Is PS3 the great unwanted console?

**popopot** · 03-14-2007, 02:32 PM

Story below. Source: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gamesgear/0,...9288445,00.htm

With ten days to go before the PlayStation 3 launches in the UK, where is the cavalcade, the banners, the streamers and bunting? Where are the crowds chanting on the street corners? Where are the geeks camping outside Virgin Megastore, poised expectantly, fire-axes in hand, waiting for the moment the clock strikes midnight on 23 March?

There is no crowd, there are no streamers. You can walk into a Blockbuster today and order one for launch. In the Great Rule Book of Games Console Launches, rule number one is: "Thou must under-stock for launch." So why has Sony got so many consoles available?

The optimistic view is that Sony is above the petty playground boasting that insiders suspect drives some manufacturers to withhold some stock in order to claim a 'sell-out' on the first day of launch. The cachet attached to good first-day sales is hard to ignore -- console manufacturers get great press coverage if they can claim all their consoles are sold out. Both the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360 sold out on the first day of launch.

The more realistic view is that gamers just aren't that interested in the PS3 and Sony is now massively overstocked. The same company that cited component shortages as a reason for giving Japan just 80,000 PS3 consoles and America 400,000 at last year's launch -- and delaying the European launch until this month -- seem to have gone the other way in the UK and stocked the nation's shops with more PS3s than gamers want.

The PS3 will be so easy to get hold of on launch that GameSpot's Guy Cocker told us, "Right now, it's about as hard to get a PS3 for launch as it is an orange in California -- either Sony has poured units into Europe, or the demand's just not there."

So why is the PS3 so undesirable? The obvious answer is the lack of any cut-off-your-hand-to-buy-it game for the platform. The console's most-vaunted title, MotorStorm, is glitzy but prosaic -- only Sony's forthcoming Second-Life-alike social space Home is worth getting excited about.

The £425 price tag could have something to do with it, too. Sure, that's comparable to the PS2's launch cost, but consumer electronics prices have tumbled in the last five years and the Xbox 360 is only £280.

Sony may also have been over-zealous in emphasising the 'power' of the PlayStation console over its games. Improved processing power, after a point, won't make a game play any better -- it can only really make it look better.

The PlayStation 3 is an incredibly powerful machine -- so powerful in fact that Sony's Nick Sharples last year proclaimed "no one will ever use the full power of the console". Sharples gleefully preached to us at CES that any one of the PS3's several processors could be dedicated to "making a character's hair move in a realistic manner", or "rendering the contours of a cape". But some critics accuse Sony of inviting developers to neglect gameplay and invest heavily in these amazing graphics.

The PlayStation 2 was so overwhelmingly popular that it's hard to imagine the PS3 won't find success. For now though, thousands of the things sit stacked on shelves in the backrooms of a hundred Blockbusters. This must be the most unwanted console in recent memory.

**mr. nails** · 03-14-2007, 04:19 PM

i've liked both playstations. the first one sold me on resident evil. i saw that game and that's all i needed to see. sold. ps2 came out and i was able to play my ps1 games and watch dvds! great times and the games that came out for the system were fantastic. now, the ps3 has cum out. imo it has problems, but i still like it as a console. once most problems are fixed and the gen2 versions of the system cum out i will be getting one. i wanna play a lot of games that WILL in fact be exclusive to only sony and then there's the fact of blu-ray. blu-ray and hd are already going on the obsolete rack for new media is in the works, but i'll test it out anyway. i think the ps3 is the best buy for a console right now, but like i said. once problems are fixed and gen2 releases along with a slightly cheaper price tag i won't as most won't be getting this console. let's just hope the upcummin' US versions of gen2's are crippled like the PAL versions. u guys got gay'd.

**Skiz** · 03-14-2007, 05:21 PM

Meh, everyone wants it. It's just too pricey with only a few games. Give it time.

**Melchior00** · 03-15-2007, 04:41 AM

think the same, there isin't any must-have games yet. I'll wait 1 more years before juging this system.

**macking** · 03-17-2007, 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by popopot

Story below. Source: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gamesgear/0,...9288445,00.htm

Uhmm figures it would come from cnet.

With ten days to go before the PlayStation 3 launches in the UK, where is the cavalcade, the banners, the streamers and bunting? Where are the crowds chanting on the street corners? Where are the geeks camping outside Virgin Megastore, poised expectantly, fire-axes in hand, waiting for the moment the clock strikes midnight on 23 March?

LOL thats a load of ballocks, the police are making special preparations for the event because they feel too many people at the same place at the same time could be very troublesome:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=74200

It might be the biggest console launch ever.

There is no crowd, there are no streamers. You can walk into a Blockbuster today and order one for launch. In the Great Rule Book of Games Console Launches, rule number one is: "Thou must under-stock for launch." So why has Sony got so many consoles available?

Under-stocking gives you negative press, negative press isnt something any console manufacturer wants.

The optimistic view is that Sony is above the petty playground boasting that insiders suspect drives some manufacturers to withhold some stock in order to claim a 'sell-out' on the first day of launch. The cachet attached to good first-day sales is hard to ignore -- console manufacturers get great press coverage if they can claim all their consoles are sold out. Both the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360 sold out on the first day of launch.

The xbox and gamecube sold out launch day as well while the PS2 didnt.. think about it.

The more realistic view is that gamers just aren't that interested in the PS3 and Sony is now massively overstocked. The same company that cited component shortages as a reason for giving Japan just 80,000 PS3 consoles and America 400,000 at last year's launch -- and delaying the European launch until this month -- seem to have gone the other way in the UK and stocked the nation's shops with more PS3s than gamers want.

If you remember the exact same thing happened at the UK launch with the PS2.

Sony saturated the shops with about a million PS2's and they didn't sell out.

If the PS3 is a failure like the PS2 was a failure I'm sure Sony will be thrilled.

The PS3 will be so easy to get hold of on launch that GameSpot's Guy Cocker told us, "Right now, it's about as hard to get a PS3 for launch as it is an orange in California -- either Sony has poured units into Europe, or the demand's just not there."

Same situation as with PS2.

So why is the PS3 so undesirable? The obvious answer is the lack of any cut-off-your-hand-to-buy-it game for the platform. The console's most-vaunted title, MotorStorm, is glitzy but prosaic -- only Sony's forthcoming Second-Life-alike social space Home is worth getting excited about.

The PS2 had a game drought for about a year when it launched, it was actually 2 years into the life of the PS2 when it started flying off shelves worldwide.

The £425 price tag could have something to do with it, too. Sure, that's comparable to the PS2's launch cost, but consumer electronics prices have tumbled in the last five years and the Xbox 360 is only £280.

I somehow doubt people are going to complain about paying a little extra for a console when they have to spend several times as much for the HDTV.

HDTV is a big factor, everybody knows if you want to enjoy your next-generation console you need a shiny HDTV.

We get raped here in England for HDTV's, if you want a nice 60" HDTV your paying 5 times the price of the PS3.

After spending 2 grand on a TV I somehow doubt an extra 100 quid will make a big difference in the grand scheme of things, the blu-ray movies on the other hand will.

Sony may also have been over-zealous in emphasising the 'power' of the PlayStation console over its games. Improved processing power, after a point, won't make a game play any better -- it can only really make it look better.

Improved processing power isnt all about graphics.

In fact its got little to do with graphics in the grand scheme of things its got to do with AI and the environment, we need all the power we can possibly get right now.

From what I've heard due to the wii's processing power problems the AI in Call of Duty 3 is crippled and way behind what the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC offer.

It is dumb bragging about processing power though, I mean what will Sony and Microsoft say this year when the PC blows them away with Crysis?

The PlayStation 3 is an incredibly powerful machine -- so powerful in fact that Sony's Nick Sharples last year proclaimed "no one will ever use the full power of the console". Sharples gleefully preached to us at CES that any one of the PS3's several processors could be dedicated to "making a character's hair move in a realistic manner", or "rendering the contours of a cape". But some critics accuse Sony of inviting developers to neglect gameplay and invest heavily in these amazing graphics.

Making a characters hair movie or the contours of a characters cape have nothing to do with graphics it is all physics based.

The cell processor can't do graphics anyway thats the GPU's job, it could help with some tasks if they wanted though.

Physics is awesome, imaging playing Max Payne 3 and it rains and your clothes get heavier so you run slower or fighting in Virtua Fighter 5 and your clothes getting cut or your hair blowing in Final Fantasy XIII when it gets windy.

Consoles this generation aren't there in terms of physics, I think we'll have to wait until next generation to see ultra realistic physics but thats the next step after graphics.

The PlayStation 2 was so overwhelmingly popular that it's hard to imagine the PS3 won't find success. For now though, thousands of the things sit stacked on shelves in the backrooms of a hundred Blockbusters. This must be the most unwanted console in recent memory.

The PS3 simply wont fail but one can hope the PS3 doest wipe the floor with the 360 and the Wii, if that happens it will be bad for competition which means it will be bad for me and you.

I'm hoping for something like 50/50/50(million units) each way.

The closer the big three come to each other the more compelled they will be to give their customers something better and cheaper.