Wired: Gloom and Doom for Sony

[JacksBleedingEyes]

If you people don't cut out this line of talk, you're going to force me to post a lot of pics of Stephen Colbert!



Also, IMHO it wasn't the high initial price of the Neo-Geo that secured its' place in extreme marginalization on the homefront, but the prospect of $150-200 games. The games looked farkin' STAGGERING for the time (and were a source for some of the most fun people were having in arcades, and well preceeded the expectation that you could "get the SAME as the arcade at home!" If they were able to deliver the games at "$10-20 more than the competitors' level or less", they may well have become a force despite the high entry fee (especially since SOME success would have made them able to reduce the cost and lower prices). But you CAN'T succeed when buying three games is the equivalent of buying the console all over again. (When the games are far more than current levels, of course, not when a console has gone down to $99. )

Well Neo Geo aracades back then were huge and most/all of their revenue does/did come from aracade games. So for them to delived the same arcade quality in your home would have slandered their very profitable and lucrative market. The Neo Geo was more of a niece for the high end market. I don't for one minute belive the Neo Geo console was entered into the console business to compete in anyway with the current players of the time or to be a substantial source of revenue for them.

 

[.Melchiah.]

PS2?

I know it launched at 300 in North America if I'm correct but North America isn't the whole world een if some people might think so, not to say you thought so but there are some people out there who don't even know where Europe is.

Yep, PS2 cost 500€ in Finland at 2000 launch. Some supermarket chains put the price as high as 580€. Yet the people still bought them.

 

[London Geezer]

Yep, PS2 cost 500€ in Finland at 2000 launch. Some supermarket chains put the price as high as 580€. Yet the people still bought them.

Yep. PS2 was ridiculously priced in the UK too and wasn't available for months, even costing something like £400 which is now almost $800 and back then more than $650... Heck, considering what you get in a PS3 now, even a Premium pack is kinda cheap for UK standards, looking at history...

It's easy for some people to forget what happened in the past when it suits them.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I think I paid about €570 for my PS2 then.

 

[London Geezer]

I think I paid about €570 for my PS2 then.

Likely, and the main point here is that even at that price point, it sold out so quickly that it wasn't available for months. I preordered and i still had to wait 3 or 4 months...

 

[slider]

That's why some/all of these doom & gloom write-ups are a bit annoying. Sony will make it to x-million (5/10 million?) units sold at full price. The next phase (1 or 2 years after launch?) will be interesting.

3 next-gen consoles on the market, games that are beginning to tap the machines potential is where MS/Nintendo/Sony will have to start earning their leads.

I think I'll find Sony the most interesting: purely for how they'll handle price drops.

 

[cthellis42]

Well Neo Geo aracades back then were huge and most/all of their revenue does/did come from aracade games. So for them to delived the same arcade quality in your home would have slandered their very profitable and lucrative market. The Neo Geo was more of a niece for the high end market. I don't for one minute belive the Neo Geo console was entered into the console business to compete in anyway with the current players of the time or to be a substantial source of revenue for them.

Home consoles was where the future lay, though, and they knew it even then. They may have cannibalized themselves a bit to get in the door, but they still needed to GET in the door.

I thought I remembered typing up an "of course they wouldn't have come anywhere close to Nintendo or Sega at the time..." line, but I guess I erased it to reword it to my satisfaction and ended up not bothering as the point is obvious. You can't go from "non-player" to "Numbah One" with a machine like the one Neo-Geo was pushing (especially since their name was almost unheard of except to arcade-goers), but they might have actually done SOMEthing.

 

[Docwiz]

Personally, I think the xbox 360 has more similarities with the dreamcast on the market. Coming out first, less power/features than the next coming playstation and coming from a underdog position in regards to the previous generation of consoles.

Granted, MS is not Sega so I don't think MS will be more or less forced to withdraw from the hardware market due to bad finances like Sega.

Less power? um no... The GPU on the Xbox 360 is superior than the PS3 (not quite direct x 10 compliant, but greater than direct x 9 and it is unified as well).

The PS3's CPU is superior in floating point power than the Xbox 360's CPU. The Xbox 360 has more bandwidth to the GPU than Sony does.

The PS3 has more space on blu-ray disks, but DVD9 disks are cheaper and faster to access data from. So what if a game uses two DVD9 disks, they are cheaper than one blu-ray disk.

The PS3 has less ram than the 360 due to the Operating system taking up more ram.

The Xbox controllers are by far better (except the Digital Pad) than what Sony has.
Rumble isn't a gimick like how sony added on motion sensing at the last minute to make up for the loss of rumble (which has been used for a long time and is not a gimick).

The Xbox 360 has a better OS and smaller OS than that of Sony and the navigation is much better and more polished.

The Xbox 360 is also $200.00 cheaper as well.

 

[A176]

Excellent article, and it focuses exactly on what the general interweb have been bashing Sony for - hardware.

Wired: J Allard came about from the viewpoint that Direct X helped to simplify and standardize graphics development; he also believed in the connected, multiplayer component. Nintendo's main marketing for the Wii stems almost exclusively from gameplay.

But Sony is trying/tried to push Cell, Blu Ray, 1080p HD, and more (...dual HDMI output?) They market 'motion sensing' as a new way to control a game, but not experience it (rumble). They publicly suggest programming will be a "pain in the ass".

Right now, many see Sony's only lifeline as the thousands of dedicated fans willing to dish out hideous amounts of money, just because its PS3, much akin to what many of you said happened with the PS2.

 

[DemoCoder]

I love how fanbys can talk about OS comparisons before the device is even out. But based on videos of the interface alone, I'd say the PS3 interface looks Mac OSXish, slicker, and more professional than MS's cartoony approach (XP, Vista, and XB360) in terms of color palette.


Also, MS definately focused on HW this time around too. If they didn't, they'd be just another Wii, with a good set of development tools, but underpowered hardware, and Sony would have steamrollered over them in the next-gen war. MS had to have competitive hardware, so to suggest it wasn't one of their top priorities sounds somewhat bogus.

Sony has the problem that they don't own an operating system, nor Visual Studio, so their development platform has to be cobbled together from open source and commercial tools middleware vendors. This would be the case regardless of whether or not they pushed for CELL and BluRay. It would be the case of virtually any consumer electronics manufacturer, since none of them are operating system and dev-tool vendors. Maybe if Sony bought Apple or vice versa, it would be an appropriate apples vs apples comparison (pun intended)

MS just has a huge advantage in platform tools since they've been doing it for decades.

This is Doom and Gloom 3.0. We had similar failure stories running at the PS1 launch and likewise the PS2 launch. in the PS1 era, Sega and Nintendo were running FUD about how Sony knows nothing of the business. N64 was going to have better gfx. Sony wouldn't be able to deliver the most important item: software. Then it was PS2, DC had better gfx, PS2 was expensive, a jaggy fest, pitiful VRAM amount, XBOX was going to have better graphics, had an HD, had online. Oh, and no black colored console ever won the market.

It would be nice if the naysayers short Sony or buy puts on Sony, thereby putting their money where their mouth is, if they really think the PS3 is going to be such a failure and kill Sony. I mean, if I was so sure of it, I'd start buying puts now.

 

[cthellis42]

Oh, and no black colored console ever won the market.

<blinks> Seriously? Glad I missed THAT one!

 

[quest55720]

There was no doom and gloom when the PS2 was ready to be launched. It was the best thing since sliced bread. After sony fudged the 75m polys per second the hype started and snowballed to launch. There was no negative spin about the ps2 this close to launch it was all good. The pre launch hype of the PS2 carried to an easy victory no one stood a chance. This time around is the complete oposite the hype is not there. There negative articles in the main stream media and gaming media.

 

[dskneo]

Less power? um no... The GPU on the Xbox 360 is superior than the PS3 (not quite direct x 10 compliant, but greater than direct x 9 and it is unified as well).

The PS3's CPU is superior in floating point power than the Xbox 360's CPU. The Xbox 360 has more bandwidth to the GPU than Sony does.

The PS3 has more space on blu-ray disks, but DVD9 disks are cheaper and faster to access data from. So what if a game uses two DVD9 disks, they are cheaper than one blu-ray disk.

The PS3 has less ram than the 360 due to the Operating system taking up more ram.

The Xbox controllers are by far better (except the Digital Pad) than what Sony has.
Rumble isn't a gimick like how sony added on motion sensing at the last minute to make up for the loss of rumble (which has been used for a long time and is not a gimick).

The Xbox 360 has a better OS and smaller OS than that of Sony and the navigation is much better and more polished.

The Xbox 360 is also $200.00 cheaper as well.

i.... you... that.... well, i dont even know where to begin.

Entertaining with good sense of humour. 8/10 plus rep for you!!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They market 'motion sensing' as a new way to control a game, but not experience it (rumble).

Games are all about gameplay, which is about control. I'd take a PS2 without rumble over a holographic total-immersion game of Pong any day, because it has better control and better gameplay. Bad controls can ruin a game no matter how many fancy cosmetic features they have, and if motion adds to control, it's a huge up-step for the experience. Nintendo seem to think that's true, both in the DS and Wii. Sony have provided EyeToy for that end and MS are following suit. Everyone's wanting to add to the control side because they know that makes the game experience. Just check out the excitement over Wii's potential, and you get a fair number of people saying they don't mind if the graphics are worse (which is feedback) if the interface is good (which is control).

Motion control is definitely a new way to experience a game, as the majority of the experience is in the controlling of it.

 

[TheChefO]

in all seriousness, is sony hurting gaming industry? is playstation a device that steals population from gaming into something else?
so why the hate and lack of confidence for a brand that helped gaming? do you guys play games or brands?

get this, outside america playstation was always expensive, alot! and it remains expensive for the following 1.5years. In europe it costed the equivalent of 600$, with some stores aiming at 700$.
But here's the deal, The "market" is won in the following 4 years. This is the routine. (not xbox routine, since it only lasted 4 costly years)
If its the first time you'r in the playstation "loop", learn and dont spread doom based on your favorite "brand" young standards.
we've been here for 11 years kid, every competitor is welcome, BUT sony ain't the n00b on this biz. If this scares you, you dont care for gaming at all.

Is Sony hurting the industry? I'd say with their latest moves they are hurting the industry. As you've said, they're the industry leaders and they set the trends. Well the trend of $600 consoles while perhaps in EU it isn't a big deal in the US (which accounts for roughly 40% of the gaming market) it is a big deal. I suspect it will have a substantial affect on the gamer userbase of this industry as many who were/are Playstation gamers are left either with their old ps2 or looking for alternative consoles because they can't afford/justify the high price of entry for ps3. And for this price point to become "the standard" for this gen, where does this lead us next gen? $800 starting price for a console with other tech unrelated to gaming thrown in for good measure? Is this trend beneficial to the gaming industry as a whole? I don't think so. And before you go calling me a noob for calling out Sony on this rediculous pricing scheme for a fricken console, I've been a diehard gamefan before there was "diehard gamefan" . And really where is this sentiment that "Sony has always been the underdog" crap coming from? Ever since Sony was even rumored to be entering the gaming biz they've been praised (why?) because they were making the right moves everywhere they turned. The big uproar you hear over ps3 at the moment is because this is the first time where so many big questionable moves have been made for one of their consoles.

All the people on this forum that root against MS you should be the most pissed at Sony for giving them a foot in the door with a rediculously priced ps3. Years from now we'll look back at this launch and say either:a) "that was the turning point when MS took over the market" or b) "that was the reason we have $600+ consoles and a smaller industry as a result". All because Sony "had balls".

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Is Sony hurting the industry? I'd say with their latest moves they are hurting the industry. As you've said, they're the industry leaders and they set the trends. Well the trend of $600 consoles while perhaps in EU it isn't a big deal in the US (which accounts for roughly 40% of the market) it is a big deal. I suspect it will have a substantial affect on the gamer userbase of this industry as many who were/are Playstation gamers are left either with their old ps2 or looking for alternative consoles because they can't afford/justify the high price of entry for ps3.

That doesn't hurt the industry, only Sony's earnings. There's two other consoles in this industry for those who want to be part of gaming and don't want to pay Sony's prices. That's two other consoles for developer and publishers to work on if PS3 is too expensive to get a market for itself.

And if PS3 does reach wide adoption, it shows that the population would rather pay more money for what Sony were offering, than less money for the rivals. This would mean the population have been offered a product they want, and had Sony stayed more cconservative in their plans, a product people wouldn't have had the chance to buy into.

The industry goes where the people go. If that means becoming a more expensive luxury item, so be it. Existing console gamers may be put out, but if for the industry it means better sales and services and income, who cares about existing gamers? Sony can't harm the industry. They can only play their part in it and leave it for the market's voting dollars to decide what works and what doesn't.

 

[London Geezer]

Is Sony hurting the industry? I'd say with their latest moves they are hurting the industry. As you've said, they're the industry leaders and they set the trends. Well the trend of $600 consoles while perhaps in EU it isn't a big deal in the US (which accounts for roughly 40% of the market) it is a big deal. I suspect it will have a substantial affect on the gamer userbase of this industry as many who were/are Playstation gamers are left either with their old ps2 or looking for alternative consoles because they can't afford/justify the high price of entry for ps3. And for this price point to become "the standard" for this gen, where does this lead us next gen? $800 starting price for a console with other tech unrelated to gaming thrown in for good measure? Is this trend beneficial to the gaming industry as a whole? I don't think so. And before you go calling me a noob for calling out Sony on this rediculous pricing scheme for a fricken console, I've been a diehard gamefan before there was "diehard gamefan" . And really where is this sentiment that "Sony has always been the underdog" crap coming from? Ever since Sony was even rumored to be entering the gaming biz they've been praised (why?) because they were making the right moves everywhere they turned. The big uproar you hear over ps3 at the moment is because this is the first time where so many big questionable moves have been made for one of their consoles.

All the people on this forum that root against MS you should be the most pissed at Sony for giving them a foot in the door with a rediculously priced ps3. Years from now we'll look back at this launch and say either:a) "that was the turning point when MS took over the market" or b) "that was the reason we have $600+ consoles and a smaller industry as a result". All because Sony "had balls".

What a load of nonsense!!! If anything, Sony is only risking hurting themselves!! Certainly not the market as a whole. People can very well buy something else. Hell they have now two very good alternatives!

If the market gets smaller it will be because there will be no interesting games on the two consoles people can actually afford (as if price has ever been a problem!), certainly not just because "the PS3 is expensive".

Blaming Sony for all the evil in the world is soooo 5 years ago, when they were blamed for "killing Sega"... Really, i thought people on here learned something in the last few years.

 

[Arwin]

Is Sony hurting the industry? I'd say with their latest moves they are hurting the industry. As you've said, they're the industry leaders and they set the trends. Well the trend of $600 consoles while perhaps in EU it isn't a big deal in the US

However, it was a big deal back when the PS2 was released. Lots of people like you wtih the exact same complaints you have today. Even so, you can get a silver slimline PS2 for about 160 euro. Which is down from 500 at launch. We went down a lot. You didn't. You want to know the biggest reason why, apart from Sony being very good at matching the console's price to what the market is ready to pay? Bush. He's spent a lot of money and now the dollar isn't worth nearly what it was when the PS2 was launched. Back then, the dollar was to the euro what the euro is now to the dollar.

And for this price point to become "the standard" for this gen, where does this lead us next gen? $800 starting price for a console with other tech unrelated to gaming thrown in for good measure?

The starting price will be what people will pay. Many of the first PSPs were sold at 400 euros (the first batch on Lik-Sang for instance). I'm sure that when the stocks were low, some good money was paid for some of the earlier 360s.

Is this trend beneficial to the gaming industry as a whole? I don't think so. And before you go calling me a noob for calling out Sony on this rediculous pricing scheme for a fricken console, I've been a diehard gamefan before there was "diehard gamefan" .

You'll have to agree with me though that die-hard fans don't generally have a reputation for clear, rational thought.

And really where is this sentiment that "Sony has always been the underdog" crap coming from? Ever since Sony was even rumored to be entering the gaming biz they've been praised (why?) because they were making the right moves everywhere they turned. The big uproar you hear over ps3 at the moment is because this is the first time where so many big questionable moves have been made for one of their consoles.

Really not true. It's the same pattern again that we are always seeing. Lots of interested parties, lots of skepticism, lots of stories, and it gets worse and worse as (cheap) internet press gets bigger and bigger.

All the people on this forum that root against MS you should be the most pissed at Sony for giving them a foot in the door with a rediculously priced ps3.

There are people who are rooting against MS? Then they would be ******s too, and I can go on discrediting their opinions too. They are rooting against MS for the same reasons as some are rooting against Sony - market leader, albeit in another segment. Truth is, everyone complains about everything from everyone, and it's all good as long as it is done rationally and calmly

Years from now we'll look back at this launch and say either:a) "that was the turning point when MS took over the market" or b) "that was the reason we have $600+ consoles and a smaller industry as a result". All because Sony "had balls".

If everything you say is right, then surely the Wii will win this generation, and will increase every bit of the industry that Sony "decreases" it. So far though, Sony has done a big share in increasing the market. Each time people complained, and each time they succeeded. There's likely to come a time where someone else takes over. Maybe Nintendo strikes back. Maybe Microsoft achieves its goal. But we'll just have to wait and see. So far the Playstations have lasted a long time, and sold a lot of games and consoles. We are not likely to be sure whether the PS3 is going to match up with the success of either of them or not before late 2010, and I'm hoping very much that during that time, you will calm down and return to making more constructive contributions to this forum.

EDIT: hmm, triple post.

 

[patsu]

Less power? um no... The GPU on the Xbox 360 is superior than the PS3 (not quite direct x 10 compliant, but greater than direct x 9 and it is unified as well).

Probably. I have no concrete idea what RSX has or has not, so I can't comment. Are you a Xbox 360 or PS3 dev ? It would be great if you have additional insights into this topic.

The PS3's CPU is superior in floating point power than the Xbox 360's CPU. The Xbox 360 has more bandwidth to the GPU than Sony does.

I believe bandwidth numbers go with the system architecture and how you use it (e.g., whether there are contentions, when can the bandwidth be used, etc.). As you pointed out, Xbox 360 has drastically different architecture from PS3, so it's hard to compare numbers like that.

The PS3 has more space on blu-ray disks, but DVD9 disks are cheaper and faster to access data from. So what if a game uses two DVD9 disks, they are cheaper than one blu-ray disk.

What do you say about ArturNow's posts: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=822973&postcount=70
and
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=822973&postcount=71 ?
It seems that 12xDVD does not have a constant access time, so its average access time can be slower than Blu-ray. Seek time is slower too. I'm still looking for other sources to decide whether to believe this one or not. What's your take ?

The PS3 has less ram than the 360 due to the Operating system taking up more ram.

The Xbox 360 has a better OS and smaller OS than that of Sony and the navigation is much better and more polished.

Yeah, but does the OS do _more_ ? It's of course possible that the PS3 OS is less efficient than MS's since the latter is an OS company. But 96Mb is too much for an embedded Linux kernel.

And yes less (main memory ?) RAM space for PS3 games. Hopefully the devs can work around it.

The Xbox controllers are by far better (except the Digital Pad) than what Sony has.
Rumble isn't a gimick like how sony added on motion sensing at the last minute to make up for the loss of rumble (which has been used for a long time and is not a gimick).

Your assessment of the controller is subjective and partial (Have you used a DS3 controller yet ?). The Xbox 360 controller is certainly comfortable to hold and looks good, but like you said some of the buttons are hard to use during gaming.

The Xbox 360 is also $200.00 cheaper as well.

BOM-wise, you missed a few components here and there in this post. Functionality-wise, Xbox 360 is also lesser. Adding those features to Xbox 360 will likely cost more, granted you may not need them from the get-go. But you're correct, The hi-end Xbox 360 is $200.00 cheaper compared to the hi-end PS3, and $100.00 cheaper compared to the low end one.

The key is: whether PS3 is priced fairly (i.e., It is expensive but is it over-priced ?). I'm still waiting for more info from Sony to know.

 

[patsu]

Excellent article, and it focuses exactly on what the general interweb have been bashing Sony for - hardware.

Nope. We bash Sony because of the price and too many unknowns. The hardware is more than fine. Sony has very positive comments until the price was announced.

Wired: J Allard came about from the viewpoint that Direct X helped to simplify and standardize graphics development; he also believed in the connected, multiplayer component. Nintendo's main marketing for the Wii stems almost exclusively from gameplay.

But Sony is trying/tried to push Cell, Blu Ray, 1080p HD, and more (...dual HDMI output?) They market 'motion sensing' as a new way to control a game, but not experience it (rumble). They publicly suggest programming will be a "pain in the ass".

So you're saying Nintendo DS sucks because there is no rumble to "experience" game, but only a pen-input to "control" the game ?

You also left out some info. Sony believes online gaming needs to be accessible to everyone (to jumpstart the market), so it's going to be free. What about MS ?

As for development effort, Sony invests and pushes for open standards like Collada, OpenGL and Linux, while MS wants to drive everyone back to Windows SDK and tools.

Sony is also trying to push the hardware envelope, and it sucks that they can't bring the price lower initially. Frankly, I don't know what their pitch is going to be. So we'll just have to let them do the talking when they are ready.

Right now, many see Sony's only lifeline as the thousands of dedicated fans willing to dish out hideous amounts of money, just because its PS3, much akin to what many of you said happened with the PS2.

No point arguing. We should let reality sets its own course. Sony may get bitten. The question is how will it react ?