Fewer PS3 Units Tomorrow Than Hoped For? 94
Gamasutra is reporting on the possibility that there may only be 150,000 - 200,000 PS3s available tomorrow. Kotaku has heard that this may stem from removal of the 20 GB units from the shipment to the U.S., though this is just speculation at the moment. Several bloggers have noted that their local videogames store has notified them of lowered availability, so it doesn't seem that this is outside the realm of possibility. From the article: "'Due to the limited initial installed base of the platforms, we believe the financial impact over the holiday period will be more significant for hardware manufacturers and video game retailers (such as GameStop) than for software publishers.' In addition to predicting a strong push for Xbox 360 products due to a shortage in PS3 supply, Sebastian also says the newly launched consoles may not have as significant an impact on holiday sales." A reader also wrote in to mention the cost that Sony is sucking with each of these units. Apparently, the company is eating about $300 for every PS3 sold.
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The numbers are awful, but if the failure rate is as high as I expect it's going to be a sad sad day for Sony/consumers.
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What?!?!
"Goddamnit, I can't break this controller. How the hell am I supposed to calculate the expected lifetime if I can't even break it in the first place?"
Linguo to the rescue! (Score:3, Funny)
This is Linguo, the Grammar Robot. I see that you are trying to communicate with people on the Internet. After reading your message, it's obvious you either suffered a severe epileptic fit while trying to type or you need help making your message clear.
Assuming it's the latter, here are my suggestions. You wrote:
You probably meant to write:
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Pharmboy typo-critiques @02:55pm
Forrestf rebutts Pharmboy @02:36pm
It looks like the experiment was a success!
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/
Good Lord (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Good Lord (Score:4, Insightful)
Which, of course, makes me wonder -- if people only want it to sell on eBay, who's going to buy it on eBay?
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Fanboys, and there are plenty of them who will blindly buy it.
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Professional sport athletes, movie stars, business moguls, etc. Or I should say, their agents/assistances' are doing it for them. These are the kinds of people who will pay thousands of $ for a system that costs $600. Because 1) they can. 2) they want the latest 'cool' thing 3) Have kids they want to please 4)possibly enjoy it themselves (but not likely).
It kind of reminds me of that rich German
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Just a guess...
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I hope by wanting Blu Ray (however it's spelt) to fail, your also not supporting HD-DVD right? Blu Ray failing hurts more then Sony, they're just one of the partners in that.
Re:Good Lord (Score:5, Informative)
You hurt them by *not buying it in the first place*. They are *not* prepared to eat the total cost of the console, and therefore *not buying the console at all* would be the proper way to hurt the manufacturer.
As for Blu-Ray, Sony is the one fully behind that. HD-DVD would be the competing (and in my eyes, superior) technology. Sony is trying to wedge BluRay into the market by selling their gaming consoles with this technology to artificially create a user base, which is reprehensible, and typical of Sony's evil marketing schemes as of late.
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BluRay is no more proprietary than HD-DVD, it is fully backed by a consortium of companies that has *MORE* members than the competing HD-DVD group. BluRay has initial manufacturing kinks, but why is HD-DVD "in your eyes" superior? It holds less data, and is less robust to scratching than BluRay - seems those would be the only two measures of quality of a *data storage medium*.
Please stop spewing random hatred - it is in your interest as a consumer to have multiple companie
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1) If people don't buy them:
Sony eats the cost of making the consoles.
2) If people buy them, but never get any games:
Sony loses $300 on each console, gets an artificial signal to build more consoles, and then eats the cost of making those additional consoles. Game industry starts to learn the difference between "market share" and "real profits".
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They budgeted for you to buy the console AND 3 or 4 games. Not 0. Yes, it would hurt them.
"You hurt them by *not buying it in the first place*. They are *not* prepared to eat the total cost of the console, and therefore *not buying the console at all* would be the proper way to hurt the manufacturer."
The price of an unsold item would drop until somebody picked it up. Then, in theory, they
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And if it is profitable to do that: bye bye, Sony.
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But not as much as you hurt yourself. To make Sony lose $300, you have to lose $600 (it is lost because you are buying something you never intend to use), so you hurt yourself twice as much as you hurt Sony. I don't know how much MS lose on each current XBox-360, but I'm willing to bet that it's a lot less than they cost at retail, so once again to hurt Microsoft, you've got to hurt yourself a lot more. It's a bit like stand
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Really? Just Sony? Ya your right, I never heard of those other pipsqueek companies before either..
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Okay, I don't like HD-DVD either, really, but given Sony's backing of technologies like UMD, MiniDisk, SDDS, and Betamax, I think it'd be a good bet to back HD-DVD over whatever Sony supports.
Okay, it's not just Sony behind BR, sue me. But they seem to be the biggest backer, given that they're rolling out a game system designed to artifically create a user base for the format though gamers wanting to just play games on the console.
And in a sense, yeah, you could say that just buying
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Why blame Sony for using bigger discs to store games on? Using HD-DVD discs for ps3 gameplay was, I bet, never a possibility
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Its kind of like communism, while it sounds good on paper, its just not going to work. And I know the same discussion was held multiple times here on
I think the counter-point was that the money is lost when they build the
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Not that I advocate buying a machine you don't want just to stick it to a corporation. They may be out $300, but you'd be out $600.
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Otherwise, when you buy one Sony takes a $300 loss, but eventually they fabricate and sell one to the guy who will buy the accessories, games and what-not. And at that point they get to say, "hey look, our install base is huge, only a truly foolish game producing company wouldn't make a game for us!" And perhaps their software-sales to install-base ratio will be a bit l
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That's why I said, "That only works if production outstrips demand."
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Sony's Plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod parent up! (Score:1)
I suggest people mod it up anyway.
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They cut out the profiteers, get the boxes to the fools willing to pay anything to get them, help some people/organizations, get some good press. Everyone wins. Except the profiteers.
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1. Sell few systems to customers
2. Third parties lose money making games for system, since there's few customers
3. Third parties abandon system for ones that do make money
4. Customers abandon system for ones with more games
5. Sony abandons system - takes big loss
For a system like the PS3 that relies heavily on licensing third party games to be profitable, not getting systems into people's living rooms is a major problem.
Am I dissapointed? (Score:1)
It's surprising how demand for these are so high and production is so low. I mean, just yesterday we read about millions of iPhones coming for EARLY next year... but PS3, which has been anticipated is going to launch with a paltry number of units? Seems to me that Sony don't really care much about their customer base.
Well, not so much the base as the loyalty. Good bye Mr. Sony, hello Mr. Wii.
FEWER? (Score:2, Insightful)
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At a loss of -$300 for each PS3 not sold they will be billionaires in no time!
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Extrapolating (Score:5, Funny)
Don't say I didn't warn you.
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I'm not worried. I will still get the empty box I can sell on ebay for a fortune!
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The Real Launch? (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is, I do wish sony would just come out and admit that this isn't really so much of a launch as a preview. Then they could tell us when they are going to really launch- launch as in, if I were to stand in line for 3 or 4 hours I would be able to get one. That's the thing, I would be willing to stand in line for several hours- maybe even camp out- if I thought there was any sort of reasonable chance of getting one. The fact is that if I lined up in front of best buy this evening and tried to get one at 8am tomorrow, I would be probably like the 20th person in line to NOT get one.
I will stand in line for the Wii though- not that I want it more than the PS3 (I'm actually slightly less excited about it, because until I actually have a chance to play it I'm still just not sure how well the wiimote is going to work out) but because i know that I might actually have a chance to get one.
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I would love to be there when the last dude gets one, and all the losers who camped out for days behind him still go home empty-handed. A good round of "laugh at the huge losers" would be a lot more entertaining than any PS3 game.
-Eric
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Of course... (Score:2)
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--The Sony Sucks club
There still are 20 gigs (Score:1)
Hardware, not Software? (Score:1)
I fail to see how having fewer PS3s availible has less impact on the potential sales of titles for the system. It looks to me as a "everybody loses" situation, with this being the most positive way to word it. Better than, "Hey, some of you are slightly less screwed!"
20GB PS3s are still shipping. (Score:1)
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Microsoft's has significantly lower costs (Score:3, Interesting)
The difference between the cost of the parts of an Xbox 360 and a low end PS3 is $482.55. Even with manufacturing costs and other costs getting the system to the store, in order for Microsoft to lose as much money per console as Sony they would have to price an Xbox 360 at $99.
Microsoft makes over 10 billion dollars a year in profit. They can afford to lose money in the short term for long term profits. Video on demand is going to be huge. Once they get a large install base, they can start providing video download services for other electronic manufacturers. You could buy a Toshiba DVD player which has video on demand provided by Microsoft. Microsoft and Toshiba would each make a few pennies for each download that the customer makes. There will be competitors, but that's business. While Sony has Blu Ray as its huge potential market, Microsoft has video on demand.
If Microsoft wanted to really screw Sony, they could have a one day sale with the Xbox 360 premium and a copy of Gear of War for $299. If they feel like it, throw in a year of Xbox Live Gold and a copy of Project Gotham Racing 3. Or a Core system with a memory card and a copy of Project Gotham Racing for $199. Nov 16 would be a great date. Right between the PS3 and Wii launch. It would cost Microsoft money, but it would steal thunder from their competitors. Of course, it's too late now.
It will be interesting to see whether the PS3 is worth $499 for the low end model. I honestly believe that people will buy the Wii regardless of what it costs or what the other console makers do. You're either a Wii fan or your not.
.. or not do anything and still see Sony screw up (Score:3, Interesting)
I was thinking the sa
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Anyone know if there is a more up to date one somewhere?
You think the U.S. has it bad? (Score:2, Interesting)
Since when is Taiwan a country? (Score:2, Funny)
/. ticker for PS3 (Score:2)
WHere's the news? Change the Tagline to:
News for PS3 Owners. Stuff that doesn't matter.
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I realize that is hard to comprehend.... news about games in the games section of an on-line discussion forum. Think about it for a bit and get back to us, will you?
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Sony has more than just number of unit issues. (Score:5, Interesting)
We finally got 1/3 of our (reduced) allotment of launch date PS3's in. The other two are who knows where.
No launch games have been delivered, nor have any of the accessories.
Sony, in it's infinite wisdom, seems to have given ever box it's own purchase order number. Which means that the carriers make no attempt to keep all the boxes together, which they would with a single P.O. number.
So, we have 2 PS3's. No games. No accessories.
Nintendo however has nearly doubled our launch allotment of the Wii.
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The remaining units (20 gigs. The previous 2 were 60 gigs) arrived within roughly 30mins of the store opening. All were sold out as soon as they were in the department. No idea when or how many PS3s should be expected in the short or long term. Games and accessories also arrived with this shipment.
Nintendo on the other hand, has delivered us all the Wiis we've been allocated for launch (27, up from the original allotment of 15) as of today, and has confirmed another 21 will b
Surely it's obvious... (Score:2)
At launch they're losing so much on each unit sold that they're no doubt just waiting to build demand before starting larger (and therefore lower cost per unit) runs of the necessary high cost components.
Re: Fewer PS3 Units Tomorrow Than Hoped For? (Score:1)
Fewer PS3 Units Tomorrow Than Hoped For?
I doubt that considering I've been hoping for NONE. So unless Sony has started making their PS3s out of anti-matter (which, by the way, is more plentiful and cheaper than PS3s) then they will probably exceed my personal expectations.