Thoughts on the expense of PS3

[wco81]

I'm going to Firenze next week! But it's going to cost me more than $600.

And as it turns out, I was planning to go on vacation again on Nov. 18, the Saturday of the week before Thanksgiving. I'll preorder but who knows if I'll pick it up before boarding the plane (while leaving the PS3 at home).

Last year, I went to Rome that same week, which is when the X360 launched.

Maybe if games like Getaway do a better job of recreating London and other glamorous cities, gaming will be a decent sustitute for travel.

 

[NANOTEC]

Sonic describes the situation perfectly.

 

[Gibson]

I'll play a bit of devil's advocate here and hope that this forum (even during E3 :smile: ) can set a good example.

I was as initially surprised as anyone when Sony announced pricing at their conference. I had thought that if they did announce they would low-ball Microsoft or simply wait for TGS. For the sake of debate let's exclude the merit of timing and focus on price.

From where I currently live, the ball park monetary expense for revisiting the Duomo in person is roughly equivalent to the cost of PS3 (for the sake of argument the $600 version). Perhaps I'm being naive and Kutaragi-san (a respectful honoric and not to be used in debate as evidence of vacuous affirmation) is simply scheming when he insists that his goal for Playstation isn't to be defined by video games but 'Computer Entertainment'.

The question that needs to be addressed as far as this thread is concerned is:
Has Kutaragi-san engineered an environment that artists can use to affect you over the course of years in ways that you would be (in a cumulative sense) as enriched as traveling the first time to a place that doesn't speak your native tongue...so to speak

It's called marketing and I think you're reading too much into it. You can buy 140 pairs of socks for $600, but that doesn't mean they will expand your horizons anymore than a 600$ plane ticket. Even if the CEO tells you "It's not just cotton, it's the fabric of our lives!"

 

[Gibson]

The Duomo is a cathedral in Florence. My question basically is...is the price of PS3 legitimized in any way by comparison with intercontinental travel? Will you have memories generated by PS3 twenty years from now that compare to memories generated by seeing Abu Simbal for instance once?

Also, every cathredral in Italy is a duomo, that's what duomo means. (e.g. The Duomo of Florence) When most people say The Duomo, they're referring to the one in Milan.

 

[DemoCoder]

I use to edit MiniDV footage and 6megapixel images in a 512mb machine. I highly doubt the PS3's memory will limit it here. The limit for MiniDV editing would be disk storage: 13gigabytes per hour captured.

What extra RAM will do for you in applications like Adobe Premiere is to speed up preview operations by rendering sections of the finished video to RAM instead of disc. But by no means is a 512mb machine too crippled to edit video. The purpose of PS3 image/video editing would not be professional editing, but casual editing.

 

[EpicZero]

If Sony markets it more as a Mac Mini rival than a console, it could be successful.

 

[zed]

sorry, but this is really too funny http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31641
looool...

hey they just reworded an old article of theres

STRINGER. OK, moving onto the PS2… what is the easiest way for us to lose the ball on this one?
SONY EXEC ONE. Price, if we make it too expensive then Sega will screw us to the wall. Most people will not pay more than what the dreamcast costs.
STRINGER. Great, anything else?
SONY EXEC TWO. We could delay it for ages until box Sega has established itself in the market. That would make it harder for us to claw back our lucrative European and American base.
STRINGER. Not bad, need a few more here.

 

[patsu]

While at E3, I noticed something fundamentally wrong with our forum discussion.
We cannot (must not ?) judge the games and the consoles from the posted HD video and images.

The selected media really does not tell the full story, no matter how many times I watched them. One has to play them or at least watch someone play them to get a better picture.

I'm not going to start a comparison war. On the show floor, I can tell certain games stuttered or tore (a wee bit) during game play even though the PR media look superb and the supporters consistently praise the image quality of the games. In other cases, certain levels looked bland, or really look like a PC game from last year. Some of these are work in progress, some are released next-gen games (!). So I guess the best way is to see the games yourself (end of this year) before jumping to any conclusion.

IMHO, the jury is still out there whether PS3 is overpriced.

 

[wco81]

While at E3, I noticed something fundamentally wrong with our forum discussion.
We cannot (must not ?) judge the games and the consoles from the posted HD video and images.

The selected media really does not tell the full story, no matter how many times I watched them. One has to play them or at least watch someone play them to get a better picture.

I'm not going to start a comparison war. On the show floor, I can tell certain games stuttered or tore (a wee bit) during game play even though the PR media look superb and the supporters consistently praise the image quality of the games. In other cases, certain levels looked bland, or really look like a PC game from last year. Some of these are work in progress, some are released next-gen games (!). So I guess the best way is to see the games yourself (end of this year) before jumping to any conclusion.

IMHO, the jury is still out there whether PS3 is overpriced.

What does that mean, that the games you saw at E3 may justify the price premium over the other consoles?

 

[patsu]

All 3 vendors are still working on their next/first waves of games. From what I saw, there are discernible differences between the games. I'm not sure it will continue that way since many people have voiced that the final screens will be indistinguishable. Just play the games yourself when you decide to buy. Don't ask any more questions.

 

[standing ovation]

Six hundred dollars. Six hundred dollars. The opportunity cost for this kind of dough is absurd. :neutral:

That said, going on holliday is definitely one of the better alternatives. If you work for a living, there's something to be said about packing up and getting away from it all. Immerse yourself in somebody else's culture -- see life from their perspective. Who knows? You may walk away with a newfound appreciation for your own existence.

 

[inefficient]

If you work for a living, there's something to be said about packing up and getting away from it all. Immerse yourself in somebody else's culture -- see life from their perspective. Who knows? You may walk away with a newfound appreciation for your own existence.

I argue that you can do the same in a video game or even by reading a good book. And for far less. And the real trip is a time thing. A video game you can experience and enjoy several times over.

 

[Psychogenics]

I'll play a bit of devil's advocate here and hope that this forum (even during E3 :smile: ) can set a good example.

I was as initially surprised as anyone when Sony announced pricing at their conference. I had thought that if they did announce they would low-ball Microsoft or simply wait for TGS. For the sake of debate let's exclude the merit of timing and focus on price.

From where I currently live, the ball park monetary expense for revisiting the Duomo in person is roughly equivalent to the cost of PS3 (for the sake of argument the $600 version). Perhaps I'm being naive and Kutaragi-san (a respectful honoric and not to be used in debate as evidence of vacuous affirmation) is simply scheming when he insists that his goal for Playstation isn't to be defined by video games but 'Computer Entertainment'.

The question that needs to be addressed as far as this thread is concerned is:
Has Kutaragi-san engineered an environment that artists can use to affect you over the course of years in ways that you would be (in a cumulative sense) as enriched as traveling the first time to a place that doesn't speak your native tongue...so to speak

IMO I'd say that PS3 is cheap IF Location Free ,PVR is included .. Remember that Sony has to Expose the PS3 Not just as a gaming machine but as a mini Computer. Upload pictures from PS3 to the internet ,Built your own webpage on PS3 Community boards.Also they didn't show the webrowser - maybe at tokyo. I heard Phil say in an interview at IGN that it is possible to record ingame footage and save it to the PSP so that you can show your friends what you've accomplished "very cool idea" if they can keep it up the price will not be a factor to the success of the PS3.

 

[ERP]

Cost is a very personal thing.
Because I'm willing to pay $2000 for a watch doesn't mean that $2000 is a reasonable price for a watch for the majority of the population.

$500->$600 at launch is irrelevant, there are plenty of people who can justify it to them selves, what matters is how fast sony can get it to <$200 which is the pricepoint where the majority of consoles are sold.

 

[wco81]

I argue that you can do the same in a video game or even by reading a good book. And for far less. And the real trip is a time thing. A video game you can experience and enjoy several times over.

You can't compare travel to games. You might say that's subjective but I could objectively say the fidelity of rendering virtual worlds just isn't there yet. Hollywood can spend hundreds of millions (or at least tens of millions on CG) to film in exotic locales or mock up virtual worlds.

But nobody would say film is a substitute for the real thing and games are even poorer a substitute.

Books are fine, you can imagine things and read good travel writing. But there's a reason people spend thousands each year to go on holiday.

 

[Farid]

$500->$600 at launch is irrelevant, there are plenty of people who can justify it to them selves, what matters is how fast sony can get it to <$200 which is the pricepoint where the majority of consoles are sold.

That's correct.

It seems that the new Sony management do not want to take a huge loss at launch this time around, so they're trying to get away with murder for the first 6 Months - first year. And I think they might get away with it.

What's important, as ERP pointed out, is how fast and how much can SCE lower the entry price for the console.
At this stage, with a such high entry price point, they'd need to lower the price by $100-200 by the next year after the launch.

 

[ERP]

It seems that the new Sony management do not want to take a huge loss at launch this time around, so they're trying to get away with murder for the first 6 Months - first year. And I think they might get away with it.

I'm not sure how much of that is true and how much of it is just the current cost of the components. To some extent this is the crux of the issue.
Does Sony have the ability to drop the price quickly once they have sufficient supply without taking a bath on every unit sold?
There is no real way to know.

 

[wco81]

You know there are rumors going around about $70 or even $80 games, maybe due to higher BD-ROM replication costs or maybe even higher license costs from Sony.

That would be the last straw. High price for hardware is one thing. Even $60 is too high and if you wait a few weeks, a lot of games are reduced to $50 or less.

Typically, publishers, especially the big ones, always urge price cuts throughout the console cycle because they invariably see sales spikes following a console price cut (of course, it never occurs to them that reducing game prices may have a similar effect).

So maybe Sony has already mapped out a pricing timeline for the next few years. You would think if their parties wouldn't bother supporting the platform if they thought the high prices would persist for a long time and retard adoption.

 

[RobertR1]

I think that if Sony didn't have such a hard on for Blu Ray and the PS3 debuted at $399 (premium package) it would have buried the xbox 360 and likely taken a lot of the thunder away from Wii. They would have actually gained an even bigger market share and likely had a console out on the streets by now.

An add on blu ray player would have been plenty and then people could decide if they rather buy a stand alone blu ray player or an add one. In case Blu ray does flop, Sony wouldn't have a ripple effect into their gaming budget. Instead of protecting their profitable asset they tied it directly to a risky venture. The talk of high game prices will scare off a lot of buyers also. With the lack of star titles out before 07, the launch will be less than spectacular. No you cannot compare it with the xbox 360 launch because it had no competition and now has a one year head start to build up it's game library and 2nd gen titles.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

An add on blu ray player would have been plenty and then people could decide if they rather buy a stand alone blu ray player or an add one

...or an HDDVD player. If you don't already have an HD movie player you have to buy one, and the point of BRD in PS3 was to get people to own a brand of HD movie player regardless of whether they're in a position to view HD movies or not, thus establishing a lucrative format for Sony to reap license fees. Without BRD in PS3, the format war would have been a lot more open. The expectations for PS3 are a key reason to back the format. If Sony lost the format war, they lose a lot of money.