sony is the evil money-grubbing company that doesn't care about quality of content, just superficial image, Microsoft have proven themselves to be relatively "decent", and Nintendo are the shining beacon of inginuity and vision.
Public perception makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE. If you decide to hate a company, you're basically lost to them as a costomer, no matter how great a product you deliver. Sony are currently the "bad guys" (note the difference between "bad guys" and "bad boys") of the generation, and that's going to cost them dearly, no matter what titles they put out.
The fact is, much of the old gamer gaurd refused to accept Microsoft because console gamers were always at odds with PC gamers, and Microsoft represented a threatening side of gaming. This is a large reason why the XBox didn't come out on top last generation. Now, they have proven themselves, and Sony has some real competition. And even moreso from Nintendo, who are currently presenting themselves (and being generally regarded), as the saviours of the gaming industry... and both companies are living up to their claims.
Go ahead. (Score:2, Interesting)
*shakes head* Sony even sucks in professional video now. I'd rather buy ten Samsung CCD cameras for the price of one Sony.
Competition. (Score:5, Interesting)
We have the Xbox360, but I don't really consider it a true competitor to the Wii because those two systems aren't really seen as inhabiting the same market space. The primary problem is how poorly it's done in Japan. The fact that the system is virtually nonexistent in one of the biggest gaming markets in the world means it's always going to lose out when it comes to variety of games. Clearly, the Xbox360 has fared far better than the original Xbox, but I still see it as potentially ending up in the same situation as the Sega Genesis relative to the SNES.
The Xbox360 certainly is significant and it may turn out to be more of a challenge to Nintendo than we realize now, but it's going to require more than Halo 3 and other such games to accomplish that. But, like I've said, they've likely already lost the Japanese market. The saving grace is that Japanese companies keep developing games for the system.
The PS3 has the potential to be a competitor for both consoles because of the potential for such a variety of games, at least if it sees anything like the sort of development the PS2 has. The PS2 really had games of all types and some were truly innovative. Really the only thing it lacked was anything from Nintendo.
My point here is that if Nintendo returns to the sort of dominance it had in the past it will also revert to the same sort of tactics it used back then, back when they were the heavy-handed monopoly. If it weren't for Nintendo falling behind in the last two generations of consoles we probably wouldn't have seen the DS or the Wii.
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
I was out shopping with my son when I noticed Games Wizards (I live in Australia) was offering PS3's (we only have the 60GB version) at AU$499 (US$410) when you trade in your working PS2 (mine is over 5 years old) plus 10 games. This was an offer too good to be true so I checked and it was true so I got one plus the game Oblivion (traded two old ps2 games for a 50% off price). I was curious so I asked if many people were buying and was informed that they were. I was the 5th at 10:00am and I had another person behind me.
Setting up the PS3 in my home was easy, even setting it up to talk to my wireless router was not difficult. Once I upgraded the firmware to 1.7 I can now play most of my PS2 and all of my PS1 games, some of which were not even mentioned in the website. I can even use my PS2 Logitech 2 dual shock wireless controller and get rumble from PS1 and PS2 games (if supported) as well as the ability to use a keyboard and mouse (all wireless). For those interested a PS1/2 game is Standard Def and a PS3 game is 720p up-to 1080p. You definitely can notice the difference in graphics quality but I still play my Gamecube and PS1/2 games since my HDTV does smooth out some games. There is also a rumour from some Game Sites that the Sony emulator programmers are looking at up-scaling PS1 and PS2 games to High Res but like I have said it is still a rumour.
It is far to early to make a call on the popularity of any of the new consoles and a cheaper console may not cut it if people don't buy the games. From what I have seen so far with Nintendo games there is little difference in price between the PS3 and Xbox360 games, people do notice this. In addition Nintendo games usually remain high long after equivalent games on the other consoles has fallen (usually by 50%). I have seen this with the Gamecube vs PS2 and Xbox and now I am seeing the same thing with the Wii games.
If games places start doing deals like the above and they are starting to since we are approaching the end of our financial year at the end of June, the PS3 is going to sell well even with similar deals on the Xbox and Wii since the PS3 is perceived as a very attractive item (ie. bragging rights) especially since HDTV's are selling really well in Australia and people do want HD movies to play on their HDTV's. The PS3 out of the box does just this. In fact some of our main department stores are not even stocking HD-DVD machines, just BD (Blu-Ray) only.
The only problem I have now is I have to share the HDTV with my wife and two sons and my eldest also likes the PS3 Oblivion game even though he is an avid PC gamer. Guess I will have to set up a time share system
Re:Price + Lack of games (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, third parties see the Wii as selling well so they get a bunch of people who don't know crap about making games on the Wii and put them on the project. At least initially, the third party games are going to be horrible since they ignored the Wii before and don't have experience making games with the controller. Yeah, they have the same history as I do, but funny how greed make corporations make the same mistakes over and over again.
Consoles != handhelds. It is a stupid analogy. You can't fit a current consoles power in the palm of your hand. In order to play games on a handheld, they have to be last gen (or last last gen) because you can't make a portable as powerful as current gen yet. I think it will have a shorter lifecycle because the limitations of the console just become more pronounced as time goes on (compared to the 360 and PS3). It isn't an insult or something, it is just logical.
I am talking about gamers. A lot of Slashdotters are gamers. I don't know about you, but I don't distinguish between the two. You may be talking about casual gamers, but that isn't what all Slashdotters are.
Seems pretty redundant to buy two boxes for that.
That statement is pure flambait and false to boot. Grow up.