Both Sides of the PS3 Price Cut Rumor 257
So here's the deal: Kotaku has a flier for an upcoming Circuit City deal on the PlayStation 3, putting the price at $499. There's some confusion about whether this is just a sale from Circuit City, or an actual price drop from Sony. Next Generation has Sony saying 'no', indicating that this isn't a sign of an across-the-board price cut. Meanwhile, GameDaily says 'yes', with sources in the retail industry indicating this is the price adjustment we've heard coming for a while now. "As it turns out, a merchandising manager (who wished to remain anonymous) at one of the world's biggest retailers has confirmed to GameDaily BIZ that the price drop is indeed retail-wide and it's scheduled to take place on July 12, although the first wave of ads to promote the PS3's new price won't kick in until Sunday, July 15. Many analysts have speculated that Sony would drop the price on the expensive console this year, and some even predicted that it could happen this summer. It's starting to look like they were right. We're sure to find out much more next week when Sony holds its press conference at E3." Luckily we won't have to wait long to see what's the real story here.
Re:$499 (Score:3, Informative)
probably not a sale (Score:5, Informative)
Re:$499 (Score:5, Informative)
Not really, unless you mean to say that any money more than the DVD is "overpriced". For most of the new movies I looked at, the Blu-Ray version is $5 more than the DVD version. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs aren't any more expensive than in the first few years of DVD, so I really don't think the pricing is unfair.
Besides, you can get Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies from Netflix for no extra cost.
I don't regret the purchase at all.
$500 is a steal, why are people being so difficult (Score:5, Informative)
To get an Xbox 360 that is feature competitive (elite or not), you're going to be paying within $50 of the price of the current PS3. And even then, the Xbox 360 is far less cross-platform friendly, using nonstandard technology for its media streaming and peripherals. And you'll need to spend extra money for a HD-DVD box (if that's your thing). If you're considering buying a traditional game console, the PS3 is very competitive to the XBox 360 (especially so given the troubling reliability issues with the 360, I myself am on my third which refuses to play Gears of War!)
In comparison to the Wii, I advise you go for the Wii first unless you have a big PS2 game selection, in which case the PS3 will probably be a better value. The Wii and PS3 are both game systems, but the Wii is the interesting bargain product and the PS3 is the luxury product. This is not a representation of Wii dominance, it's a representation of supply/demand economics and how they interact with MSRPs. For many people, the Wii is a lever to get gaming into homes that aren't otherwise receptive to it. That's awesome, it's the tide that raises all the boats, and no one can deny the Wii is an interesting an innovative console. I like it, I waited overnight for mine, I endorse it.
But right now, the Wii isn't much more atttractive a platform than the PS3, if you get fair about the comparison. It's only got three really great titles (WiiPlay, Zelda and Paper Mario) and a release schedule that's nearly as lackluster as the PS3's. It's got a lot of development difficulty (instead of wrangling the cell, you're designing for a completely new and somewhat alien control system that requires a lot of realtime analysis of multiple data streams).
I totally understand waiting on buying a PS3. The platform only has a few really great titles right now (Motorstorm and recently the revised Ninja Gaiden Sigma), so it's entirely reasonable to wait. But to say that this $100 price drop doesn't make it competitive is just absurd and it's hater-aide. Don't buy into the anti-hype surrounding the platform.
Disclosure: I own all 3 consoles, a high def television. I am a supporter of Blu-ray as a recordable data standard. My Wii has stayed quiet since I beat Paper Mario, my Xbox 360 (2rd replacement) has just shown hardware defects and I'm told to send it in again. I do not work or take money from any video game company or Sony. I run both mac and linux boxes in my home, so an open media streaming capability is important to me.
Re:Wii (Score:5, Informative)
Re:$499 (Score:3, Informative)
There's only one Wii SKU in North America, and it comes with the console, remote+nunchuk and WiiSports.
Re:$500 is a steal, why are people being so diffic (Score:4, Informative)
Re:$500 is a steal, why are people being so diffic (Score:2, Informative)
Only if you use the VGA cable. There's no upscaling on the standard component connection. Not sure about the Elite's HDMI connection.
Not so. The Xbox 360 acts as a standard UPnP streaming media consumer. Any software that can stream music or videos to a UPnP media client can feed the 360. In Windows, that would be WMP11 or Windows Media Connect. On Mac, Connect360 [nullriver.com] works just fine. On Linux, you can use GeeXbox uShare [geexbox.org]. The 360 still mostly prefers Microsoft-specific formats (though it should do h.264 now), but as long as you have media in a format it wants it's not difficult to serve it up.
I'm not sure I'd say "a ton", though the BD format does have some potential over what the 360 can provide. Technically, the 360 and the PS3 are pretty much on par, with the PS3 being just slightly more powerful and the 360 being easier/nicer to work with. The 360's biggest asset is Xbox Live, and I just don't see Sony catching up any time soon (they killed themselves last generation when they refused to define a real online strategy and just gave up the market to Xbox Live). I could see a crazy future where full retail games are delivered via Xbox Live, stored on hard drives, and swapped around with the 360's removable hard drive.
Re:Don't base your decision on HD movies (Score:1, Informative)
As far as the Sony-bashing goes, I don't get it.. Most corporations suck, that's a given, but to say that Sony is any worse than others (particularly Microsoft) is just asinine. I wouldn't be surprised to find a M$-sponsored PR firm behind a number of the bashing posts.
-jE
Re:$500 is a steal, why are people being so diffic (Score:3, Informative)
I was in the lucky position of buying the PS3 as I was building my home entertainment system. In this capacity, I saved a metric ass-ton of money. The PS3 was so crazily cheap compared to the morass of equipment to provide its functionality that it wasn't even a contest.
By this measure, the Wii is also a raw deal. Are you willing to go that route, or are you going to trust that Nintendo will suddenly flood the market with a lot more great games. Because their track record on non-handhelds hasn't been any good since like, the SNES. The backwards compatibility is not something that should be dismissed. A lot of really [atlus.com] interesting [square-enix.com] games [nisamerica.com] are still being released for the PS2 in addition to the fairly good (though very sparse) PS3 content.