PS3, Xbox Having Disappointing Christmas Season 149
Both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 appear to be having a bit of a rough Christmas. For the PS3, it's all about launch jitters. The worst of these jitters is probably the dubious nomination from TIME magazine, who has cited the console as a 'bust'. The 360, likewise, is having problems meeting expectations, especially those of Michael Pachter. He's the gent that expected big sales this Christmas for the console, and he's now trying to figure out why the 360 fell short. What is, perhaps, a larger problem - lack of penetration for the Xbox Live service - is being discussed by Reuters. While the still laudable number of 4 million subscribers sounds impressive, the article points out that the runaway success of the Wii and the overall ratio of possible to actual subscribers should give Microsoft pause. In short, Sony and Microsoft are having good, but not great holiday seasons. Next year, when there's enough stock to go around and big games on the way, we'll see who really 'has the stuff'.
TIME didn't cite the console as a 'bust' (Score:2, Funny)
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Apparently you didn't get the joke. Time magazine declared everyone man of the year this year....
The declared 'you', not 'it' or 'everything', and the salute was mainly to bloggers, and others who make content to be shared on the internet.
In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter [time.com]
Personally, I bought a Wii for a Christmas gift, I waited 4 hours in freezing weather, but I got it, and I couldn't be happier with my purchase. Reasonably priced system including a good game, innovative controllers, and games no more expensive than last year, have pushed Nintendo to the front in this generation of game systems. If I had an HDTV I would consider
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Wii do. (Score:2)
You can get an Xbox 360 for $200 (Score:3, Informative)
I just mentioned in another thread a few minute ago that Micro Center is offering a $100 rebate [microcenter.com] on Xbox 360s, both the core and pro systems. For the core system, that would end up being $200.
Now, that being said, beware the nickel-and-diming:
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Make free online service include multiplayer play (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is the *ONLY* thing that 99% of the console players want out of an online service!!
Make it free to play online already!
Offer stupid extras or game downloads or other crap as premiums, but don't charge for basic multiplayer game functionality.
That goes for all of the other console mfgrs as well.
Re:Make free online service include multiplayer pl (Score:2)
That's what happens when you choose to support proprietary crap instead of an open standard like PC gaming is [supposed to be, MS's attempts to hijack it via DirectX notwithstanding].
Re:Make free online service include multiplayer pl (Score:2)
I kind of doubt that number. The most interesting thing for me about XBoxLive is that you have easy access to free demos, trailers and stuff. Sure, multiplayer is very nice as well, but having easy access to all those games, even if it are just demos or trial versions can provide a heck of a lot entertainment as well. And as far as I understand, you don't have to pay anything to get access to it, which you can't say
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Ever heard of a little concept called paragraphs?
Yes, it's bogus. You're proceeding from the assumption that everything you're going to buy will break. In reality, very few things we buy will break. Let's pretend that over the next five years, you buy $10000 of stuff with ext
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Salesman tried to sell me a $300 one year extension to the default one year warranty on my $1200 lawn tractor, and I laughed at him. It's been three years and $1500 in out-of-warranty repairs so far and I can no longer use third gear (which would cost more to fix than replacing the tractor). If I had spent $300 per year on the extended warranty/service plan, I'd be way ahead of the game.
Each of the repair stores I've worked with stated that almost all entry level lawn tractors are built to
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Second, I know of at least one product that it's worth getting the in-store warranty for: the Red Octane dance pad. Before breaking, it's the best pad out there, even better than the Cobalt Flux (which I bought) in my opinion. (Though every other DDR lover will disagree.) And my experience is that they typically break well within warranty. So, rather than haggle with their customer service and have to ship it back and be without it, I pay $8-$10 to be able to go in and swap it out the m
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I think what killed the 360 this Christmas is timing. I think the launch of the Wii and PS3 for some reason made people assume that they were "better" than the 360. The bottom line is this:
The PS3 was delayed for a year mainly because of Blu-Ray problems. The technology that makes it "powerful" was pretty much ready to go out the door when the 360 launched. IMHO
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Even if Bluray comes later it becomes irrelevant for games. It's the game console addon problem. Addons do not work for consoles, because game developers will always aim at the base model. When you have an install base of 1 million PS3s that don't have bluray drives in them, who in the hell is going to publish games on a bluray disk and exclude those customers? Especially since they're most likely the early adapters wh
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Also, even if they hadn't used the BluRay discs, if the content overflowed onto a second disc they could either install it to the harddrive or just have you stick in the secon
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Well, actually, Final Fantasy XI came with the hard drive and was the only game (at least in the US - FFXI for PS2 was much more popular in Japan and might have spurred more hard drive titles) that made any important use of it. I suspect the same was true all over the world since Sony removed the hard drive capability from their "slim" revision of the PS2. In other words, the PS2 hard drive was pretty clearly a failure.
Re:Wii do. (Score:5, Insightful)
When the two 'big games' that supposedly show off the 'true power' of the 360, PGR3 and Gears of War:
* PGR can't even run at full 720p resolution
* Even with the low resolution it still is only 30fps
* A jaggy mess in actual gameplay
* Only bogus 'photo mode'/non-gameplay movies/images are released for the game
* Actual gameplay captures of Gears of War simply do not exist on the Net - nothing but high rez bullshit marketing shots
* Just as much of a jaggy mess as PGR in actual gameplay
PGR3 is not some MAJOR game for the 360, by the way. Most players don't even like it. I bought it and resold it within a week because I hated it so much. It was a launch title, so it got plenty of hype. Nothing more.
* PGR3 not running at 720p has nothing to do with the 360. It's a result of the developers deciding to run it that way. It DOES run higher than SD which you apparently didn't quite get. It's rendered at 1024x600 sized up to 720p (1280x720) which isn't a larger jump anyway. SD is much lower than that. There are also many, much more graphically demanding games out there than PGR, and they're running at full 720p. Burnout Revenge for instance. (funny you should mention it though though...isn't the PS3 having trouble running at 720p?) Enjoying your PS3 at 640x480?
* Oh, is your eye faster than the rest of ours? Motion is percieved at anything faster than 11fps... They've stated all kinds of framerate issues with many of the new PS3 games anyway. To actually have it affect gameplay you're gonna have to get below 20FPS...which doesn't say much for the PS3.
* Jaggy mess? The 360 has guaranteed 2x MINIMUM anti-aliasing in ANY game. It's also manditory and enforced by Microsoft. If you looked into the 360's archetecture you would know that it also comes with NO performance his WHATSOEVER which is why almost all games have 4x support (the 360 has a separate post processing effect processor Things like motion blur (and plenty of other things) can also be completely performance free if the developers wish). The PS3 has OPTIONAL AA support and it's all handled by the main GPU. Your jaggy mess comment is just as clueless as your previous two. Jaggies are dependant on resolution...and AA pretty much does away with that problem.
* I've seen TONS of screenshots of PGR3 at IGN and Gamespot and other review sites that don't look ANYWHERE near as good as the game ACTUALLY does. I'd sure like to see where you get off saying it's "bogus."
* There are gobs of actual gameplay screenshots. Tried looking at any gamesites lately? The problem is that you don't seem to realize that ALL the shots you see are rendered in the game/game engine. The screenshots also don't anywhere near do justice to the actual game. Try watching a sidebyside GoW and R:FoM video and see how much the GoW graphics beat the living tar out of R:FoM. By the way, the "hi-rez" shots you're talking about are 720p screenshots... 720p is 1280x720 resolution...
* Again...read the comments about AA above. You're just making stuff up.
Are you just stuck on moron or something? I'm not fanboy at all, but what you said is just idiotic to the max. Gamespot did a sidebyside graphical comparison of crossover games on the PS3 and 360 and at this stage of the game the PS3's looks are a good deal below the graphics of the 360. Apparently the only people denying that are fanboys like you.
This isn't to say that the PS3 will never compete, but IF the corresponding launch titles on either system were indicative of "true" graphical power, the 360 is well beyond the PS3.... Do a little research and next time don't come here and make a moron out of yourself.
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6162742/ [gamespot.com] For example.
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Are you just stuck on moron or something? I'm not fanboy at all, but what you said is just idiotic to the max. Gamespot did a sidebyside graphical comparison of crossover games on the PS3 and 360 and at this stage of the game the PS3's looks are a good deal below the graphics of the 360. Apparently the only people denying that are fanboys like you.
They did a side-by-side comparison of crossover games, which means that the engines for those were built generically and were adapted for porting. Which means th
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Please clarify your Self Contradictory statement.. (Score:2)
Though I don't agree that all the Heavy hitters will be pushed to Q4 2007, I'm curious about what you said. If there isn't anything good out for the Wii, and won't be until (as you speculate) late 2007, then why do you love it?
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It's inexpensive.
It has a very interesting control system.
The control system is not likely to screw up my wrists (tho it may beef up my arms!).
Xbox is too expensive and a Microsoft product and I'm really disliking them more with each passing year.
PS3 is a Sony product and I will never ever buy another Sony product in my life (great products- the worst customer service I've ever see-- never been literally verbally attacked by customer service before o
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Wii (Score:2)
Although, to be fair, I haven't tried Gears of War. It sounds fun, though.
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I tried getting a Wii a couple of times but haven't been successful yet. I planned on getting a 360 eventually so decided to get one now so that I'd at least have something new to play with. It's actually pretty fun (I played a few arcade games as well as the Legos Starwars game). I also like how they have integrated Live into the console.
As soon as Wii starts showing up on the shelves for hours at a time I'll get one but I'm sure I'll still be playing plenty of 360 games too. If I didn't have broadband th
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Yeah, it's the console that pops up and says Hi!
Besides, we all know how to work a Wii.
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Most people seem to really like at least 2 of the Wii sports.
I like tennis and boxing.
Re:Wii (Score:4, Interesting)
It wasn't a tough sell at all.
If you haven't played one...do so.
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Yeah, I'm not counting the ps3. Being an european, it's a non-entity to me as long as it's only available in the US and Japan. ;)
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In short, you can have both. What's stopping you?
$500 is a lot of cash for toys.
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Bottom line... (Score:2)
ps2 probably the big seller this holiday (Score:2)
Price is still a big factor in games, and there are still good games cheap for the last generation consoles.
ps2 & DS the big sellers this holiday (Score:2)
Price is still a big factor in games, and there are still good games cheap for the last generation consoles.
Don't forget the DS. I've seen PS3's on the shelf more often than I've seen DS Lites in Stock (both are rare, but I haven't seen a DS Lite av
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More Gnashing of Teeth (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a lot of things you can criticize about the PS3, but the sales are not one of them. Really, you can't say much at all about the sales until they start sitting on the shelves for more than 5 minutes. Even if total sales during the holidays are slow due to lack of supply, it doesn't really matter that the total volume is low until the boxes finally stop selling instantly.
Re:More Gnashing of Teeth (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or, conversely, that Sony intelligently priced the PS3 near the market-clearing price, rather than below it creating an opportunity for arbitrage. Since Sony is in business to make money for Sony, not a horde of e-Bay resellers, the lack of an e-Bay premium isn't,
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Come on. It's not like Sony could go even lower with the price - they're losing tons of money as is, and people don't buy the consoles.
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Most people are pretty satisfied with the PS2, and don't have a need to move into the PS3 yet.
Over the next 6 months, as more "must have titles" come out, and as the current wave of HDTV adoption hits, you'll probably see an uptick in PS3 demand.
This combined with people remembering the ridiculous hype surrounding the XBox360 price
A PS3 Remote would not work (Score:3, Insightful)
Except... there ar three or four games at most for each of these add-on "gamepads." Even the EyeToy didn't get more than a few mediocre games. On the Wii, every game can and will use the remote to some degree, because developers know they can rely on it being there.
And as we've seen, ideas usually don't suddenly appe
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You're right. Each revision merely added features that should have been in the device from the start (backlight on the GBA for instance), or that reflected advances in technology (smaller/lighter and brighter screen).
Why is the inclusion of an HD output and a scal
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What both of them should be worried about is that they both made the possibly fatal blunder of releasing a console that comes in two different configurations. Nobody wants the low en
Re:More Gnashing of Teeth (Score:4, Informative)
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Many of the listings had no bids at all, just the dashed hopes of a seller with a starting bid (of $650) that no one wants to make.
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Those resellers are idiots.
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Not saying they are not selling a lot of PS3's but they are not flying off the shelves and you could get one easily if you cared to.
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Is history repeating? I wouldn't be so sure. In 2001, the PS2 had a triumvirate of absolute monster blockbuster titles: new entries in the Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto and Metal Gear Solid series. Each of them sold close to a million copies in December and you could argue that each filled somewhat of a niche.
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The adoption curve will probably look exactly like the 360, and both systems will have disappointing numbers until they lower the prices.
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Bingo... as rashly as you put that, I believe that you're (mostly) correct (there are Sony fanboys out there, just a lot less than people would make out to believe). At this point, there are two large groups of gamers: Console Gamers, and PC gamers: there's very little crossover, the two groups have been at each other's throats since the beginning of time... yeah whatever, let's move on. On the console hardware end of things, there are (effectively, for buying practices), three major camps: the Nintendo fan
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Are you a JRPG fan or a Squeenix fan? I'm not flaming, I'm just curious. I haven't been a fan of Square for some time now, but I love JRPGs and I've noticed we haven't heard from some of the non-SE JRPG publishers lately. Do we know where they're going? I know Atlus is getting some mindshare on the DS and Wii fr
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As for the PS3, for every forum where people are talking about PS3s selling out in minutes, I can show you forums where people are posting about going into their local big box store and seeing 4 or 5 PS3s just sitting there, with no buyers. I think any of these reports from Internet forums should be taken
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I don't know how large the shipments of PS3s are, but from everything I've heard they are still just trickling in. Maybe you have a cite for your claim that massive shipments are coming in
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The Wii has a supply problem because it has such a large demand. Nintendo is definitely shipp
Re:More Gnashing of Teeth (Score:5, Informative)
You're only half right. The PS3 supply problem has been mostly sorted out, but both consoles are being regularly resupplied. The difference is that the Wiis are disappearing the moment the store opens, while the PS3s just... aren't. (Remember, the Wii has several times as many consoles out as the PS3.)
Scary as it may sound, most people know the exact dates that the Wii will arrive, and thus show up to acquire them. I few dates I was aware of:
November 24th (Black Friday supply)
December 2nd (First occurance of consoles being held until Sunday in order to list it in the flyers)
December 6th (Walmart held theirs until this date because their flyers are on a different schedule)
December 9th (Most stores cancelled this release to stockpile for the 17th)
December 17th (huge dump of stockpiled consoles)
December 22nd (last shipment before Christmas)
Each of these dates represented a significant number of units for nearly every major retailer. The fewest I've heard of was 9 for a given store. EB Games appear to get their shipments in a more ad-hoc fashion, so reports on specific dates have been sketchy for those.
In comparison, the PS3s are usually Fex-Exed to the stores in bundles of 3 to 5 units. Delivery is ad-hoc and unpredictable. Surprisingly, the consoles don't appear to immediately sell out. I know several people (one personally) who were there at the time of a PS3 restock. There simply wasn't much interest from the shoppers.
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In my experience, that is not true. I was blogging some stuff about the Wii before it was released, including midnight sales dates. Something interesting happened: In my country (in Europe), that blog post now appears as a top position in Google on several Wii-related search terms. People often post to my blog where they've been able to buy Wiis, and every time, somebody posts a little later that they're all gone.
Two things of note: Nintendo does ship new Wiis regularly, and they do sell out regularly, eve
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I said "and the Wii did not have supply issues TO NEARLY THE SAME EXTENT AS THE PS3 DID." The Wii had far more units available at launch than the PS3. Hence, their supply issues were not as severe.
Learn to read before you fly off the handle.
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Are you lazy, a bad reader, or purposely trying to mislead people? Here's his entire sentence...
Which is fairly accurate.
Yes, the controllers are hard to find. However, I've finally c
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I agree, and I often think this as well. But then I put on a business cap and say, well, if they did produce more that means they either 1) have to have more factories to produce more units or 2) have to stock pile more unites long before the release of the sy
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PS3 BluLaser Issues Are Over (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft apparently is flooding the channel with 360s to try to be able to make an effort to be able to claim they reached their sales goals for the first year. People are reporting giant stacks of 360s sitting in aisles in stores this past couple of week
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Sams Clubs In Ohio have no PS3's. (Score:3, Informative)
Parent's aren't even interested in asking about the ps3's and when they do it's something like.
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We've been getting shipments of everything but the ps3. We've had tons of 360's ordered hundreds for the holiday and they are selling but we've barely had any ps3's.
Back in early December or so, when checking for Wiis at a Sam's Club, I was told that they didn't expect to get any PS3s until... March! So either the guy was just making something up to answer a question that I hadn't even asked, or Sam's Club isn't going out of their way to get PS3s.
Anyhow, I still don't have a Wii, but I did manage to walk into a Gamestop just as they were filling the shelves with 2/3 of a shipping box full of controllers and got mote/chuck pair.
Nintendo sold me an Xbox360 (Score:3, Interesting)
I am fascinated by the Wii, and already own two games(Zelda:TP and Super Monkey Ball) for the Wii...and I still do not own one. There just aren't any that aren't sold on the internet or on a freezing cold line at 3am.
So rather than going home empty-handed to sit out my holiday vacation days in boredom...I picked up an Xbox360 to tide me over till February when the Wii (hopefully) where the Wii is available on the inside of stores rather than the outside.
So my desire for the Wii managed to boost Xbox360 sales. Having an Xbox360 made a large number of games available to me, and it led to purchase a series of games I'd been curious about but never cared to pursue. So Nintendo can also be thanked for netting me 10-12 games(though only about 6 are new).
Naturally my story will not be common, but I don't think it will be all that rare. I just happen to have an excess of disposable income due to my circumstances and underdeveloped propensity to save.
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If you have a chance pick up Trauma Center. I never played the DS version but it
Zelda, Super Monkey Ball (Score:2)
First of all, yes. Zelda is amazing. I think it's one of the top four Zelda games ever (the other three being Occarina, Past and Awakening, imho). Possibly the best.
Second, I don't understand why people prefer Rayman to Super Monkey Ball. Rayman's multiplayer mode for most minigames is to let players play the game one after the other. That sucks! Rayman is a pretty crappy party game. In addition to that, you have to unlock minigames. That sucks even more!
Contrast this with Super Monkey Ball: All game are
I have another metric for you :) (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, go search for PS3s on ebay, what you'll find is that there are some selling for under retail now! I wonder if those sellers actually go through with those auctions? The Wii? It can still be found selling for nearly double retail.
What it's not... (Score:2)
- It's not a new way to play games
- It's not a BluRay (or HD-DVD) player.
- It's not fully backward compatible
- It's not a Linux platform.
- It's not friendly to casual gamers
It's just the XBox...only prettier. There's no easy way to market that...Re: (Score:2)
Re: PS3 is a 'Me-Too' Console... (Score:2)
The 360 at least has LIVE to differentiate itself, which IMHO is better than what the PS3 has. Quite honestly Blue-Ray is the only defining characteristic of the PS3, and that might be more of a selling point if the system was $200 cheaper for each version.
It has a 'Me-Too' motion sensing controler (that isn't as good or acurate as the Wii),
a 'Me-Too' Online S
From the other side of the Atlantic... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple are either being incredibly clever holding back the iPod shuffle knowing the 'next present up the ladder' is their own Nano, or they seriously miscalculated demand, since they are practically unobtainable here.
I think the real problem for the Games market is that there were no really 'big' must-have games this year. I'd have bought a Wii if the Mario Game was out, a PS3 if it and GT5 was out, and a Xbox360 if hell froze over. My spend on games this Christmas is zero, and I'm not the only one.
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Is it safe to assume you're playing Twilight Princess on the GameCube?
Umm...Zelda? (Score:2)
I suppose that doesn't make it a "big game".
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what would improve the consoles' popularity (Score:2, Funny)
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Interestingly, those videos possibly are helping the Wii. I've seen lots of "Wii conversations" being started by those, or by the "recall" of Wii straps (which, I know, wasn't technically a recall). Eventually, these conversations turn into a discussion of how cool the Wii's new controller is. So yeah, in a way, these videos might help Nintendo.
For me it's pretty simple (Score:2)
The Wii, on the other hand, has Zelda, which looks like fun, and Wii Sports, which other members of my household will enjoy playing. So I'll probably get one of those first.
But it's not about liking one console more than another, or (to a huge extent) about
PS3 is *not* $200 more expensive than X360 (Score:2)
$400 in Australia dude. (Score:2)
By the time the ps3 is released, March/April, everyone will have NO money left, because thats usually the time when people start pumping large amounts
of their wages into the CCs that they spent big on the December.
PS3s in stores? (Score:2)
I'd love to know where; I have an actual paying project held up by the fact that I can't find a PS3 for love nor rubles.
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It may be that, now, the xmas rush people have gone and gotten something else.
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HDMI is signal-compatible with DVI-I and DVI-D, which are used to interconnect with digital LCD panels. Most low-end LCD panels and practically all CRT displays use the DVI-A signal standard, which is just analog VGA with a different connector and is not compatible with HDMI.
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But you have to be suspect of people who brag about not owning televisions.
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