The PlayStation 3 Launches In the U.S. 578
Sony's next-gen console has officially launched in the states, complete with an NYC launch party, and a giant line in San Francisco. While many gamers went home happy, the night was not without incident. There was also some ugliness, with individuals being hired to stand in line, as was done in Japan earlier this week. Overall, though, the news is positive for the hundreds of gamers who waited through the night for their new console. "As midnight approached, the first person in line, New York native Angel Paredes, was escorted into the SonyStyle Store where he was handed the first North American PS3 by Hirai and Stringer. The console's box also included a personal autographed message from Hirai. Paredes, his voice hoarse from interviews and arms tired from repeatedly hoisting the console, was a good sport, standing still for the multitude of photographers and offering a few words for anyone who asked. The first three gamers in line were comped their PS3s. Once the media buzz died down, the rest of the attendees were ushered in to get what they had been waiting for all week. Though the consoles' next destinations were unknown — many are expected to be posted on eBay for a quick profit — the next destinations of the new PS3 owners was clear — go home and get some rest. " Any readers spend the night in lines, and want to share about it? Did you eBay the thing, or are you just taking a break from Resistance? Let us know how things went, and what the system is like.
Well, I didn't pre-order one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ugliness (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is that ugly? Seems like capitalism at its finest. If someone is willing to pay for a service and someone is willing to perform that service, whats ugly about that?
Lazy maybe, but hardly ugly
I don't really follow games, what are the most anticipated titles besides the generic football games?
Lunatic, especially in Minnesota (Score:2, Insightful)
I even camped out with my friend to buy a PS2 so we could play Tekken. Another great game.
As far as I can tell the PS3's launch titles are pretty bad. There's a Madden with pretty graphics along with a handful of other anticlimactic sports titles... There's Call of Duty 3 (....)...
Gran Turismo HD will be out before New Year's, and Metal Gear Solid isn't even making a debut until 2007. With Sony pledging 800,000 more consoles before 2007.
Additionally, the entire night campers spent at the nearest Best Buy in Minnesota was below 32F. Somehow I'm not seeing the payoff fulfilling as compared to systems past.
SixAxis (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously. (Score:4, Insightful)
1) It's a video game console, not a cure for cancer. You don't need to get worked up over it.
2) This isn't the only chance you'll have to get one. If it is, you really don't want one anyway.
3) If you seriously didn't think you could be in the "I waited days in line for this and got nothing" group you need several reality checks.
Frankly, I'm scared that I'm going to walk to my car with my brand new Wii and some nut with a gun is going to try and take it from me. These morons seem desperate enough that they'll actually shoot me for it.
Wait, isn't that just capitalism? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, using money to pay people is wrong now?! Thank you Cindy Williams of Columbus, Ohio for setting us all straight! I know I'll never make that mistake again. By the way, Cindy, can you further explain what authority a dentist has? I mean, unless he commandeered the store, I'm not really sure what authority he abused.
People with a lot of money can almost always get what they want. It might be unfair, but that's capitalism; deal with it.
Re:got fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
This already exists. It's called an escrow service.
"what's to say people at ups or fedex aren't scanning boxes with a x-ray machine to identify a box with a ps3 in it
The same thing that says people in other professions also should not steal: they'll lose their job and may wind up in jail if caught. That might not stop some FedEx/UPS/USPS employees but I imagine the lion's share of them aren't going to risk their job (all 3 of which have nice benefits and excellent retirement packages though not a flashy payscale) over a $600 game system. And whoever is paying out that insurance is going to be pretty motivated to find the culprit(s).
I'm sure fraud will happen but far more people will conduct perfectly legal transactions than not.
Moral cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
What moral cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm actually reasonably disturbed by the Chaos that has been created by greed ...
How is reselling a PS3 greed? To label this greed you need to know what financial situation these people are in.
Are they standing in line to afford a luxury item or is this a rare opportunity to make 2 months rent in a day?
Ticket/Event/Product Scalping [wikipedia.org] ( reselling ) is not always illegal and many legitimate business do it. Tickmaster at least at one point aunctioned tickets to popular events.
Finally, who is being hurt by the PS3 resellers? The gamers who have to wait an extra week to get their hands on a PS3?
Re:eBay (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, there are a few idiots out there, but I expect that now the market is flooded with PS3s that the price is going to take a dump. PS3s might be in short supply but I expect that if you preordered one now (now that launch is over) that you'd probably have it before Christmas. For retail price.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod Parent Up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Near riot at our Best Buy (Score:3, Insightful)
Damn you Sony for introducing gaming to the beer-drinking, fist-throwing, truck-driving masses!
Re:eBay (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Chaos (Score:5, Insightful)
I was discussing this last night with a former manager of a Gamestop. We came to the conclusion that only people that were buying PS3s now were going to sell it on Ebay.
But the amount of people willing to pay more than $1,000 is very small. So a handful of people will make money, but since Ebay is being flooded with PS3s there is a high chance that many of these Ebayers are going to be sorely disappointed.
Secondly... Most of those $9,000 bids are just fake bids of people who have no intention of actually buying it.
Re:Moral cost? (Score:3, Insightful)
Last I checked, supply and demand didn't entail fist fights, riots, and robbery.
For all intents and purposes, these people are acting like getting the PS3 is a matter of life and death...
Which it is not.
Re:What moral cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is reselling a PS3 greed? To label this greed you need to know what financial situation these people are in.
Are they standing in line to afford a luxury item or is this a rare opportunity to make 2 months rent in a day?
Ticket/Event/Product Scalping ( reselling ) is not always illegal and many legitimate business do it. Tickmaster at least at one point aunctioned tickets to popular events.
Finally, who is being hurt by the PS3 resellers? The gamers who have to wait an extra week to get their hands on a PS3?
I (personally) see nothing wrong with the act of scalping a product in order to make a decent profit; I do however see a problem with trampling people to get a product in order to sell it online for a decent profit. Regardless of whether your use of your windfall is a noble cause or not, when you callously disregard the wellbeing of your fellow person in order to make the money it becomes an immoral act.
Come on (Score:3, Insightful)
I do that already anyway! Now I just won't have to use the thumb stick as well.
Re:Will it ever be lanuched in India? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well if people are bidding $3000 on it then clearly it is worth it to them. Suckers they may be but you can't blame Sony if people are stupid enough to pay that much.
Having said that, it wouldn't surprise me if the alleged shortages of PS3s are somewhat manipulated to amp up the hysteria for launch. All those recent news stories about boxes being cut from 400,000 to 250,000. It wouldn't surprise me if Sony held back some of those to make the launch pictures all the more impressive.
Re:Ugliness? How about shooting? (Score:5, Insightful)
And all the people behind the shooting victim worked hard to contain their glee at being able to move up a spot, no doubt.
Seriously, the only people who own a PS3 right now are those who literally have more money than brains. I don't know if this is a sign of the susceptability of young people to marketing/groupthink or what, but there is no rational reason to put up with this nonsense for something that will likely continue to be manufactured and sold for years ("one night only," maybe, but not the launch of a flagship product). If nothing else, the high price of the console is is made all the more unaffordable due to the missed hours of work spent standing in line.
Here's a litmus test: is standing in line for a PS3 something you would be proud to tell your children about a decade from now?
Re:1st in line, was it worth it? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Inane?" They're a retail store, not a campground! If anything, you should just be happy that you were allowed to loiter outside the store to begin with, as your presence no doubt had an intimidating effect on the store's more legitimate customers. The people in the lines I saw differed from the people I see on streetcorners holding their cardboard signs only by degree.
"Along with that, no official rules for the line from Target (read this as ass covering) "
No, read it as "Not their fucking job."
"After work today is going to be insane!"
And after Monday? After next week? Next month? Next year? Will the insanity you participated in still have been worth it once the novelty has worn off?
Here's a question: of all the people who stood in line for a PS3 in the US, how many voted ten days ago?
Re:Why do geeks buy consoles?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, I think the PC gaming market just confuses the average gamer. Most people don't like installs to begin with and then these days you have crap like SLI and PhysX that just confuse the situation further. Do you need that stuff? No, you can just put all your in-game detail sliders to "Low" and somewhat be able to enjoy a modern game. Now before someone points out that you can buy decent videos cards that are a generation or two old for pretty cheap, how many average people have even attempted to change a video card before? You have to stop thinking like a techno-nerd and realize that most people never do stuff like that. They go out and buy a Dell or HP with integrated graphics and never upgrade the thing until they buy a new PC 5 years later.
Also think about the avergage person's PC setup. Most people have their PCs tucked into a corner and/or on a fairly small computer desk with a cheap computer chair... hell, it might just be a cheap wooden kitchen table type chair.
The only real advantage that PCs have is graphics... and that only applies to a VERY small percentage of people with the latest video cards. Again, most people are going to have PCs that are 2-5 years old with integrated graphics chips. Modern games will run like total crap on those. PCs also have a control advantage for a few genres (like FPS), but that's just an artificial limitation by the console manufacturers. They could easily support KB&Mouse if they wanted... and I personally wish they would so I could quit hearing the vocal minority crying about it.
In the end, consoles just provide a different gaming experience than the PC platform. If you don't like it, cool, but it's not hard at all to see the appeal of consoles.
Re:Why do geeks buy consoles?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I got tired of spending the big bucks to maintain a killer PC. Soon I will build a fairly pissed off PC but I'm not spending my money on graphics hardware but on memory and storage because I want to be doing 3d modeling/rendering and video editing. It's nice to have a kick-ass 3D card for your 3d work, but frankly it is not a necessity and a $100 card today beats the living shit out of the sexiest stuff from back in the day - which has always been true but the point is that today even a pile of crap computer is pretty badass.
But the point is that if I buy a game console, it's cheap, it's replaceable, it's portable, it has good controllers, and there's a huge library of games that I know will work. No fucking with my video drivers. No updating DirectMedia so that I can have out-of-sync streaming video behind my characters in Final Fantasy VII. (Which I do have for both PS1 and PC.) And so on.
I mean, Mechwarrior III can't seem to properly draw its interface on the last system I had, running Windows XP... old games have "issues" working. Update DirectX to play a new game, and the old games don't work.
To hell with it. I'll play console games. It does mean I won't be playing first person shooters (I don't believe in playing them without KB+Mouse) but I can live without that. If nothing else it'll probably stop me from burning out my adrenal gland prematurely.
Few reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
2) It's more effort. A console game just works. It has to, there's only one platform for it to run on. Put in disc, game runs. Not so for PC games. It's usually like that, but not always. Sometimes it's more like install game, game doesn't run, apply patch, game runs with problems, update graphics drivers, now game runs.
3) Consoles are better designed for multiplayer in one room. PCs count on there being a single operator so most games are designed with that in mind. Their multiplayer is done such that you connect to other PCs and each gamer has their own system. Consoles are designed for multiple controllers to be played around a TV, so many multiplayer games have provisions for multiple operators to use a single unit. Nice if you have a few friends over and you all want to play.
4) Exclusive games. In part due to the greater sales and in part due to pressure from the console makers, game companies will sign exclusive deals. Means if you want to play that game, you are doing so on that console. No ports to other consoles or to the PC.
Personally, I'm a PC gamer. I'd own a high end PC anyways and I find that more of the games that I like are PC only, but I can see why one would own a console.
This is consumer America (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny thing is, I used to be in pretty much that same frame of mind until I got married. I just never thought more than a couple of months ahead... probably mostly because I got in the habit of living paycheck-to-paycheck when I was in the Army (talk about low pay!) and while I was a college student, I was just living month-to-month on my GI Bill money. My wife (who is brilliant and a 4.0 math major) started pointing out all the things that we were doing that involved long-term tradeoffs and I was totally amazed at the amount of money we were spending on "unnecessaries." Working together, we were able to get ahead of the curve and eventually, we bought both our cars for cash and our house with a nice down payment. We haven't paid interest on a credit card in about five years, and the last time I was out of work, we had enough cash to tide us over. We still spend money on "fun" stuff, but we're always careful to think about the tradeoffs so that we're making informed decisions.
The moral of my story: if you're not a financial genius, marry someone who is
Re:Moral cost? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow. I admire your naive view of human nature. Exactly what do you think is responsible for fist fights, riots, and robbery, then?
Re:eBay (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:eBay (Score:4, Insightful)
Once Sony gets the production issues worked out, the supply/demand won't be in their favor anymore - supply will go up and demand will go down as the fanboys get their console. Once it gets to the point that anyone who wants a PS3 can get one at retail, then we'll find out if the $600 is above what the market will bear.
And we won't even know that for several years. Console price drops are just a form of market segmentation. Sony will sell every PS3 it can to the people who are willing to shell out $600 for it, then drop the price and sell it to everyone willing to pay at that level, then do it again, and again, and again, etc.
There's other factors involved besides price, like the size and quality of the game library at a given point in time, and the age of the console... but what you might find is that there's a big spike in sales when the console finally hits that "sweet spot", which my guess is around $300, the same price range that most every successful console launches at.
Skip the line, buy a PC (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
I hear they might be coming out with some new movies in the future. Just a rumor, though.