Playstation 3: Hardware Info and Price

[Bad_Boy]

I was quite fond of the gloss white myself

Was my second choice, silver was ugly to me. But the white looked too apple-ish, 360-ish, white-revolution(i mean Wii)-ish.

The gloss or "clear black" is just very clean, very psp-ish.

 

[Powderkeg]

I think there is one more aspect a lot of people are forgetting.

Bluray disks are REQUIRED for all PS3 games.

Now, I don't know the precise cost difference, but I do know Bluray disks are more expensive to manufacture than standard DVD disks are, especially right now. Things brings up another cost related question.

Does Sony expect the developers to eat the additional costs and lose some of their profits, or will Sony subsidize the additional production costs themselves, or are PS3 games also going to be more expensive than 360 games?

Someone somewhere along the way is going to have to absorb this extra production costs. Who do you think it will be? The developers, Sony, or the gamer?

Because if it's the gamer then not only will the PS3 hardware be more expensive, but the games would be more expensive as well.

 

[Guden Oden]

Well it it DID have a router

It DID have a SWITCH. Or, well, the empty prototype case shown last E3 "had a switch".

Also, I wouldnt call KK saying "we want to be able to have a Gigabit port for an IP camera" to be 'very sketchy information'.

It wasn't an actual confirmation or anything. Originally, KK wanted dual HDMI and 6 USB ports and just one SKU and all of that too and see what happened!

People could technically plug the IP camera into any ethernet port in their home network and communicate with the PS3 though right?

That was the general idea, yes. Of course, you'd need a gigabit home network for it to work properly at full res I suppose, and these are pretty few and far between even today.

Probably why they decided they might as well go USB, which delivers quite sufficient bandwidth anyway. Probably the idea was cool and nifty but became too expensive to be realistic. After all, not all that many people would need/want to plug in the camera over their (gigabit) home network.

Personally I was fairly disappointed to see the switch was cut, but I'm a realist, PS3 was like a dream christmas tree - it had all the bells and whistles you could imagine wether they really made sense or not! Maybe PS4 will fulfil all our hopes and expectations. I hope so.

 

[Powderkeg]

Well then, buy the $499 PS3 and then the price differential between XB360 and PS3 is $100.

But if you want to watch HD movies and play online, the price differential is smaller, not larger.

Either way, the XB360 ain't a whole lot cheaper.

How do you figure the price difference is only $100 when I can get a 360 and memory card from EB Games for $320?

499 - 320 = $179 price difference.

 

[!eVo!-X Ant UK]

According to my friend who works in my local game store, 360 is having £50 knocked off it by end of the month..

 

[Bobbler]

I think there is one more aspect a lot of people are forgetting.

Bluray disks are REQUIRED for all PS3 games.

Now, I don't know the precise cost difference, but I do know Bluray disks are more expensive to manufacture than standard DVD disks are, especially right now. Things brings up another cost related question.

Does Sony expect the developers to eat the additional costs and lose some of their profits, or will Sony subsidize the additional production costs themselves, or are PS3 games also going to be more expensive than 360 games?

Someone somewhere along the way is going to have to absorb this extra production costs. Who do you think it will be? The developers, Sony, or the gamer?

Because if it's the gamer then not only will the PS3 hardware be more expensive, but the games would be more expensive as well.

If I recall correctly, Sony is charging companies the price of a dual layer DVD for BR... so Sony is eating the cost at this point.

 

[Metal]

You guys can't defend that price and really be sane hehe.

 

[!eVo!-X Ant UK]

You guys can't defend that price and really be sane hehe.

i dont have to defend it as i get the PS3 cheaper then any1 here, unless they also live in england

 

[Powderkeg]

According to my friend who works in my local game store, 360 is having £50 knocked off it by end of the month..

According to my friends at MS, your friend doesn't know what he is talking about.

No 360 price reduction before E3 2007. No reason to.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Well... I had predicted it would be $499 (How many times do we need Ken to tell us it's going to be expensive before we believe it? Where'd all those 'no more than $399' people go to?), but that was without a HDD, but also with the extra HDMI, USB, and Ethernet ports.

So.. I guess if you remove all of those extra items (which never really made sense to me anyway), to fit in the cost of the HDD, you're still at $499. Then at $599 with HDMI, larger HDD, and wifi.

Ok. Too expensive. The only thing I am wondering about is the 'removable' HDD. If it's removable, it doesn't have to be included at all, then does it?

Does the PS3 work without the HDD attached? If so.. obviously that's the same problem the 360 has (Ack! Comparison, sorry) I'm also wondering about the $199 price point. Don't we all agree that's the reason that MS made the Core system? Because the HDD costs were too expensive to get the console down to the $199 price point? If the PS3's HDD is removable.. it's possible it could not be included at all in future variations.. meaning that they will also be able to get to that magic price point more quickly.

Two things I can't believe: The utter lack of outrage over the removal of any feedback or rumble feature on the controller. Holy cow. That's HUGE, IMO. It's a very big deal in terms of immersion. Also, how many people are tickled pink about how the PS3 is supposed to be quiet! I would take a "I'll believe it when I hear it" stance on that. I've been promised many quiet things from many different manufacturers and unless they are actually providing db level comparisons as proof, they are usually all full of hot air.

 

[Powderkeg]

If I recall correctly, Sony is charging companies the price of a dual layer DVD for BR... so Sony is eating the cost at this point.

That's good business, although it will mean some pretty hefty losses for Sony.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Ok. Too expensive. The only thing I am wondering about is the 'removable' HDD. If it's removable, it doesn't have to be included at all, then does it?

It does if games require it, and Sony have said devs should use it. The XB360 is different in that games have to be able to run without an HDD present, so lose the HDD and games still run. Might well be OS and stuff on it too, so without an HDD the system don't boot.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

It does if games require it, and Sony have said devs should use it. The XB360 is different in that games have to be able to run without an HDD present, so lose the HDD and games still run. Might well be OS and stuff on it too, so without an HDD the system don't boot.

Oh, I understand all that. I was just wondering if we're actually positive about that. Ken's original comments about how all games need to 'make use' of the HDD (or whatever his specific wording was), was rather cryptic if you remember. There was quite a bit of debate on the subject.

Have we received any clarification since then? Are we sure that PS3 without a HDD won't boot or are we just guessing?

 

[DemoCoder]

How do you figure the price difference is only $100 when I can get a 360 and memory card from EB Games for $320?

499 - 320 = $179 price difference.

Oh yeah, a crappy core with no hard disk and no wireless controllers. What a fair comparison. And consumers just LOVE the Core don't they.

Apples to Oranges. Cheapest PS3 gets you HD, free online, wireless, BluRay. Cheapest XB360 gets you none of that, a severely crippled system.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Apples to Oranges. Cheapest PS3 gets you HD,

Ok

free online,

Are we sure of that? I thought we weren't.

wireless,

I thought wifi was only included in the $599 model?

BluRay.

Which is really rather useless as HD playback due to the lack of HDMI.

Cheapest XB360 gets you none of that, a severely crippled system.

Correct. It just gets you a system that can play the latest games for $175 dollars or so less than the cheapest price you'd be able to get a PS3 for. So you can buy your Core and two games for the price of the cheapest PS3 without any games. Or a Core, an extra controller and a game for the price of the PS3 without any games.

 

[Docwiz]

600.00 is more than what I pay for my car per month

Ok, I woke up two hours ago and only now made it through all the pages of useless banter and whining in the two PS3 threads. Ok, my take:

Price:
Higher than expected. Reaction, weee-eeelll... About the reaction I expected. So many of you guys are completely useless. Instead of complaining in post after post, just don't buy the thing, alright? I'm sure you'll live without the exclusive PS3 games.

Box:
Big is beautiful, it seems. It's not really a surprise that the casing seems to have grown, or sprouted a ton of vents. I kind of expected a bit less in the way of vents tho, but having seen the 360, which has holes like ALL OVER, maybe I shouldn't. I thought Sony would put more vents top and bottom, but there's on the back and underside as well... Black is nice color, but white and silver also looked good. Maybe they'll re-add the missing ones in the future. If it's heavy, well, that's just a good thing IMO. Makes it feel as if I'm getting something for my money.

Hardware:
I said in another thread the geek in me would be disappointed if they removed as much as one USB port, and here they went and removed two! And one HDMI port. And the gigabit switch is nowhere to be seen on the pic of the backside of the el cheapo version that someone linked to roughly 2-3 pages back. Seems that feature was cut too. Oh well. *shrug* Such is life I guess.

Drives:
2xBR... Well, not too fast I guess. But there is a harddrive. I hope games will do a lot of precaching. Anyway, 2xBR will run much quieter than 12x DVD, so from that perspective this is a positive thing. Internal HDD looks much better than having it sitting on top in an ugly stupid plastic tub with a bit of cheap chrome tacked on.

Controller:
Disappointment. Sony stuck analog sticks and rumblers to its original PS pad, both in reaction to its competitor(s), and both mostly as an afterthought. Now it's stuck tilt sensors/accelerometers to its current pad, again as an afterthought in reaction to a competitor (and removed the rumblers... Lawsuits FTW! ). There's no genuine way anyone's going to be able to use this half-measure of a controller in any new and unique ways. It can't be held effectively in just one hand for use as a sword, tennis racquet etc, and using accelerometers effectively with a two-hand grip is going to feel way clunky. It's a controller that'll work just fine, but where PS3 will present next-gen graphics, its DS3 (minus the shock...and the dual, I suppose) controller won't really unlock next-gen gameplay. It'll mostly be a case of more of the same.

Overall:
I'm sure this is a really hot piece of hardware. I'm excited, and wish it was released tomorrow at the very latest.

My take on this is that you are a Sony ****** and you will still buy one anyway.

I am not blind so I am not buying one at $600. I will use that money to buy a new Vista PC. A console is just a toy and I think if you are going to pay that kind of money then you should be something serious that you can use instead.

I am not trying to be ignorant here, but if you shrug off most of what sony has told you (lies) and the horrible price and the downgrades something is wrong with you or you are a ******.

Sony lied to the public several times now and a lot of folks like you just enjoy it.
I don't get it, I really don't. You would think by now you would have the sense to turn way.

Metal Gear Solid 4 was nice, but not nice enough to spend more than I pay for my Toyota 2005 4Runner SUV with all the trimmings that I bought last September.

 

[nelg]

Would anyone hazard a guess at the following?

1. How large is the hardcore gamer market that will pay top dollar for a new console?

2. What is considered the price point where consoles become attractive to the more casual gamer?

3. How fast will they get there?

 

[Powderkeg]

So you can buy your Core and two games for the price of the cheapest PS3 without any games. Or a Core, an extra controller and a game for the price of the PS3 without any games.

Actually, you could get a Core, memory card, extra wireless controller and 2 new games for about the same price as the cheapest PS3.

 

[Docwiz]

My take on this is that you are a Sony ****** and you will still buy one anyway.

I am not blind so I am not buying one at $600. I will use that money to buy a new Vista PC. A console is just a toy and I think if you are going to pay that kind of money then you should be something serious that you can use instead.

I am not trying to be ignorant here, but if you shrug off most of what sony has told you (lies) and the horrible price and the downgrades something is wrong with you or you are a ******.

Sony lied to the public several times now and a lot of folks like you just enjoy it.
I don't get it, I really don't. You would think by now you would have the sense to turn way.

Metal Gear Solid 4 was nice, but not nice enough to spend more than I pay for my Toyota 2005 4Runner SUV with all the trimmings that I bought last September.

The **** in my posts is the word f.a.n.b.o.y

I think it is horrible that the word is blanked out.

 

[Ty]

Ouch. Too much money for my tastes. Would have loved a BR player but I'll wait.