PS3 launch looking a lot like the 360's

[A176]

in my opinion;

• Limited quantites.
• Dominantly North American release
• No 'killer-app' launch titles
• 'Launch-window' titles

one difference is that retailers have learnt from the 360 release as far as pre-ordering goes, with restricting it until they fully know how many units they will recieve.

anyone else agree? thoughts? other similarities?

 

[Bad_Boy]

in my opinion;

[*]No 'killer-app' launch titles

Yet to be seen really, I think resistance and motorstorm could turn out huge hits if they play their cards right. But we wont know until the games ship.

 

[Gradthrawn]

· Limited quantites.

Definately. For day 1, that is.

in my opinion;
· Dominantly North American release

Also true, but, again, only for day 1. They plan to have 2 million shipped by years end. I believe Japan gets around 1.2 million of that.

in my opinion;
· No 'killer-app' launch titles

There's the potential for at least 1 truly killer app, but it might not neccesarily achieve that level of greatness. Other than that 1 possible title, I don't see any "killer apps" on day 1 either. But defeniatly a few later on. However, I do see the potential for several very strong, quality titles.

· 'Launch-window' titles

I'm not really sure what you mean by this. Its almost as to say there have never been games released around the launch of the console. As if they're either on day 1, and then much later on. Of course there are titles that launch within a close proximity of day 1. A key title shipping 3 weeks after launch is hardly relavent, in my opinion. Especially consideirng there won't even be a million people who can play it.

one difference is that retailers have learnt from the 360 release as far as pre-ordering goes, with restricting it until they fully know how many units they will recieve.

anyone else agree? thoughts? other similarities?

Very similar to the 360 launch. Which was very similar to the XBox launch. Which was very similar to the PS2 launch, which was.... Seriously though, I understand your point and agree. But nothing seems out of the ordinary to me. The only launch that seems strange to me is the Revolutions, which doesn't look like it'll have hardware shortages, and they're bundling a (mini) game in. Minimal shortages and a free game? Now that’s out of the ordinary.

 

[Bobbler]

I think they are quite a bit better on the software front (which is expected, the 6 month delay sort of helped on that front).

But otherwise, yeah. Any console launch is going to have limited titles, limited release, etc. Wii is sort of in a different situation seeing as it should be quite easy to produce (making quantities not such a huge limitation -- software quality is likely to be comparably bad to other launches, at least looking at the stuff I've seen about the titles).

 

[AW0L]

expect to see lots of bundles. with the limited quanity like 3-5 per a store, im looking at 1k bundles so that the stores could make money pushing the games and assesorys.

 

[22psi]

I think Sony is in a better place for launch, they are concentrating on 2 of the 3 major markets thus they have more available units. Also, the software is a lot more mature (thanks to the 6 month delay).

 

[SugarCoat]

I think Sony is in a better place for launch, they are concentrating on 2 of the 3 major markets thus they have more available units. Also, the software is a lot more mature (thanks to the 6 month delay).

how do you figure they're in a better place and have more units. The numbers they're saying they're going to have on launch day are the same if not worse for the numbers of Xbox360s in the same regions on its launch day, and the Xbox360 was a world wide launch so there were more sold elseware. I wouldnt go so far to say "a lot more mature" either, and i dont believe there was an unscheduled delay, but rather overzelous Sony PR to blame for that launch schedule confusion. Hardware wasnt even finalized, including core chips, until ~6 months ago so i fail to see where there was a delay, not like they could of launched but didnt. More like they had no idea what they were actually doing back in E3 05 and ready to say anything to throw a wrench into the Xbox360 launch.

"we'll have our console in spring!"
"oh sorry guys we dont actually have a console design finalized yet, we were just talking out of our asses, maybe in half a year"

delay? riiiight. As far as i'm concerned the PlayStation 3 is launching right when it could, there was never a chance before, and it could even use more time for supply build up too, but they cant risk losing the holiday sales.

 

[Rolf N]

how do you figure they're in a better place and have more units. The numbers they're saying they're going to have on launch day are the same if not worse for the numbers of Xbox360s in the same regions on its launch day, and the Xbox360 was a world wide launch so there were more sold elseware.

Are official 360 launch unit counts public information?
(and where are they?)

 

[scooby_dooby]

300k+ in NA

 

[TheChefO]

how do you figure they're in a better place and have more units. The numbers they're saying they're going to have on launch day are the same if not worse for the numbers of Xbox360s in the same regions on its launch day, and the Xbox360 was a world wide launch so there were more sold elseware. I wouldnt go so far to say "a lot more mature" either, and i dont believe there was an unscheduled delay, but rather overzelous Sony PR to blame for that launch schedule confusion. Hardware wasnt even finalized, including core chips, until ~6 months ago so i fail to see where there was a delay, not like they could of launched but didnt. More like they had no idea what they were actually doing back in E3 05 and ready to say anything to throw a wrench into the Xbox360 launch.

"we'll have our console in spring!"
"oh sorry guys we dont actually have a console design finalized yet, we were just talking out of our asses, maybe in half a year"

delay? riiiight. As far as i'm concerned the PlayStation 3 is launching right when it could, there was never a chance before, and it could even use more time for supply build up too, but they cant risk losing the holiday sales.

Well the do seem to be concentrating their limited launch units and their launch software is well ahead of 360's launch software. Devs have had almost 2 years with cell and rsx class hardware. I would hope this 1.5 year advantage would result in "superior" software. Not to mention the ports of software that has already launched on 360 from the likes of EA etc.

What will be interesting is seeing how everything shapes up in 07.

 

[cthellis42]

in my opinion;

• Limited quantites.
• Dominantly North American release
• No 'killer-app' launch titles
• 'Launch-window' titles

one difference is that retailers have learnt from the 360 release as far as pre-ordering goes, with restricting it until they fully know how many units they will recieve.

Looks rather like the PS2 launch, only with "Japanese" instead of "North American"

Substantially more non-crap launch games, though, which is really the big point.

 

[SugarCoat]

Are official 360 launch unit counts public information?
(and where are they?)

yes, quite a bit can be dug up.

According to the NDP Group, North American sales totaled 326,000 units in November. In Canada, all 32,100 units available for launch were sold. By the end of 2005, Microsoft stated it sold roughly 900,000 units [in North America alone].

Microsoft confirmed that 300,000 units were available for the European launch. By the end of 2005, Microsoft stated they sold 500,000 consoles in the region.

While other regions such as the United States or Europe enjoyed successful launches, sales in Japan have been very slow. In fact, only 103,990 units have sold by the end of April 2nd, 2006.[Microsoft stated they sold just under 100k units by the end of 2005]

Compare that to the 500,000 (if they can infact even meet that target) units between North America and Japan alone and you get a significantly worse launch with a significantly more popular console (at least in terms of past brand sales), especially in Japan where i expect the first 100k to get eaten up like they never existed, unless that price really nails it to the wall. I dont think it would be a stretch to say they launched with about 600-800k units considering their 2.5k sales estimate total by the end of the first 3 months.

 

[one]

Compare that to the 500,000

It's the launch day figure, not the launch month figure. 1.2 million is the monthly target figure.