PS3 in the US press...

[Jon Brittan]

Right now it doesn't matter that COD 3 runs better on a cheaper competing console and that GOW absolutely creams Resistance in technical and production quality, because Sony will sell out regardless. A year from now there'll be Heavenly Sword, MGS 4 and other super titles out when the casual gamers, and the moms and pops of the world go christmas shopping for their kids, that's when the game lineup will matter.

That might not actually prove to be true though. The problem Sony have is that the 360 has already been out for a year and is significantly cheaper than the PS3, these very same "casual gamers" and the moms and pops of the world who are going Christmas shopping *can* buy a 360.
Sony *did* have the advantage that they had the PS3, the brand, but if the mainstream press is echoing the Times and TIME articles I posted originally (which is why I asked for other examples) then those same people are going to start thinking "Oh, so the PS3 is no better and maybe worse than the 360, I can't get a PS3 and I can get a 360 and for a lot less money". If that is the case, then next Christmas when the PS3 is widely available, maybe (very strong emphasis on "maybe") the demand won't be. Casuals tend to buy one console or another, if they can be tempted to buy a 360 this Christmas it's unlikely they'll buy a PS3 next Christmas and it tends to have a snowball effect, if all of your friends have a 360 this generation instead of a Playstation then you're more likely to get a 360 too...

As I said, it's all still very much up in the air and I'd like to see what other publications are saying, but if it's generally along the Times and TIME lines (no matter how poor the articles, they're aimed at the non-tech savvy public) then this could be very damaging for Sony and very good for Microsoft.

i dont think Sony needs to cut their price of the ps3 just yet since the law of demand and supply is on their side. I think the high prices can be used by the marketing department as a product differentiation

Unfortunately that only works if at least some of the mainstream press backs up your assertion that your product offers value for that money. Consumers can be daft but they're rarely outright stupid, if the general public consensus is that your product is simply more expensive and no better then you're shooting yourself in the foot. You have to convince people they're getting a better product for that money and you can't (easily) work against the general press...

 

[nelg]

To add to the discussion, I think that now that the PS3 has been released, those who were sitting on the fence undecided, now have the means to make a decision. It will be interesting to see if the 360 has a surge in sales this Xmas as a result of the people being able to make concrete comparisons.

 

[liolio]

questions...

How much damage did the said articles do to the sales of PS3?

Will it have any effect in future proofing the success of the PS3?

Will it boost X360 sales?

I don't think this will have any kind of consequences.
When Sony came at the E3 2005 clamiming ps3=2X xbox360 with some numbers to prove it, all the media repeated it like a fact.
This has hurt MS and has let in a lot of mind the idea that the 360 is not the real next gen.

May be that why nyt came with this very mean article, they are a serious parision and they don't like when a company make fool of them.
Anyway, most of the mass media don't care of this kind of revenge...

And public mind have been set by early Sony PR and the atttitude of media oin this issue...

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

To add to the discussion, I think that now that the PS3 has been released, those who were sitting on the fence undecided, now have the means to make a decision. It will be interesting to see if the 360 has a surge in sales this Xmas as a result of the people being able to make concrete comparisons.

I agree, but I think the real interesting bit isn't whether the 360 has a surge in sales. Of course they will. They would have anyway, this is the first season the console is actually available. On top of that, they've just released Pinata and GoW.

This season is huge. If the PS3 isn't readily available until Aug/Sep 07 (which is what I'm guessing at this point. I don't see a March 07 European launch, either), its all a question of how many million 360s can MS sell in the next month?

I wouldn't be surprised to see the 360 set some sales records this season.

The marketing scumbags are in full force this season. If you don't get an HDTV this year, you might as well be living in a trailer park. Any HD-device on the market right now is well positioned because of that marketing push (Walmart for heaven's sake!), and the 360 is the most readily available and one of the cheapest!

Sony's production problems are really going to kill them, I think.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

It's actually about par for the course.

Think about the 360 launch. Limited units, almost all launch units sold before Jan getting bricked, disapointing flagship launch titles (PDZ, Kameo, etc), promised backwards compatibility not there, etc.

Console launches are a huge undertaking. Both MS and Sony tried the hardest to make their launches as smooth as possible. Passing off their efforts as just "pathetic" is simply childish and not fair the the individuals involved.

The difference between MS and Sony are the lies that Sony told. It's well documented. I'm sure that 6 months from now the PS3 will be a great system with awesome looking games, but they promised that for Spring 06. MS had production problems and they were called out for it and I support the notion that they could have excecuted better, but at least they didn't lie with fake game footage and fictional launch dates.

 

[nonamer]

The difference between MS and Sony are the lies that Sony told. It's well documented. I'm sure that 6 months from now the PS3 will be a great system with awesome looking games, but they promised that for Spring 06. MS had production problems and they were called out for it and I support the notion that they could have excecuted better, but at least they didn't lie with fake game footage and fictional launch dates.

Here we go again.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Here we go again.

It's the truth, I see no point in denying it.

 

[swanlee]

With all the problems the PS3 is having Sony never could have been serious about the original Spring launch. They were simply throwing that out there as long as they could to delay people in buying the 360. That is the only conclusion any sane person can come up with. There is no possible way anyone at Sony could have thought they were going to make there Spring launch. That means they were lying.

 

[nonamer]

It's the truth, I see no point in denying it.

The problem is MS lies too. And not a little bit either.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

The problem is MS lies too. And not a little bit either.

There is no problem with MS lying, as you claim, in a thread about why the PS3 is getting bad reviews in the US press.

The PS3 isn't getting bad reviews here because of any MS lies. They are getting bad reviews, based in part, because of their own lies.

What MS said or didn't, was truthful about or less-than, has no place in this thread.

The PS3 isn't the '2x more powerful' machine they promised, it doesn't have any games that compare to the CGI trailers they showed us, and after promising there would be a reason to wait for the PS3 rather than buying a 360 during the course of the past year, there actually isn't one at this time .

Now that these statements have been demonstrated to be falsehoods, I'd expect a huge swelling of 360 sales with Sony's completely miserable production capabilities.

 

[London Geezer]

Everybody lies, even "good" Nintendo.

 

[patsu]

Oh you found out so quickly ?



Yes......
...I lied too. I am actually a talking banana with fingers.
Not sure where people want to take the discussion to now.

 

[nonamer]

There is no problem with MS lying, as you claim, in a thread about why the PS3 is getting bad reviews in the US press.

The PS3 isn't getting bad reviews here because of any MS lies. They are getting bad reviews, based in part, because of their own lies.

What MS said or didn't, was truthful about or less-than, has no place in this thread.

The PS3 isn't the '2x more powerful' machine they promised, it doesn't have any games that compare to the CGI trailers they showed us, and after promising there would be a reason to wait for the PS3 rather than buying a 360 during the course of the past year, there actually isn't one at this time .

Now that these statements have been demonstrated to be falsehoods, I'd expect a huge swelling of 360 sales with Sony's completely miserable production capabilities.

Pay attention to who I was talking to. Someone said it was the "lies" that separated MS's and Sony's launch.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Pay attention to who I was talking to. Someone said it was the "lies" that separated MS's and Sony's launch.

The magnitude of these so called lies is not even remotely comparable. But whatever, this debate officaily sucks.

 

[London Geezer]

The magnitude of these so called lies is not even remotely comparable. But whatever, this debate officaily sucks.

Come on now, we're talking about the company who tried to convince us that the Xbox was "3X more powerful than the PS2 cause it can move 150M polygons per second".

They're all as bad as each other. Short memory is a bad thing.

 

[patsu]

this debate officaily sucks.

The lock may come soon.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Come on now, we're talking about the company who tried to convince us that the Xbox was "3X more powerful than the PS2 cause it can move 150M polygons per second".

They're all as bad as each other. Short memory is a bad thing.

Well I can plead ignorance, I didn't follow this stuff back then! I'm talking about Sony and their statements about the PS3 specifically, including a delayed launch and fake CG gameplay videos. How can you compare those two huge deceptions, to MS not including a HDD as standard? Kinda silly...

Anyways, I'm signing off on this debate.

 

[avaya]

Shockingly poor execution is always likely to lead the press to circle like vultures over you. The media can sense a calamity coming and are all too willing to jump aboard the exaggeration bandwagon. If Sony had executed a little better many of these articles would have not arisen and the smoke and mirrors from E3 2005 would not have come back to haunt them so much, they would have remained footnotes only relevant to the hardcore community.

Sony's current situation is a great story, a fantastic serial, the most iconic company in Asia and the most trusted brand in the west is stumbling around like a stoned drug addict. Who would have imagined the launch numbers? Who would have imagined the supply problems? Who would have foreseen the battery issues?

It’ very crazy, you couldn’t have written it. PS3's poorly handled launch is just more for the media to leap on. It's a running theme. Anyone watched Casino Royale yet? Bond backs Blu-Ray, Sony’s CE pushed around the place like no other, they should have been doing stuff like this ages ago, that’s why Morita acquired a movie studio.

The problems with the PS3 UI should be trivial to sort out. Blaming Blu-Ray just doesn’t cut it. Sony have been LAZY with the OS, only a few things to sort out for the XMB for it to become truly awesome. DVD up scaling is a business decision IMO.

Also where’s the PSP redesign? Surely they haven’t been sitting on their asses on this? Surely they didn’t release a handheld without the forethought to plan a product redesign roadmap knowing that such redesigns drive up sales as has been historically proven? These days you just don’t know with Sony any more.

Maybe it’s a running curse, CE seems to be getting back to the Sony of legend and SCEI has suddenly been struck down with utter stupidity? Why did Molly Smith leave the PR team? Dille is such a cretin…

They have everything in the company from the design talent, the technical expertise and exclusive compelling content to deliver products which should be unmatched by any competitor. Total failure by management. When you see a company like Apple suddenly become a darling of the masses you just have to laugh, Sony's execution is ridiculously poor. I don’t know if Stringer is the man to turn it around, Sony needs someone like Jobs to grab the bull by the horns and get the company into rehab. Hopefully Sony gets back on track.

 

[ZoinKs!]

I know for sure there was never an intention of launching in spring 2006. They only said that to calm people(fans) and press down

If that's true, it was an extraordinarily stupid move. The logical result is the "they delayed six months for this?" reaction which we're now seeing.

 

[swanlee]

"ome on now, we're talking about the company who tried to convince us that the Xbox was "3X more powerful than the PS2 cause it can move 150M polygons per second".


At least the Xbox showed consistently better graphics out of the gate than the PS2. Even rushed ports at launch looked and ran better than the PS2 versions. This is not the case with the PS3, and like another posted said what does MS have to do with Sony's lies?