Playstation 3: Hardware Info and Price

[DemoCoder]

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

Wireless *controller* not Wifi. Core has no wireless controllers.

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

Wrong, you can playback HD on Composite, and both Microsoft and Sony are betting that studios won't enable the ICT anytime soon due to all of the legacy HDTVs that don't have HDMI.

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.

According to your reasoning, the Core should be more popular than the Premium. Why is it that almost no one wants to buy a Core then, and most people who buy them do so only because there was no premiums in stock.

The reason is, the wireless controllers + HD + XBL are a huge selling point for XB360, and without them, your gaming is crippled.

 

[DemoCoder]

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

But somehow, stupid idiots seem to keep buying the Premium over the Core. Hmm, I wonder why.

 

[Powderkeg]

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.

There is no wireless on the cheapest PS3. And how "free" the online is remains to be seen. That's been clear from the start of this thread. Since you dispute it I am certain you can back up your claim with proof, right? I want to see where Sony says the $499 PS3 has wireless, or that all online gaming will in fact be free.




Now, in reality, the cheapest 360 gets me the system, an extra wireless controller (2 controllers now) a memory card, and 2 games.

I can go home, plug it in, and immediately play a multiplayer game against my best friend in split screen mode.

For about the same price you get a base model PS3, no extra controller, and no games.

For that price, I can play my apple, but your orange will be collecting dust. You'll have to spend another $170 to get that extra controller and match the 2 games I have.



EDIT: OK, I missed the controller part of the wireless remark. I will withdraw my comment about that.

But you still have to spend $170 more before you can play a game.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Wireless *controller* not Wifi. Core has no wireless controllers.

Ahh. Didn't get that part.

Wrong, you can playback HD on Composite, and both Microsoft and Sony are betting that studios won't enable the ICT anytime soon due to all of the legacy HDTVs that don't have HDMI.

Over any composite inputs?

According to your reasoning, the Core should be more popular than the Premium. Why is it that almost no one wants to buy a Core then, and most people who buy them do so only because there was no premiums in stock.

No, that's completely untrue. You're comparing a value pack to ala carte of the same product. It's completely different if you are comparing across product lines. That's a huge difference.

If you can buy the Core, plus memory card, plus wireless controller, plus two games for the same price of the cheapest PS3 without any games. Or the Core, HDD, wireless controller and one game for the price of the PS3 without any games.

What you get is a next generation system, an additional controller, and a game. Compared to just having a PS3 minus one controller and minus any games to play on it.

 

[scooby_dooby]

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.

No they don't have to run without an HDD present. It seems it's up to the publisher. FBM 2k6 requires a HDD so the precedent has been set.

 

[Powderkeg]

But somehow, stupid idiots seem to keep buying the Premium over the Core. Hmm, I wonder why.

Ahh, but will those stupid idiots spend $100-$200 more to get absolutely nothing more from the PS3?

Well, I suppose the stupid idiots will.

 

[RobertR1]

Why are people so excited about sony's online venture when it's been proven that they rarely live up to their "talk." It it was spectacular, you can bet that Sony would be charging for it. I have a feeling that it'll be more of a checkbox on specs and hopefully over time it'll evolve into something good. I'd love to be proven wrong though but I'm just going by Sony's history of Talk vs. Walk.

The PS3 is nice but nothing like the Hype machine it was 6months ago. I'm much more inclined to spend my $600 on a R600/G80 and a little more for a Vista PC upgrade. Nothing I've seen so far shows me that the graphics will be head and shoulder above the xbox 360. The controller is a major disappointment. The rumble is much more important to me for immersive gameplay (I mainly play racing games so you can imagine) than some tilt feature which will be more annoying than anything.

 

[DemoCoder]

I'm comparing what consumers seem to want in a next-gen system. The Core isn't popular, so clearly consumers aren't as interested in buying the absolute cheapest system as buying a system which fits what they want to do.

The average gamer seems to want a Premium, and with $100 more, they can get a PS3 that does everything the XB360 does, plus HD movie playback over composite. If MS introduces the HD-DVD add on, the price difference for equivalent functionality will be extremely narrow.

 

[Powderkeg]

I'm comparing what consumers seem to want in a next-gen system. The Core isn't popular, so clearly consumers aren't as interested in buying the absolute cheapest system as buying a system which fits what they want to do.

The average gamer seems to want a Premium, and with $100 more, they can get a PS3 that does everything the XB360 does, plus HD movie playback over composite. If MS introduces the HD-DVD add on, the price difference for equivalent functionality will be extremely narrow.

But does the average gamer actually want or care about HD movie playback?

Do they want it so bad that they will spend $100 extra so their game console can do it?




Last time I checked, the AVERAGE gamer still uses an SDTV, so I suspect that the AVERAGE gamer would rather have a $100 cheaper system than a movie playback option that they can't take advantage of.

Your arguement fell apart the moment you assumed the AVERAGE gamer is an uber-technogeek willing to spend $500-$600 on a console. The average gamer is a casual gamer, and they tend to wait until systems fall below $200 in price before they buy one, and they really don't care if it can do HD movie playback or not.

 

[Farid]

Okay, enough about the comparisons for the comparison sake, now.

If you want to make a point that absolutely requires a price comparison between teh different product available, you can do it. but if you want to emphasize all your posts on this comparison alone, please, don't.

 

[scooby_dooby]

According to your reasoning, the Core should be more popular than the Premium. Why is it that almost no one wants to buy a Core then, and most people who buy them do so only because there was no premiums in stock.

The reason is, the wireless controllers + HD + XBL are a huge selling point for XB360, and without them, your gaming is crippled.

Wrong. The reason the core is not selling well is because it's still too expensive for it's target audience. People interested in the core are people without HDTV's, without huge amounts of disposable income who are not overly interested in XBLive. These people still balk at a $340 console. Not to mention, the market is still being dominated by early adopters.

Once the core gets down to $199, I expect it will sell just fine as many casuals buy it and a memory card and spend teh remainder of their money on games.

The wired controller is probably the single biggest deterrent to the target audience of the core, and I think MS should really fix that. It's totally uncalled for.

 

[Hifi_Mies]

Ahh, but will those stupid idiots spend $100-$200 more to get absolutely nothing more from the PS3?

Well, I suppose the stupid idiots will.

You seems to forget that ps3 comes with hdd and bluray drive. Two pretty nice features.

 

[DemoCoder]

Ahh, but will those stupid idiots spend $100-$200 more to get absolutely nothing more from the PS3?

Well, I suppose the stupid idiots will.

What kind of crack are you smokig Powderkeg, seriously? You seem to be going out of your way, even making careless and stupid arguments, to attack the PS3.

If they spend $100-200 more, they get more. If they spend $100 more (Premium vs PS3 $499), they get HD movie playback. If they spend $200 more (Premium vs PS3 $599), they get a bigger HDD, Wifi, media card slots, HDMI, and HD Movie playback. If they spend $200 more (Core vs PS3), they get HDD, Wifi, wireless controller, media card slots, and HD movie playback. Oh, and they get cheaper online gaming + motion sensitive controllers.

"absolute nothing more" is not only wrong, it's a careless hyperbole. For me, BluRay HD movie playback alone is a huge feature and I'd buy a PS3 even if it didn't have any other features for that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But does the average gamer actually want or care about HD movie playback?

Do they want it so bad that they will spend $100 extra so their game console can do it?

The problem with this is it puts a crimp on the Sony's BRD adoption strategy. Chances of me getting a PS3 before an HDTV are high. That's likely the same for mose PS3 buyers. If when I get that HDTV I can use my PS3 to play BRD movies in HD, I'll buy into the BRD format. If it can't play BRD movies I need to buy a standalone player, which means I might choose HDDVD over BRD. The whole point of sticking BluRay into PS3 as far as any of us knew was to get movie players into the hands of people who otherwise wouldn't buy into HD movies, propagating the format with a large installed-based potential and winning over the movie studios. If most players don't care about HD and don't buy HD, that latent market is lost and BRD becomes an expensive game distribution format without strengthening Sony's chances at lucrative movie royalties.

 

[rounin]

Not only this, but the Xbox crowd seems to be banking too much of their argument on the fact that in terms of gaming experience, the same could be had on the X360 as the Ps3. The new Ps3 controller already shows this as being not the case, and we're not even talking about system capabilities yet.

And plus, I see the Xbox fans couldn't resist but bring up comparisons again against E3 rules

 

[Hifi_Mies]

Wrong. The reason the core is not selling well is because it's still too expensive for it's target audience. People interested in the core are people without HDTV's, without huge amounts of disposable income who are not overly interested in XBLive. These people still balk at a $340 console. Not to mention, the market is still being dominated by early adopters.

Once the core gets down to $199, I expect it will sell just fine as many casuals buy it and a memory card and spend teh remainder of their money on games.

If gamer really are that poor, how can they play games when one game costs about 65€? (atleast here).

 

[scooby_dooby]

Oh, and they get cheaper online gaming

Why do you keep saying this? Do you know something we don't?

 

[OtakingGX]

HD over composite? Composite is the worst quality video signal next to coaxial.

 

[scooby_dooby]

If gamer really are that poor, how can they play games when one game costs about 65€? (atleast here).

Well in the US they're $50-60, and then there are platinum hits for around $20.

 

[Powderkeg]

What kind of crack are you smokig Powderkeg, seriously? You seem to be going out of your way, even making careless and stupid arguments, to attack the PS3.

If they spend $100-200 more, they get more. If they spend $100 more (Premium vs PS3 $499), they get HD movie playback. If they spend $200 more (Premium vs PS3 $599), they get a bigger HDD, Wifi, media card slots, HDMI, and HD Movie playback. If they spend $200 more (Core vs PS3), they get HDD, Wifi, wireless controller, media card slots, and HD movie playback. Oh, and they get cheaper online gaming + motion sensitive controllers.

"absolute nothing more" is not only wrong, it's a careless hyperbole. For me, BluRay HD movie playback alone is a huge feature and I'd buy a PS3 even if it didn't have any other features for that.

See that last problem. That is your own hyperbowl at work there.

YOU are you. You are NOT indicative of the majority of the gaming market. You belong to a very tiny group of hardcore fans to the point of embracing a totally unproven product that stands a very good chance of failing in the marketplace, and willing to spend hundreds of dollars on it. Apparently only if it's from Sony though.


To the majority of the gaming community, game consoles are about the GAMES. The vast majority of the rest of us do not use cheap little game consoles as out primary movie players, and we don't care about 99% of the multimedia BS that Sony and MS are both pushing. The vast majority of the gaming market looks at a gaming console and only cares about one thing.

The GAMES.

And when it comes to that most important aspect of any gaming console, the PS3 offers NOTHING over the far cheaper 360.


But rant about those extras till you're blue in the face if it makes you happy. You and all of the other 1% of the uber-technogeeks that would buy a $600 console that couldn't play games but does offer inferior movie playback compared to a stand-alone player are free to use whatever reasoning you want to justify your purchase, but don't think for one second that the majority of gamers agree with you. Most think you're nuts.