Sony Promises 1M PS3s This Year 123
Joystiq reports that Sony is still promising 1 Million PS3 units in North America for this year. This, despite much lower estimates as released yesterday. From the article: "basically, these numbers don't mean anything. Despite what appears to be gross incompetence to much of the gaming press and the hardcore industry watchers (that's you guys), the mainstream gamer is blissfully unaware of reductions in shipping estimates. To him, it will appear that the PS3 is the hottest thing this holiday -- just like the Xbox 360 appeared to be last year and the PlayStation 2 back in '00 -- and may have no problem waiting for the demand and/or price to go down. People are still buying PS2s today, remember? Just a reality check before the hype consumes us all." For more on this, 1up has analyst reaction to the release news, and comments from GTA creator Dave Jones on his reaction to the news.
The Numbers DO Mean Something (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I still don't understand the market for this bo (Score:3, Interesting)
I still know a few very single guys who have the money saved up for the PS3 already (one guy has about $1000 stashed away so he can buy a few games). But other than that, nobody I've met is interested in a $600 console.
OTOH everyone I know is saving a few extra pennies for the Wii.
Re:PS3 will be Sony's Dreamcast (Score:1, Interesting)
Anyone who would consider the $500 PS3 as a High-Definition player is pretty foolish to begin with because (although some content providers have promised not to use the IC tolken) the IC tolken will probably be enforced as soon and you start seeing a decent number of HD movie Torrents; as a guess mid 2007. Thus you'll get (essentially) a DVD player for *only* $500.
Now, the problem I see for Sony is that (even by their analysis) few people buy consoles that cost more than $200 and it will be years (by my guess 3 years) before the PS3 is in that price range.
Apt comparison... -except- ... (Score:3, Interesting)
They were the only game in town, which allowed them to survive an otherwise precarious launch.
This year, the PS3 is launching itself into the market alongside the dramatically cheaper, more numerous Nintendo console, and a 360 with a very respectable foothold.
These are hardly comparable situations.
Furthermore, the PS3 is not notably more powerful than the 360, and it's advantages are a moot point for all but a tiny segment of the -hardcore- gaming audience.
It would take twenty minutes to explain to Joe Consumer why the PS3 is better on paper.
-Then- you'd have to spend another ten explaining the theoretical advantage is moot unless he's spending several thousand dollars on a TV, and planning on spending another thousand on an HD video player in the very near future.
If he doesn't have an HDTV, the marginal theoretical performance advantage and 1080p capability don't matter.
If he isn't planning on buying a blu-ray player in the next year, then the 'cheap' BR player capability doesn't matter either.
All that 'potential' for $200-$300 more than last generation's price hike, and all ignoring one very large elephant in a very small room: by the time either of those advantages -truly- matter, the PS4, 720, and Wii Too will be in the hype machine.
Re:I still don't understand the market for this bo (Score:2, Interesting)
And let me say that, while I don't have much history with the 8-bit console generation besides playing duck hunt on my neighbors NES from time to time, my first big generation was the 16-bits (SNES and Genisis). Among my friends, it's mostly the same way, and those that didn't start in 16-bit mostly started in 8 bit. I think sony is going to need to wait untill they get to the PS4 at least to be able to claim that a goodly percent of those "just out of college" + "money to burn" types grew up on Playstations.
And for the record, I have absolutely no desire to get a PS3 and am waiting to see how the Wii does with interest.