PS3 on sale in new zealand (pre order of course) - overpriced?

[scooby_dooby]

What exactly can the 360 do without your PC?

Download music video's, movie trailers, game previews, demo's etc.

What can the PS3 do with my pre-existing music and video collection on my PC? As far as we know, nothing. Starting to catch my drift?

 

[ninzel]

The whole point is Sony is trying to replace the PC for some people who don't use thier PC's for work related apps like word or excel. They are not asking to have them work together, but asking you to make a choice between either. In todays' world that might seem like a redundancy,but in tommorows world it might seem perfectly logical. Like myself I could easily see myself not ever having a PC again if i have a system that allows me to browse the net, consume multimedia an cheack my email. I won't miss business apps or 80% of the other stuff that's on my comp.

 

[ZiFF]

To call 360's multimedia capabilties gimped compared to 360 is absolutely ridiculous.

When you look at what mediafiles 360 can play, you can safely say its gimped. Plus it does not even play any videos through HDD.

You do have a point that the PS3 may be a more standalone device, but the question is, why would anyone want a standalone device when they already have a PC that is more user friendly, and contains their multimedia content already.

How is it more user friendly to use two different machines? It´s just MS trying to sell you OS + 360.

It's a matter of realizing different people will value different features, some will want a standalone device to do this stuff, others will find it more appealing to stream content off their PC.

Its pretty clear people want a standalone. That´s why XBMC was so popular on the Xbox. Perfect mediabox.

The ability to stream any video/music/pictures from your PC, using the 360 as an extender with wifi conncection is really a very appealing feature for many people imo. Expecially when it hits the $99 pricerange, which should be right around the time Vista becomes widespread.

Oops.. WiFi only for $100 more..

 

[ninzel]

3. Even if PS3 lets you stream and download video via the internet (which i doubt it will via a browser), that doesn't remove the FACT that to get use out of the OTHER multi media features you still need a PC. If I have videos and Mp3's on a PC, you will still need to connect to that PC to access them via a network. Again making your first statment:

No no no ,if you DL an MP3 or music video or HD video, why would you DL it to your PC first? Just DL it straight to the PS3 HDD then play it back on the PS3. Why do you think Sony is including a 60 GB version PS3..for game saves?

 

[Rolf N]

What, are we 12 years old now?? I said PC's sold in 2007 will come with Vista.

You actually didn't.
*pouts*
And actually there is a software package for Linux that allows accessing Windows file shares, if that rocks your boat so much.

All Sony has to do to shatter your whole argument is to package a "game" called "Linux" that boots to a desktop environment, has Firefox, auto-mounts Windows shares, and auto-mounts USB mass storage. And this is very very possible because all the software required for that is available for 0.00$. But I'm probably just assuming waaay too much here.

 

[Graham]

ok.. this thread is getting sucked into the misinformation vortex pretty fast... I see the pretty colours already...

Just a reminder it was simply to say you can pre-oder the PS3 in new zealand, which means the price is official here. And it's expensive! ;-)

 

[Carl B]

Out of interest, do you have a similar list for the 360?

You know, I don't... this list stemmed out of interest of an apples:apples comparison after the E3 pricing announcement. I toyed around with the idea of doing one for 360 later on, but since the effort went beyond breaking down a single press release, I just sort of passed on it.

I'm sure there are some territories where Sony will narrow the pricing spread vs 360 relative to the US (such as Canada, which actually seems to have the best pre-tax PS3 pricing normalized to US dollars of any country in the world right now), but for the most part I figure the cross-border percentage difference will be similar to the US difference in costs.

I guess it would be interesting though, since Japan in particular in fact gets the 360 at a decent discount compared to the US release.

 

[Carl B]

Does the PS3-60GB really officially cost 360 pounds in the UK? What a brilliant idea!

Uh... no.

That 360 pounds I wrote was what Sony themselves brings in on each PS3 sold in the UK (which is all Sony can really be blamed for in the scheme of pricing). The price in stores though includes the value-added-tax, and will be seen by consumers as 425 GBP.

 

[zed]

Re the rugby, that was a hell of a game that last 30 minutes was hard to watch. Far too tense

missed it since i was working ( i dont have a tv so cant watch the replay either ), my other bet aint looking to hot though, tuqiri ( hint TAB made a mistake by giving the best odds to kiwi players eg rico gear, forgetting the rotation policy of nz, he'll play only 3-4 games compared to tuqiri's 6 )

In the past few years I've been paying as little as $40/week rent (although it was a small room!). That said we pay through the nose for power and internet

ive never paid that little in my life (even flating 15 years ago) at the moment we're paying $200 week for a cottage built 1863

sony has an advantage compared to ms wrt software on the consoles, sony can stick anything on it eg internet browser whilst theres nothing technically stopping ms doing that with the xb360, they dont want to since then its gonna appear more like a pc, ie it will compete with there largest revenue source 'windows'.
i for one will prolly pick up the ps3 only for its multimedia capabilities ( i dont play games ), though only if its as quiet as reported to be. in fact i see myself using it more than the pc. ~70% of my time on the pc + use to play music (eg whilst reading the paper) or watch dvd's or surf the web. my girlfriend uses the pc for the above >90% of the time.

 

[Eagle-Vision]

The whole point is Sony is trying to replace the PC for some people who don't use thier PC's for work related apps like word or excel. They are not asking to have them work together, but asking you to make a choice between either. In todays' world that might seem like a redundancy,but in tommorows world it might seem perfectly logical. Like myself I could easily see myself not ever having a PC again if i have a system that allows me to browse the net, consume multimedia an cheack my email. I won't miss business apps or 80% of the other stuff that's on my comp.

lol what sane person would choose a PS3 over a PC lol

 

[Andy]

Just found out today many major online retailers here in New Zealand are now selling the PS3 on pre-order. The interesting thing is these retailers are currently not selling the PS3 in Australia for pre-order. Only here.

You seem to be mistaken, EB Australia have been taking preorders since post E3 2006, I've already paid 200AUD of a total 1000AUD.

In fact Toys R Us, have an incentive scheme for preorders. If you preorder PS3 of Wii you will also receive a bonus game while stocks are limited.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Do you understand what I'm saying, to get the benefit of the multi media functions of either console you're still going to need a PC. and your statement about before starting this discussion is basically in correct.

I can understand a 'wait and see' mentality, but everything said and shown to date suggests PS3 will be fully capable of most (all?) multimedia functions. eg. Harrison's comments

We believe that the PS3 will be the place where the users will play, watch movies, surf the web, and use other computer entertainment functionality. The PS3 is a computer. We don't need the PC

To do thise things, a PC isn't required. The PS3 will function as the PC component that downloads movies yadayada. Will this happen? It hasn't been absolutely confirmed yet. All we have is promises, and depending on one's stance when can either rate this as 'likely but may not happen', or 'unlikely but may happen'. Obviously you're the latter and ninzel is the former, like myself. Does PS3 have these features? No, not absolutely, but I'd talk as though it likely does until proven not to be the case in this instance given talk and other developments.

 

[Qroach]

To do thise things, a PC isn't required. The PS3 will function as the PC component that downloads movies yadayada. Will this happen? It hasn't been absolutely confirmed yet. All we have is promises, and depending on one's stance when can either rate this as 'likely but may not happen', or 'unlikely but may happen'. Obviously you're the latter and ninzel is the former, like myself. Does PS3 have these features? No, not absolutely, but I'd talk as though it likely does until proven not to be the case in this instance given talk and other developments.

They said the PS2 was a computer as well, remember? Anyway just because he says you can surf the net, doesn't mean your going to be able to download zip files and unpack them, or watch all types of video content streaming off the web. That's making an assumption based on this comment that I don't think will be correct. It's a closed box and will be limited to certain functionality.

Sony can say PS3 is a computer all they want, but in reality it's not PC. This is just their way of justifying the price to the public. You know what I mean? it's not a game console, it's a computer, so look at what you are getting is what they are sayiing...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They said the PS2 was a computer as well, remember? Anyway just because he says you can surf the net, doesn't mean your going to be able to download zip files and unpack them, or watch all types of video content streaming off the web. That's making an assumption based on this comment that I don't think will be correct. It's a closed box and will be limited to certain functionality.

That's one hardware that missed it intentions. Conversely the PSP has added or is getting the features that were tooted for it. We also have a new head of Sony who seems serious about the long-term goals. I feel reasons to believe in a robust solution outway reasons to doubt, but people have different takes on the same info. As long as no-one buys the hardware now on promises that don't materialise, no harm done!

 

[fireshot]

Is the PSP and it's capabilities for a handled not any indication to you guy's of where Sony is heading with the PS3?

I would get a PDA for all other capabilities. I would get a PSP for games(strictly speaking NDS looks the better/popular choice for a gaming handheld).

By trying to mix everything under the sun on a budget, PSP is slow for games(by specs it should outperform the Dreamcast), and broken for AOC. If that is where(?neither here nor there) PS3 is heading ...(weren't there cries about a top heavy PS3 OS dominating developers?)

The whole point is Sony is trying to replace the PC for some people who don't use thier PC's for work related apps like word or excel. They are not asking to have them work together, but asking you to make a choice between either. In todays' world that might seem like a redundancy,but in tommorows world it might seem perfectly logical. Like myself I could easily see myself not ever having a PC again if i have a system that allows me to browse the net, consume multimedia an cheack my email. I won't miss business apps or 80% of the other stuff that's on my comp.

Replace the PC? pfft. Same bunch of wishful thinking toss around by the Sony camp for years. Team Sony needs to come back only when they have something substantial to show for.

 

[scooby_dooby]

When you look at what mediafiles 360 can play, you can safely say its gimped. Plus it does not even play any videos through HDD.

Doesn't play videos off the HDD? What X360 are you talking about? Mine plays them just fine.

How is it more user friendly to use two different machines? It´s just MS trying to sell you OS + 360.

Oh I dunno, little things like a computer desk, a mouse, a nice chair with good back support, the ability to play all types of codecs, the ability to view flash movies, the ability to make use of your pre-existing music/video collection. Just to get you started...

Its pretty clear people want a standalone. That´s why XBMC was so popular on the Xbox. Perfect mediabox.

XBMC is not at all standalone, and the most popular configurations BY FAR are streaming shares setup using a windows PC. Very few people go to the trouble of transferring over music/video's to the XBOX hdd, one major reason why is that the XBOX1 does not support filenames over 32 characters, making this very cumbersome.

Obviously you don't really know much about XBMC, or you would know this.

Also, with the use of transcode 360, which is literally a 5 minute install, I can watch all videos on my PC using my 360 without leaving the couch. I do agree that MS gimped the video playback of 360, but it still does much more than the PS3 will do with regards to PC interoperability.

Oops.. WiFi only for $100 more..

a) This pricing will not stay at $100 indefinately
b) The base model PS3 does not have wifi either, whats your point?

 

[TheChefO]

How do you do it on PC?...Rip them of DVD.

woah!!! hold on a sec - you honestly think Sony will enable you to rip dvd's with ps3??? Yeah I know linux yada yada yada ... I guarantee whatever pc abilities they enable with ps3 they will not enable dvd rips of any comperable quality - and besides how many dvd quality movies can you fit on a 2.5" drive?


They would be better off selling a seperate ps3 media center edition which enables true functionality in this capacity. as it is it will be a play. station. of hard media formats and the ability to dl some smaller files, pictures, and demos and probably web browse. Certainly not a media center in any meaningful capacity.

 

[Graham]

You seem to be mistaken, EB Australia have been taking preorders since post E3 2006, I've already paid 200AUD of a total 1000AUD.

In fact Toys R Us, have an incentive scheme for preorders. If you preorder PS3 of Wii you will also receive a bonus game while stocks are limited.

Right. I was only looking online, and EB and online shopping are two terms that don't belong wihin 5 large garage doors distance (end to end even). At least in NZ that is.

Has the aussie price actually been set in stone? www.dse.com.au doesn't have them avaliable over there (but they do here on dse.co.nz ...) And they only have items for preoder if it's definite.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

woah!!! hold on a sec - you honestly think Sony will enable you to rip dvd's with ps3??? Yeah I know linux yada yada yada ... I guarantee whatever pc abilities they enable with ps3 they will not enable dvd rips of any comperable quality - and besides how many dvd quality movies can you fit on a 2.5" drive?

I'm unsure. But functionality wise before the HDD was announced, KK was saying none was large enough for those purposes. He talked of things like ripening (or whatever the term was) ripped content. You take some content and let Cell work on improving it somehow or other. Certainly the idea of putting movies on HDD was there to begin with. Maybe that's dropped since they went with a 60 GB HDD and that's only for...music and pictures. Or maybe the media features support ripping movies onto HDD? Otherwise why offer the option to upgrade the disk?

Ripping movies onto HDD isn't a piracy concern if you limit how they can be accessed. If the content is DRM'd onto the HDD so you can't take the files off and spread them around the web, it'd be safer than PC. To that end I think Sony would prefer PS3 as a media device and encourage people to use it over PCs. Of course that would Gimp the media abilities over a PC.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I'm unsure. But functionality wise before the HDD was announced, KK was saying none was large enough for those purposes. He talked of things like ripening (or whatever the term was) ripped content.

Dude, you realize you are taking Ken Kutaragi literally?

Come on now, no, you will not be ripping any DVD's to your PS3