Gamestop Managers Worried Over PS3 Launch

The Opposable Thumbs column has commentary today from some managers who attended the annual EB/Gamestop preview event. The reaction from the attendees to the PS3/Blue-ray presence is not inspiring. From the article: "The difference between HD DVD and Blu-Ray was striking as well. 'Blu-ray had a tiny presence in the very back of the show floor, while Microsoft had large displays and surround sound systems in their hospitality suite so you can take a look at what their HD DVD drives would look like. It was impressive, and gave the feeling that HD DVD was real and Blu-ray wasn't ready for the show.' I asked him his feelings going into the PS3 launch with no word on allocations or preorders, and no news on what will happen towards the holidays. 'It's going to be ugly, there is no way this launch is going to go well.'"

This is like Microsoft last year

[Animats]

Remember last year? Remember Microsoft botching the XBox 360 launch? Booking too much retail shelf space and not delivering product? Furious retailers? A product with heat dissipation problems? A weak selection of games at launch?

That's where Sony is this year.

2007 for the PS3 will probably look like 2006 for the Xbox 360. The PS3 will slowly launch over the next year, and finally start to sell in volume for the Xmas 2007 season. Probably at a lower price. This will give developers another year to get the Cell processor figured out, so the games will be better.

This is the price of increasing console complexity - the launch phase has more problems.

Sony will not mess up that bad...

[RexRhino]

Sony has a huge mindshare... there are a whole generation of kids who use the word "Playstation" interchangably with "Game Console". There is a huge Sony fanboy presence on the internet. Sony is in decent shape.

They might lose a lot of ground to the 360, but they are not going to be wiped out of the market. The console race will just be more of a split, instead of Sony dominating everything like the last generation.

Re:Look In The Mirror

[Dr. Eggman]

I must point out the following flaws in your post:

1. He said "potential;" He did not indicate alternatives to this potential
2. PS3 is shipping 80/20 [slashdot.org] $600 units to $500 units
3. Since Sony is planning on shipping 400K units to North America, only 80,000 $500 units will be available.
4. Therefore, the vast majority of Gamestop customers will "potentially" face a $600 purchase.

"This launch is not going to go well"

[ravenshrike]

Well, considering the fact that at every Gamestop/EB games the official party line seemed over the last 1.5 years to be that the 360 was the end all be all of gaming systems and the PS3 was horrible, why am I not surprised. Seriously, when he was off the job the local gamestop manager actually was talking about how he was looking forward to the PS3, and yet go in and ask him, and suddenly he attempts to push 360 superiority. Recently this changed, but for a while, they basically bashed the PS3 as store policy. And now they're saying they think it will fail? I smell a combination of stupidity and possible payoff.

Re:The fact still remains

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right. HDTV has many years to go before it is even on anyone's radar. 5 or 10 years at least. By then there will be a whole new set of game consoles anyway.

I mean crap, people have already been talking like you about HDTV for over 10 years and it's still not even slightly popular.

Re:Still no Pre-Ordering

[Grave]

Nobody knows, because Sony doesn't know how many they can really promise to each retailer yet. Sure they claimed 400,000 units at launch for the US. Other companies have claimed higher numbers much closer to launch dates only to change their figures at the last minute.

GameStop is taking the sensible approach of waiting to do pre-orders until Sony (and Nintendo) give them guaranteed allocations. Nintendo is likely to be able to restock all retailers pretty quickly (relatively speaking). However, I expect if you don't get a PS3 on launch day, you will not see another one until January. Unless of course for some reason they can't move 100,000 systems at the midnight launch in Japan. If THAT happens, the US will get the next batch rather than Japan, I expect. Either way, the 360 launch was smooth sailing in comparison to what Sony is facing. I just hope we aren't reading about murders or deadly stampedes on the morning of 11/17.

A lot of people who would otherwise buy a PS3 are turned off by the sticker shock, especially since the general expectation for so long had been that it would be close to the 360 in pricing. No doubt the first 2-3 million units will fly off shelves without problem. It's May/June of 2007 that we start seeing real indicators of public reaction to the system. If sales aren't surpassing the 360 by that point (presuming production volume is high enough), then it's time to start really questioning the ability of Sony to retain that #1 spot.

Different trends among consoles: Sony picks badly

[jchenx]

I see some different trends among the next-gen consoles.

• 360 - Tag line is "Jump in", emphasis on all the Live services, and being part of a "living, breathing" community (Gamescore, achievements, Live Marketplace, Live Arcade, etc.)
  
• Wii - Emphasis on innovation, being "Mom-friendly", brand new control scheme found nowhere else
  
• PS3 - Focus on Blu-ray and "HD only begins with us!" (1080p, HDMI)

(I'm ignoring the PS3's attempt at their own network service, as they haven't really talked much about it, or their own motion-sensing controller, as those don't really distinguish themselves apart from the others ... it seems too much of a "me too" approach)

Network services for the 360? Big hit for a lot of folks, especially considering broadband penetration in the US is rapidly increasing. New control scheme for the Wii? Very popular, particularly with gamers that are becoming disillusioned with the current type of games (more graphics, less gameplay, and less fun).

The trend that Sony is focusing on, unfortunately for them, is something that the vast majority of users won't care about. They don't have an HDTV, much less one that does 1080p or perhaps does HDMI.

What Sony SHOULD have done is just focus on their massive developer support, and on the games themselves. They've certainly talked about it with the PS3, but that message is diluted too much with the rest of the Blu-ray, 1080p, SIXAXIS talk going on. If all they did was thump their chest and focus on the games, they would have sold a lot more people on the PS3 (myself included).