Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.
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Christian: I really want to know how many people are still drooling for a new Sony console. This gen is the ultimate test of the Playstation brand. One thing is for sure: a new PS3 is financial suicide simply because of the defect rate on Sony consoles.
Dan: I feel the PS2 was the perfect system for the casual gamer, and had a little bit of everything. I don’t know what will fill that void now. Besides a combination of the Wii and the 360.
Golden Jew: Let’s not forget the feeding frenzy when PS2 came out. It was hella expensive, hella rare and were the launch titles THAT good? Granted, the games were still $50.
Christian: They sucked.
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PS2 launch titles may have sucked…IF YOU ARE DUMB ENOUGH TO OVERLOOK FANTAVISION! |
Golden Jew: Yup. And it was… drum roll… a DVD player! The similarities… are hauntingly familiar!
Jay: The DVD already existed for a while, though. Blu Ray is coming out now. Golden Jew, who will take first, second and third? Also keep in mind that the GC is number two globally, not three. The Dreamcast has sold more than the Xbox.
Golden Jew: A good question, because it could play out in a lot of ways…But, five years from now? I say…Sony/Xbox/Wii. Call me a fanboy, but I think Sony/Xbox have 100x the infrastructure and Wii is too nichy.
Christian: A good safe choice, but do you think the numbers will be closer?
Golden Jew: I think Wii is VERY strong in Japan, but more distant here… Xbox in the reverse situation.
Jay: Christian, your numbers?
Christian: Well, Golden Jew has made a great choice, but I’ll go with Nintendo on top, followed by Sony and MS. We know it won’t sell worse than the Cube, and if enough additional people buy it as a secondary console, well, shit, there you go.
Golden Jew: Till Nintendo gets sued for all those disfigured child wrists and get slammed with class action lawsuits.
Stefan: Worldwide, I’d say either Wii, Sony, MS or Sony, Wii, MS. In the US – Xbox, Wii, PS3. I think. As much as the PS3 is looking like a train wreck, I can’t imagine Sony actually loosing too badly.
Dan: Worldwide: Wii, Xbox, Sony. USA: Xbox, Wii, Sony. I think Sony is going to get steamrolled by their high price. People like video games but not that much.
Golden Jew: Let me throw something out there too… on the price thing, if I can jump back. Just because Sony is saying all these high prices doesn’t mean they’ll hold. But — one thing Sony has is a HUGEASS corporate division. And they’ve probably tested the fuck out of the price curve and they know, once you lower a price, you can never go back up. But, if you start high, you can rape the early adopters and then lower down. It’s happened with every system. So my guess is Sony has some pretty good data to support that move. The question will be if it holds true on the games. That’s the big gamble. BUT IF they CAN hold a 60-70 price point, developers will love it. If they can even see a $5 cut of it. And it’s more incentive to first party develop as well. And– as we said at the start of the talk, we all blow $1000’s on our plasma and sound setups.
Christian: I don’t :-(
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Can the Wii do this to you? |
Golden Jew: If the right games come out we’ll bitch, we’ll moan, and we’ll cry but we’ll still pay for it.
Christian: But at the same time, Sony as a whole is doing…iffy. How much more cash can they bleed?
Dan: They have been losing money for a while in almost all high tech sectors for a couple of quarters. Hence why they hired an English guy to take over their company.
Golden Jew: Yeah, but they’re still a behemoth.
Jay: Sony probably didn’t come to the price point through testing but rather it’s as much as they can afford to bleed, a Blu Ray player is $1000 they must be losing a bit on every PS3.
Golden Jew: Oh, they’re losing a TON on PS3’s but remember, Sony is a HUGE distributor — music, media, games.
Stefan: I’m gonna agree that they’re bleeding on it, but I’m going with Golden Jew. No company as big as Sony makes a move like that without a _lot_ of metrics.
Wow. I would have agreed that the Wii might have come out on top as well but I noticed something. Most people that are saying I will buy a Wii along with system X , are the same people who have a GC sitting at home next to previous gen system X. All my frients also have GC to compliment thier systems. This made me think really hard about what might happen. Here is my prediction: PS3/Wii/360 and by an extremely close margin. I am mirroring Jay but I believe this will probably hold true for america as well. I laugh when I hear about the best buys situations. I hear it happening in other major retailers as well. I had once mention before on this site that blu ray stands a greater chance of succeding. It is because of the huge and powerful companies behind it that want to make a profit. This is a type of dirty business technique that has been done before. Look at the larger consequences of this turn of events. Saavy people like us will notice this blatant product endorsement that is going on but the average consumer won’t. I don’t blame best buy or thier employees either, chances are this means more money for them. I had a feeling this was going to happen and that is why my strongest opinion is that blu ray is going to win. I don’t like how it might be done but I support blu ray anyway.Sony is an innovator. Alot of thier products have failed but lets not forget the ideas, the technology and the quality that goes behind thier electronics. You can knock em for trying to be proprietary but who could blame them. Imagine if you created something that is of a frivilous use (entertainmentwise) and you spent alot of money to invent it then mass produce it. Wouldn’t you want to reap most of the profits that come in off of that device?By literal definition the PS3 is a PC. It will have upgradable parts. I think that Sony was using this PC ploy to get tax breaks but I do not think this is an all out attack on PC’s. I see it as Sony saying that thier PS3 can replace media centers. It is laughable to think they are trying to go against that hardcore PC market (something that really doesn’t exist in japan) or even to the casual PC user. The casual PC user knows, windows, email and instant messaging. Thier promotion, if it seriously aimed at casual pc users, would only work in a very few select places in the world.
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