Is Sony banking on a generational shift?

For some that may be a pain for others like me it is a blessing and widens the range of work that can be done as well as the amount of control one has. Really the reason why PC is the 'one' platform!

 

I think there's a few more considerations too. A Media PC is still a lot more functional as a media centre than PS3 at the moment, and has the same simplified interface. It serves all PS3's functions, bar HD movie playback on the whole. Of course the downside is faf, having to mess about with drivers etc. eg. ATi cards and nVidia cards can have different levels of compatibility with different TVs. But for an ordinary family, tech-naive situation, there are off-the-shelf MPCs that should do just as well as PS3 for lots of stuff. Though you won't get the Sony exclusives.

 

Indeed! They have huge potential with the consumer and why. This is exactly how some of the most successful products of today became so popular. They didnt necessarily offer anything new. They gave to the consumer the ability to use easily, simpler and more efficiently functions that were supposed to entertain and be easily accessible. User friendly enviroment

PS3 offers this. The problem though isnt that much the price. Its how consumers perceive the PS3. They still see it simply as a games console, ignoring the benefits and the actual purpose of the product.

Also Sony needs to rely even more on informing the consumer. Its crazy how many consumers have no idea of the functions the PS3 has.

They have to reduce the price, make more people buy the console and then spread from mouth to mouth the benefits.

But they are kind of slow when it comes to information and price reduction compared to the firmware improvements and game projects, which makes me wonder. If you want people to appreciate these huge drastic imporvements they should first make them know them and be able to try them. But Sony seems to neglect the promotion of the product. I wonder if thats Howard Stringer's strategy. Because if it is, it is bad

 

You can do all these things today, just not on a single device. So the benefit the PS3 offers is...you can reduce the number of devices? That's the market Sony is targetting? Consumers who want less devices?

Adding features adds complexity. Adding complexity means you get closer to the very issues that you suggest Sony is trying solve.

PC is in a strong hold because it satisfies the needs of a very diverse group of consumers. For the PS3 to compete with it, then it will need to add features which is the antithesis of a simple device.

I don't disagree that there is a market for a home entertainment device like the PS3 (and Xbox 360). I just disagree that it overlaps at all with the PC and believe it is a very small market.

 

But Apple's media center device--the Apple TV--has been a relative flop in the market so far. Its 6 button remote is the essence of simplicity and it ties into the massively popular iTunes. The problem is that the demand for this kind of device is highly overestimated.

 

I dont agree with that. If you got windows media center everybody can use it without any problems. Also the biggest difference with the MCE is that it will play almost everything while the ps3 is still limited as far as supported codes go. I have to convert all my anime before a ps3 plays it, while installing a codec pack on my mce plays everything except for .mkv in the mce shell with ease of use of the remote.

I dont think its so much sony broadening the market. Ofcourse they are doing it as their console offers more than just games, but so does MS so its not only sony doing this and at the moment x360 actually offers more as far as (downloadable) media goes than ps3.

Also I dont think you can really view the ps3 as a multimedia machine. Sony tries to market it like that with the br player and extra media options, but the fact is its not even close to being the perfect multimedia machine and people also dont see the ps3 as a mediamachina. I also dont think marketing the ps3 as a multimedia machine will help much. Not only because a media oriented machine would be (alot) cheaper but also because I dont think any dev will be willing to spends millions on developing games for a machine wich isnt primairily bought by people who play games.

In the end, I just dont think the two combine unless you are willing to go all out on both the media and the game part and are able to offer that at little more over the price of what the console would have cost without the media options (though that shoulddnt be a problem as most if it is just software related) and that is something wich just isnt the case with x360 or ps3. Im suprised MS didnt do that though. I woulve expect them to just build in a total media center including a ton of codec support. And as others stated, I think the market for such a device is overestimated.

 

Well I have already mentioned MCE. But also your average MCE PC can't play games as well as PS3, or if it has the hardware it probably has a noisy fan to boot which messes up the media playback side of thing, or if it is quiet and powerful, costs a bundle too and still doesn't have HD playback. The MCE PC solution also lacks the game diversity in unique control interfaces as PS3's software (SingStar, LBP, EOJ). And if you want to use the full potential on an MCE PC, don't you end up going to Windows proper? eg. to play games. At which point you've lost the UI advantage of MCE. On PS3, you put in the disk and play. On an MCE PC, you put in the disk, install, probably do some online registration, bit of patching to get the graphics to display without artefacts (but God forbid we're heading that way wtih console games ), and then can run the game when you go into Windows and not from the Media Centre interface. Though the hardware is capable, it doesn't have the same game software support, nor the common simple interface to do everything.

I don't agree with that. A machine doesn't have to be primarily for games to attract game development. A box under the TV used for games may be used for games a couple of hours a day. A multi-function box could be used for that same 2 hours a day, and be just as much a games machine, but the rest of the time also be used for other functions. As long as the gaming side doesn't get forgotten by people watching movies, it's just as viable a platform. The competition for games on PS3 is no more than people not playing their Wii's or XBoxes but putting on a DVD or listening to music on their iPods or talking in chat rooms.

 

Thats whay im saying, there doesnt seem to be 1 machine that is perfect at both. Also I dont think anybody buys a MCE with games in mind just as nobody will buy a ps3 with media in mind as both machines just arnt perfect for the task. Though a mediacenter pc could function as a full pc gaming machine too but than your talking about weather you preffer pc or console games as pc genres are fairly limited. Yes the ps3 might be easier to use when you want games and media but otoh you'll face the problem of ps3 not playing all your media. So its really a choice weather you want your machine to play games or media.

And thats were the problem lies I think. Someone who buts a machine to play his movies or music isnt necessary interrested in games thus you wont have a clear of a view who is buying it for games. Would you invest 20million on a system your not sure of is bought by a majority of gamers or would you invest that 20million on a system you know if bought by gamers? ofcourse that doesnt say everything as it might as well be that software sells well on the ''hybrid'' system too but as consoles are now to me it seems you really have to make a choice between media or games as consoles are still very limited as multimedia systems, though for a large part that is due to software so that could be changed but than the machines will still have the image of being a gaming device, not a multimedia device wich I personally think is a good thing as I rather see a machine designed to play games (the reason I buy it) than being a multimedia system because I much rather use my pc for that.

 

It has a number of flaws, though. I'm not sure if 'the media centre done right' would speak to the market currently, or not, but I'm also not sure if we've seen the ultimate such device (in all regards - functionality, price etc.) arrive, and flop (relatively or otherwise). The Apple TV isn't such a device IMO.

(I'm not reflecting at all on PS3 here, btw, just on Apple TV)

 

Not entirely sure about that. I don't know what media people have and why they have millions of codecs, but in my case I have audio in Oggs, full stop. If PS3 doesn't support Oggs it means I have to re-rip all my music. But then it'll play it all. It's not like PS3 will be incapable of playing my media - only that I'll have to rip the stuff again. In the case of videos there's probably a lot out there that's WMV which PS3 doesn't support, and that's probably the major issue. But in ripping one's own content it's not a problem, is it?

I think you mised the point. Surely everyone who buys a games console also has a DVD player and some music playback device. They're not exclusive pasttimes. Now do you buy one machine that does them all, or three separate machines? In either case, a person's time is split between different pasttimes. Those people who have an XB360 are just as likely to stop playing games and go put on a movie or listen to the radio as people who have a PS3. The only difference is the XB360 owner has to *(in some cases) switch to another piece of hardware, whereas the PS3 owner uses the same box. But the amount of time people spend on a pasttime isn't dictated by the abilities of the hardware as much as the appeal of the pasttime. I spend more time playing games than watching moves because games appeal to me more. That would be the same whether I had an XB360 or a PS3. I doubt anyone buys a PS3 without any view to playing games. Well, maybe some BRD watching AV enthusiasts are. But on the whole you don't buy PS3 to do everything except play games. You can expect each console sold to be a viable consumer of games software. Even if not for some members of the household, you can expect for others. Which is where the appeal of the box comes in. You want a box sat by/under the TV that people use. For that pride-of-place position, you want as much appeal as possible, so every family member uses it. The alternative is several boxes, which on the whole is greater cost and more mess. I don't think the appeal of that is overestimated at the moment, because historically there's been no viable solution IMO. It'll be this generation where we'll see if the one box solution has appeal or not.

I've also just remembered a TV programme, the Money Programme I think, where housewives were introduced to the XB360 back when it launched and asked if they cared to have it. Interest was minimal. If XB360 could also appeal to them through games or services or non-gaming features, the household would be more likely to buy it than not. There's often more than one pair of hands controlling the purse strings! That's a different market than the single person purchaser that the console market has been made up of before, bought by someone for themselves rather than bought as a family investment for everyone.

 

This shift of the entertainment center from the livingroom to people's desks could be fundamental. Just ask yourself, was there anything that Sony could have done that would have kept you from posting a rebuttal to my post? A really good game? A super-duper hi-def movies? I don't think so. Entertainment isn't just the product of some "artistic" people nowadays--music, film, and other media.