NPD April 2007

Good point. Let's say it's 30$ for Blu-ray (I had estimated that earlier anyway), all things considered, beyond the cost of a DVD drive. That's probably a little on the high side now but whatever.
For that you get a drive tech that needs lower rpms for the same transfer rate so it's either faster at the same rpms or quieter at the same transfer rates, or some combination of the two. Plus you obviously get more storage and a built-in Trojan horse for the movie division. Yes, it is a bump in per-unit costs that is large enough to still be felt, but I do think that it's money well spent, both from Sony's perspective and from the consumer perspective.

I just want to have that "OMG BR is 200$ and one yier delay lolz" stuff off the street. The exact amount isn't so important, but we should at least be getting the order of magnitude right.

 

It would seem that consumers disagree with you.

 

Nothing to do with a lack of games then?

 

I think you guy couldn't predict rain if you saw a sky full of gray clouds... It's a very slow month guys, who is going to pay $600/$540 for a game console with barely any games in the month of May? It numbers tell it all! Let the 6 AAA games along with a price drop sold in November tell the story. Until then, lets discuss the games on each platform, 'cause there's nothing to discuss here.

 

Oh noes, Sony fantasy land is crumbling.

*Covers ears*

"This isnt happening, this isnt happening, this isnt happening, this isnt happning, this isnt happening"

 

And who are you directing that to? How old are we?

 

All those who keep making a new excuse each time the PS3 sales drop a little lower. Amazing what was once invalid arguments for other consoles are completely valid for the PS3, its a rather amazing double standard. The emotional investment some people have in a gaming device is rather amazing, certainly you of most people would be aware of how that may effect ones opinion and logical thinking.

 

Oh no, this site is turning into Kotaku!

People are talking like the console 'war' is already over, even though Wii and PS3 have only been out 6 months...

 

There's no excuses. The numbers proves it. Although PS3's numbers are horrible, it is the only console that has the $600 pricetag. It is also true that this is a very slow month for consoles. High price plus slow times equal bad sales. That simple. Only the cheap preveal at this time of the year. I can't speak for Japan though but i will say this, 6 months isn't enough to make a prediction especially true if it's the most espendsive game console with 3 games worth playing.

 

See that? What you just stated only applies to NPD numbers. The similarities ends there. First-off, games can afford to be $59.99 today. Second, Nintendo was work with wave race, mario 64, zelda, 007, smash bro's, banjo, and DK64 through-out the life of the console. Sony has...Heavenly Sword, SOCOM, Uncharted, home, Warhawk, motor storm, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, and MGS4 and much more in the first year! Anyway, i say you can't fail if you don't give up, and nintendo had with N64.

 

Where, how? The point was that the inclusion of Blu-ray -- now that we finally have real-world cost information on the table and can quit the "600$-400$=200$=Blu-ray!!! Wowwtf!!1" horseshit, like, for real -- is a good deal. If 82k US citizens bought into the platform last month, yeah, that's looking pretty grim. How exactly you make the connection to Blu-ray costs and how consumers disagree with them though ... let me think about that for a while ...

"Blüräi is terrible give me my 30$ back and a regular 10000rpmer! I want swoosh!"

... nope. Doesn't seem to compute just now.

 

Rolf I still don't follow you - if PS3 *didn't* have Blu-ray, what do you think it would be retailing for? Your saying that you think it costs $30 more than DVD and then referencing your own prior prediction doesn't really mean anything. Obviously Blu-ray doesn't cost $200, but I mean.... you seem really of the mind to say that it's not a material contributor to costs at all.

Truthfully if you can just tell me what you yourself think the PS3 60GB would cost without the BD drive, I think you'll put things in better perspective for yourself, unless you're going to say $570... and are you?

 

I guess I lumped the whole package in there. But using your logic, I'd have to agree. If the choice was between a PS3 with Blu-ray for $600 versus a PS3 with DVD for $570, then yes, that appears to be a very good deal.

In fact, Sony should use this in the marketing, something like, "What? You too cheap for the extra 30 bucks? Come on!" Or something like that--I'm not a marketting guy.

Then again, I don't think the cost difference to Sony is only $30 bucks, but that's a fruitless debate given information we have. And in the end, it's rather pointless: people don't buy individual components of a system; they buy the whole thing, so the whole being the sum of it's parts. In this case, every little thing adds up. You could go to each component and say, "That was only a $15 premium--that's a great deal! And that was only an extra $25, and they get wireless built in! What a steal!" and then at the end you have a subsidized $600 dollar system that on paper should be a great deal but that consumers don't seem to see it as so.

 

All of this aside, I was going to say Nav that I'm little disillusioned with you going and getting that Core + 120GB combo.

I understand that given your accessory loadout it's essentially the same to having bought the Elite itself, but now you've gone and helped to justify MS' crazed price structure on that drive.

But yes, I certainly can vouch for this guy not being a fan of the "wait 'til tomorrow" mentality. And on my side it's not just 'dominate,' but 'loose' also that make me crazy!

 

So the Wii software sales are not so great whereas the software numbers on 360 seem to be really good.
I have a theory(don't we all )

For the first year if you wanted that high end next gen type experience,the only system was the 360. For the specific type of experience that was it.
The Wii on the other hand being older tech and sticking to SD gives a similar experience graphically to what you could already get on extremely well established and popular systems like the PS2. The Wii is competing more directly with arguably the most popular system in the last 10 years.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the Wii third party support once PS2 support starts to really fade.

 

And when you factor in the Wii installed base vs 360, you xan say that wii software sold very well.

 

Well I guess what I'm talking about is overall and the number of million sellers we keep hearing with the 360.
I'm not slagging off the Wii,I think it's unrealistic at this point to expect the software sales to be the same as the 360. Just adding in my theory as to why it's the case.

 

And what is a big lead ? If vgchartz is correct it took Sony 2 months to match 1/3 of the installed userbase of the xbox 360 in Europe.

If I probe the popularity amongst gamers in neighboring European countries I can't say that the xbox 360 is very popular. For me it even sometimes becoming more difficult to find new titles locally in the shops. Then again I buy 90% (if they are offcourse region free) of my xbox 360 games in asia.

Here in Belgium we don't have any censoring or banned games. Like 90% of the other European countries. And the xbox 360 doesn't do it very well.

Also in Germany a very big part of the xbox 360 library is available. (Even you as a German could buy GOW if you really want to)

UK number 3 of the biggest game markets of the world !?!?!?

 

I've meant "Even as a germany you could buy GOW if you want to"