PhillyArena Forums
PhillyArena Community => NBA Discussion => Topic started by: SPURSX3 on November 20, 2008, 10:24:18 AM
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MS does it again! I know most of you probably DON't game, but just in case you do I just wanted to pass along something really cool about the New Xbox Xperience (or new xbox dashboard). I logged in yesterday and it updated it self to the new styled dashboard they had been advertizing for some time now. I looked around, created my little "avatar" - MS version of a Mii - and invited some people to join a "party" which is like a group chat session and your avatars all show up in one spot. it was pretty cool, but the ONE thing about this whole update that is gonna have PS3 players irked is that you can now have 8 players on a private chat, and all 8 players can be playing 8 diff games! we found this out by accident yesterday when we all said we were going to do something else, everyone launched into a game and we were still on chat. To me, this has to be the best feature. Talk to your friends and not be stuck playing a game you really don't feel like playing. All the other stuff was nice too: netflix launch from xbox, new organized dashboard, avatars, install games to hdd now, etc. However, the fact that you can talk to your friends and not listen to the stupid rantings of noobs has to be the best thing IMO.
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Just don't load halo 3 to your hard drive and try and play it on NXE (as it's been abbreviated)
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Just don't load halo 3 to your hard drive and try and play it on NXE (as it's been abbreviated)
Yeah I saw that, something about how halo reads/writes the game on the hdd, cannot be done at the same time. I do have some friends who did this and they say it is no different then before. I loaded Fallout 3 and the gameplay is better, not as glitchy, seems faster - as for loading time, i can't say there is much of a difference. slight at best. However all of these games were done before the new NXE was finalized so maybe as more games come out the improvements should stand out more.
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I don't use xbox live all that much - more of a solitary game player - but when i start looking to new games fallout 3 is high on the list
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I just bought a 1 year subscription to XBox Live Gold and got a free mini-keyboard and headset. I'm pissed that there are no black accessories for my XBox, I broke my head set and have had to settle for white one. :(
I'll have to check out the new XBox features, I haven't been on much since my kids were banned from weekday play.
Do you guys still play Halo 3 online much?
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I haven't actually played halo 3 yet at all - so i'm not online :) I am probably not very good - but I need to schedule more 'relaxation' time into my free time instead of sitting in front of the puter programming so much - so if some people wanted to get together for some halo 3 online play i'd be down.
Gears 2 as well (i'd hae to buy it first but I really enjoyed the first one, my favorite FPS since the barney skin of Doom when it was free and it was 1994)
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I just bought a 1 year subscription to XBox Live Gold and got a free mini-keyboard and headset. I'm pissed that there are no black accessories for my XBox, I broke my head set and have had to settle for white one. :(
I'll have to check out the new XBox features, I haven't been on much since my kids were banned from weekday play.
Do you guys still play Halo 3 online much?
Not as much, I have some other games I like right now that I pla, fallout 3, little big planet, I will get back into halo though as it gets closer to new maps coming out and Halo 3: Recon gets closer. It's cool thought, cuz you can play halo, i can play fallout and we can still talk smack.
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Any Fable 2 players out there - how is it?
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I haven't actually played halo 3 yet at all - so i'm not online :) I am probably not very good - but I need to schedule more 'relaxation' time into my free time instead of sitting in front of the puter programming so much - so if some people wanted to get together for some halo 3 online play i'd be down.
Gears 2 as well (i'd hae to buy it first but I really enjoyed the first one, my favorite FPS since the barney skin of Doom when it was free and it was 1994)
I will hold off on gears 2 for a bit, but yeah, online is fun. It is for the most part adults online. Every now and then you end up in a game with some kids, but that's whats o great about the private chat feature, and mute. Sunday would be good for some Halo 3 for me if you are down for that. just send a friend rqst to jportillo.
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Any Fable 2 players out there - how is it?
I played it, finished it. it was fun. but i traded it in for fallout 3. IMO fallout 3 is the better game.
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According to various 'industry' researcher folk - the PS3 is doomed - the only one of the big 3 to see decreases in sales this holiday season.
Many economic folk think video games are recession proof (not that i believe it) - but they still think the PS3 is toasted
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According to various 'industry' researcher folk - the PS3 is doomed - the only one of the big 3 to see decreases in sales this holiday season.
Many economic folk think video games are recession proof (not that i believe it) - but they still think the PS3 is toasted
I think the Blu-Ray victory in the HD wars could give it a boost. IMO while the PS3 should be the superior product, the execution of their overall gaming experience lags behind XBox 360.
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According to various 'industry' researcher folk - the PS3 is doomed - the only one of the big 3 to see decreases in sales this holiday season.
Many economic folk think video games are recession proof (not that i believe it) - but they still think the PS3 is toasted
I think the Blu-Ray victory in the HD wars could give it a boost. IMO while the PS3 should be the superior product, the execution of their overall gaming experience lags behind XBox 360.
yeah if the 360 had large game storage like ps3 does with bluray it would have been over a long time ago. IMO sony should be ashamed that the system that is, "the most powerful gaming system ever" has such a bad gaming selection. little big planet and metal gear solid 4 are the only real games worth playing on it. resistance was ok but nothing really special IMO.
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According to various 'industry' researcher folk - the PS3 is doomed - the only one of the big 3 to see decreases in sales this holiday season.
Many economic folk think video games are recession proof (not that i believe it) - but they still think the PS3 is toasted
Not that surprising that the sales for it is down. It is literally twice as much as the other two systems.
And Spurs the ps3 has plenty of games. I am kind of tired of this argument for the simple fact that xbox/ps3 share 98% of their games. There is like 10 titles between the two systems that are 'exclusives'. There is plenty of games to play since most games come out for both systems. There is just not a bunch of exclusives. Which honestly, doesn't matter for people whove always had playstations. I never bought an xbox and never planned to so I don't need exclusive titles to woo me. That only matters to people who bought the XBOX and want a reason to switch.
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I think the Blu-Ray victory in the HD wars could give it a boost. IMO while the PS3 should be the superior product, the execution of their overall gaming experience lags behind XBox 360.
I think the 'blu-ray' push was a small term thing - blu ray player prices are coming down - they are now affordable - you can get a low end xbox 360 and blu-ray player (depending on which one you pick) for less than a PS3 now - Putting the blu-ray player in was a bad idea in my belief because the players were inevitably going to come down...
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According to various 'industry' researcher folk - the PS3 is doomed - the only one of the big 3 to see decreases in sales this holiday season.
Many economic folk think video games are recession proof (not that i believe it) - but they still think the PS3 is toasted
Not that surprising that the sales for it is down. It is literally twice as much as the other two systems.
And Spurs the ps3 has plenty of games. I am kind of tired of this argument for the simple fact that xbox/ps3 share 98% of their games. There is like 10 titles between the two systems that are 'exclusives'. There is plenty of games to play since most games come out for both systems. There is just not a bunch of exclusives. Which honestly, doesn't matter for people whove always had playstations. I never bought an xbox and never planned to so I don't need exclusive titles to woo me. That only matters to people who bought the XBOX and want a reason to switch.
The exclusives were my point actually, the reason I bought a PS3 was because of MGS4, otherwise i would have waited, i have played a few other games, and compared demo's on 360 to ps3 to see which one looks and plays better. mirrors edge for instance looks great on ps3 where as fallout 3 looks and plays better on 360. right now the 360 has more exclusives that i would rather play, maybe it's just made for the american player more so than sony because i see more "final fantasy" type games on ps3 then 360, and to be honest they are ok, but i get tired of the whole carry a gun and over-sized sword bit. Could also be that I loved the ps2 rumble controller, maybe i just need to buy one of those to really appreaciate the ps3 becuase the six-axis controller just does not work for me. I am psyched at the news that PS3 will start kicking out 3D games this year, I am looking forward to see how these turn out.
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According to various 'industry' researcher folk - the PS3 is doomed - the only one of the big 3 to see decreases in sales this holiday season.
Many economic folk think video games are recession proof (not that i believe it) - but they still think the PS3 is toasted
Not that surprising that the sales for it is down. It is literally twice as much as the other two systems.
And Spurs the ps3 has plenty of games. I am kind of tired of this argument for the simple fact that xbox/ps3 share 98% of their games. There is like 10 titles between the two systems that are 'exclusives'. There is plenty of games to play since most games come out for both systems. There is just not a bunch of exclusives. Which honestly, doesn't matter for people whove always had playstations. I never bought an xbox and never planned to so I don't need exclusive titles to woo me. That only matters to people who bought the XBOX and want a reason to switch.
The exclusives were my point actually, the reason I bought a PS3 was because of MGS4, otherwise i would have waited, i have played a few other games, and compared demo's on 360 to ps3 to see which one looks and plays better. mirrors edge for instance looks great on ps3 where as fallout 3 looks and plays better on 360. right now the 360 has more exclusives that i would rather play, maybe it's just made for the american player more so than sony because i see more "final fantasy" type games on ps3 then 360, and to be honest they are ok, but i get tired of the whole carry a gun and over-sized sword bit. Could also be that I loved the ps2 rumble controller, maybe i just need to buy one of those to really appreaciate the ps3 becuase the six-axis controller just does not work for me. I am psyched at the news that PS3 will start kicking out 3D games this year, I am looking forward to see how these turn out.
But you are an xbox guy! That is what I am saying. I've always had Sony products since the first Playstation so I continued to go with Sony because it played the old games and I always have. The exclusives on either system don't really matter to me all that much. The major titles, the Grand Theft Autos and the Maddens come on both systems. There are plenty of games to purchase and at 60 bucks a pop how often can you just buy games? I don't know about anyone else but the speed in which 'exclusives' come out for me is just fine. 60 bucks a pop is not cheap and I don't get enough time to play games to where I beat them fast enough. For example I still haven't beat Uncharted or LittleBigPlanet. Won't anytime soon. Now if I had xbox and then bought the playstation 3 for games, yea I wouldn't be as happy as I am currently. So I understand why you might have a problem and wanted to wait. That is exactly what I told W.O.W to do.
On a side note when I was at Frys yesterday they were selling like 15 Blu Ray titles for under 20 bucks. Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, 300, Halloween (seems pointless to have this in HD), National Treasure, and a bunch of others.
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I think the 'blu-ray' push was a small term thing - blu ray player prices are coming down - they are now affordable - you can get a low end xbox 360 and blu-ray player (depending on which one you pick) for less than a PS3 now - Putting the blu-ray player in was a bad idea in my belief because the players were inevitably going to come down...
I posted this comment a while back but the "father" of the Playstation quit Sony because they had strayed too far from his PS concept by including the BluRay player and making the system too expensive.
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But you are an xbox guy! That is what I am saying. I've always had Sony products since the first Playstation so I continued to go with Sony because it played the old games and I always have. The exclusives on either system don't really matter to me all that much. The major titles, the Grand Theft Autos and the Maddens come on both systems. There are plenty of games to purchase and at 60 bucks a pop how often can you just buy games? I don't know about anyone else but the speed in which 'exclusives' come out for me is just fine. 60 bucks a pop is not cheap and I don't get enough time to play games to where I beat them fast enough. For example I still haven't beat Uncharted or LittleBigPlanet. Won't anytime soon. Now if I had xbox and then bought the playstation 3 for games, yea I wouldn't be as happy as I am currently. So I understand why you might have a problem and wanted to wait. That is exactly what I told W.O.W to do.
On a side note when I was at Frys yesterday they were selling like 15 Blu Ray titles for under 20 bucks. Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, 300, Halloween (seems pointless to have this in HD), National Treasure, and a bunch of others.
IMO game systems do not match the type of complex games I like to play on PC. RTS games are my favorites, Halo Wars being the first time I might play one on a game system. So I have not been a "gamer" but I have owned every game system Nintendo has ever put out, including the Wii, I've owned the PS1 and 2 and I've owned an XBox. When it came time to buy my next game system, mostly for my kids, I looked at both products since I have NEVER favored one over another, actually I was not too happy with my XBox, so the PS3 actually had an advantage. What tilted the scales in XBox's favor was Halo3. So while you get tired of that argument it's a VALID one and I'm a good example of that argument as are three of my friends and 6 of my kids friends. They picked XBox over PS3 for the EXCLUSIVE games because as you stated, they share all the other ones.
I will only buy BluRay titles for flicks that have a lot of SFX. I know Speed Racer was somewhat of a bomb at the box office but the SFX in that movie are second to none.
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According to various 'industry' researcher folk - the PS3 is doomed - the only one of the big 3 to see decreases in sales this holiday season.
Many economic folk think video games are recession proof (not that i believe it) - but they still think the PS3 is toasted
Not that surprising that the sales for it is down. It is literally twice as much as the other two systems.
And Spurs the ps3 has plenty of games. I am kind of tired of this argument for the simple fact that xbox/ps3 share 98% of their games. There is like 10 titles between the two systems that are 'exclusives'. There is plenty of games to play since most games come out for both systems. There is just not a bunch of exclusives. Which honestly, doesn't matter for people whove always had playstations. I never bought an xbox and never planned to so I don't need exclusive titles to woo me. That only matters to people who bought the XBOX and want a reason to switch.
The exclusives were my point actually, the reason I bought a PS3 was because of MGS4, otherwise i would have waited, i have played a few other games, and compared demo's on 360 to ps3 to see which one looks and plays better. mirrors edge for instance looks great on ps3 where as fallout 3 looks and plays better on 360. right now the 360 has more exclusives that i would rather play, maybe it's just made for the american player more so than sony because i see more "final fantasy" type games on ps3 then 360, and to be honest they are ok, but i get tired of the whole carry a gun and over-sized sword bit. Could also be that I loved the ps2 rumble controller, maybe i just need to buy one of those to really appreaciate the ps3 becuase the six-axis controller just does not work for me. I am psyched at the news that PS3 will start kicking out 3D games this year, I am looking forward to see how these turn out.
But you are an xbox guy! That is what I am saying. I've always had Sony products since the first Playstation so I continued to go with Sony because it played the old games and I always have. The exclusives on either system don't really matter to me all that much. The major titles, the Grand Theft Autos and the Maddens come on both systems. There are plenty of games to purchase and at 60 bucks a pop how often can you just buy games? I don't know about anyone else but the speed in which 'exclusives' come out for me is just fine. 60 bucks a pop is not cheap and I don't get enough time to play games to where I beat them fast enough. For example I still haven't beat Uncharted or LittleBigPlanet. Won't anytime soon. Now if I had xbox and then bought the playstation 3 for games, yea I wouldn't be as happy as I am currently. So I understand why you might have a problem and wanted to wait. That is exactly what I told W.O.W to do.
On a side note when I was at Frys yesterday they were selling like 15 Blu Ray titles for under 20 bucks. Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, 300, Halloween (seems pointless to have this in HD), National Treasure, and a bunch of others.
But i was NOT an xbox guy prior to the 360, I bought one because it was cheaper and i wanted a next gen game syatem, I just happenned to like the games, online gaming, experience it offered. before that I was strictly a sony guy, I had not interest in the first xbox or it's games...i didn't even play halo (1) when people were raving about it, I played 1 and 2 just before halo 3 came out and that was just over a year ago. Hell, god of war of war was my favorite game before i got my 360.
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But i was NOT an xbox guy prior to the 360, I bought one because it was cheaper and i wanted a next gen game syatem, I just happenned to like the games, online gaming, experience it offered. before that I was strictly a sony guy, I had not interest in the first xbox or it's games...i didn't even play halo (1) when people were raving about it, I played 1 and 2 just before halo 3 came out and that was just over a year ago. Hell, god of war of war was my favorite game before i got my 360.
weakkoast is just a mad little PS3 beeyotch who's holding a grudge for not being able to experience Halo. :D
I'm still trying to decide if getting a PS3 so I can watch The Dark Knight in HD is worth the extra dollars instead of just buying a plain old BluRay player.
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But you are an xbox guy! That is what I am saying. I've always had Sony products since the first Playstation so I continued to go with Sony because it played the old games and I always have. The exclusives on either system don't really matter to me all that much. The major titles, the Grand Theft Autos and the Maddens come on both systems. There are plenty of games to purchase and at 60 bucks a pop how often can you just buy games? I don't know about anyone else but the speed in which 'exclusives' come out for me is just fine. 60 bucks a pop is not cheap and I don't get enough time to play games to where I beat them fast enough. For example I still haven't beat Uncharted or LittleBigPlanet. Won't anytime soon. Now if I had xbox and then bought the playstation 3 for games, yea I wouldn't be as happy as I am currently. So I understand why you might have a problem and wanted to wait. That is exactly what I told W.O.W to do.
On a side note when I was at Frys yesterday they were selling like 15 Blu Ray titles for under 20 bucks. Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, 300, Halloween (seems pointless to have this in HD), National Treasure, and a bunch of others.
IMO game systems do not match the type of complex games I like to play on PC. RTS games are my favorites, Halo Wars being the first time I might play one on a game system. So I have not been a "gamer" but I have owned every game system Nintendo has ever put out, including the Wii, I've owned the PS1 and 2 and I've owned an XBox. When it came time to buy my next game system, mostly for my kids, I looked at both products since I have NEVER favored one over another, actually I was not too happy with my XBox, so the PS3 actually had an advantage. What tilted the scales in XBox's favor was Halo3. So while you get tired of that argument it's a VALID one and I'm a good example of that argument as are three of my friends and 6 of my kids friends. They picked XBox over PS3 for the EXCLUSIVE games because as you stated, they share all the other ones.
I will only buy BluRay titles for flicks that have a lot of SFX. I know Speed Racer was somewhat of a bomb at the box office but the SFX in that movie are second to none.
It's not valid to people who don't plan on buying the other system. Why do I care about xbox exclusives if I already bought the Playstation? Why would you guys really care about Playstation exclusives if you already got the xbox? It's valid for Spursx3 but it's not valid to me. Maybe I am not a huge gamer anymore but there hasn't been any video game since Final Fantasy 7 that has been the one that I would even buy another system over.
300 looks very good in Blu Ray but I agree. Animation looks really good as well even though it's not SFX really. Wall-E was another one of the movies that was sitting at Frys.
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But i was NOT an xbox guy prior to the 360, I bought one because it was cheaper and i wanted a next gen game syatem, I just happenned to like the games, online gaming, experience it offered. before that I was strictly a sony guy, I had not interest in the first xbox or it's games...i didn't even play halo (1) when people were raving about it, I played 1 and 2 just before halo 3 came out and that was just over a year ago. Hell, god of war of war was my favorite game before i got my 360.
weakkoast is just a mad little PS3 beeyotch who's holding a grudge for not being able to experience Halo. :D
I'm still trying to decide if getting a PS3 so I can watch The Dark Knight in HD is worth the extra dollars instead of just buying a plain old BluRay player.
Not at all. If I wanted to play a FPS I'd do it on a PC. Call Of Duty 4 is the only FPS on a console I liked. I though it was common knowledge if you were mainly focused on games you picked up the xbox if you wanted the blu ray player AND games you would buy the PS3. I am not arguing either way because I like both systems. I just purchased one and don't play enough for the argument of exclusives to apply to me.
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It's not valid to people who don't plan on buying the other system. Why do I care about xbox exclusives if I already bought the Playstation? Why would you guys really care about Playstation exclusives if you already got the xbox? It's valid for Spursx3 but it's not valid to me. Maybe I am not a huge gamer anymore but there hasn't been any video game since Final Fantasy 7 that has been the one that I would even buy another system over.
Way to miss the ENTIRE point of my post wk! Are you being this dense on purpose?
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I'm still trying to decide if getting a PS3 so I can watch The Dark Knight in HD is worth the extra dollars instead of just buying a plain old BluRay player.
You can get blu-ray players for under 200 bucks these days - why pay the extra costs for something that just isn't seemingly going to sustain as a gaming platform
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250 for a Sony BR player at Best Buy right now actually. A pretty nice one I might add.
Jem, the PS3 is not going to cease to exist. Sony is not going bankrupt anytime soon. Let's not blow things out of proportion here.
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I didn't say cease to exist - I said sustain - if it loses more ground peopole will stop developing for it instead of just 'porting' over - the PS3 from what I recall reading while much more powerful is a lot harder to program for - if the market isn't there - why would developers build for it when the bigger markets are on the XBOX360 and the Wii - the cost benefit isn't there.
Heck - the PS3 cost over 800 dollars to make when it was first released - it's down to about 450 - but still.
And while sony might not cease to exist - they have plans for a rather large amount of layoffs between now and 2010 - and they were putting a lot of eggs into the PS3/Home/PSP basket to keep the cmpany afloat...bad days are ahead for sony
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I didn't say cease to exist - I said sustain - if it loses more ground peopole will stop developing for it instead of just 'porting' over - the PS3 from what I recall reading while much more powerful is a lot harder to program for - if the market isn't there - why would developers build for it when the bigger markets are on the XBOX360 and the Wii - the cost benefit isn't there.
Heck - the PS3 cost over 800 dollars to make when it was first released - it's down to about 450 - but still.
And while sony might not cease to exist - they have plans for a rather large amount of layoffs between now and 2010 - and they were putting a lot of eggs into the PS3/Home/PSP basket to keep the cmpany afloat...bad days are ahead for sony
I don't want to get into a huge debate over this because I've got to go out of town shortly but the life of the PS3 compared to the Wii and Xbox360 is longer. Microsoft is already moving away from the 360 to develop a new system that will be just as complicated to program on as the ps3 due to the fact it's going to be a [peter griffin] frickin sweet [/peter griffin] piece of hardware. The Wii market is dominated by Nintendo and not really by the 3rd party games. The hottest and best titles for the system come from Nintendo so I don't think that really is part of the mix as much as you think it is. Under developing a game to port it to the Wii is not a simple task when you throw in the controls. Theyve struggled with it quite a bit.
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Again - that's fine - but if all you need is a blu-ray player - i think paying the extra for a PS3 makes no sense unless you really really want to play LBP/MGS4/Resistance 2
And while Sony will stay longer with the PS3 - does it matter if developers that aren't sony won't?
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Again - that's fine - but if all you need is a blu-ray player - i think paying the extra for a PS3 makes no sense unless you really really want to play LBP/MGS4/Resistance 2
And while Sony will stay longer with the PS3 - does it matter if developers that aren't sony won't?
Again..the PS3 is not going to cease to exist. 3rd party developers will continue to make games for it. Pretty sure Insomnia has made good money already.
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360 Rules!! ::)
j/k
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360 Rules!! ::)
XBox 360 OWNS PS3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/114413
PS3 settling in as #3 gaming console
Mon Dec 29, 2008 1:47PM EST
See Comments (44)
Buzz up!on Yahoo!One pundit famously told me this summer that 2008 would be "the year of the PlayStation 3," presuming that must-have new games and the rise of Blu-ray would turn the PS3 into, if not the top console on the market, then at least a strong #2.
Alas, things haven't turned out so well for Sony's flagship PS3: Sales of the console are down 19 percent vs. last year, and analysts are now warning that Sony may not hit its goal of selling 10 million consoles this fiscal year (which ends in March 2009).
Why the hefty decline? You can try to blame the economy at large, but that's looking in the wrong direction: Gaming has been experiencing a booming market in 2008 -- even during the recession-stricken holiday season. Sales of the Wii console this November were twice what they were in 2007, and the Xbox 360 saw sales increase 8 percent, as well (driven largely by a well-timed price cut). And those trends are likely to continue when December numbers are in.
Most analysts are looking at the hefty PS3 price tag as the reason for its misery. At a bare minimum price of $399, the PS3 is wildly more expensive than anything else on the market (and double the entry-level Xbox), and that's after some price cuts already. Yet the PS3 is said to be so expensive to make that cutting the price would further erode Sony's plummeting profitability (it's already laying off thousands of workers and shutting down factories). And Sony's old selling point -- that at $399 the PS3 is a relatively cheap way to get a Blu-ray player -- doesn't really work in an era of sub-$199 standalone Blu-ray units. The Wall Street Journal (linked above) now notes that you can get a Blu-ray player and an Xbox 360 for less than the price of a PS3.
The fatal blow could come in the form of game developers, which have limited resources and have to choose which platforms they want to develop for. It's already rare for a title to be released on all three consoles, with exclusives becoming more popular: Again, as the WSJ notes, four of the top five selling games in November were exclusive to either the Wii or the 360. And even when a PS3 version is available, that doesn't mean much, with WSJ noting, "Sony's best-selling game during the month was an action shooter game, Call of Duty: World at War. But twice as many people bought the Xbox 360 version."
With a terrible economic outlook for 2009 and the holiday season now behind us, what is Sony's next move? A huge price cut might save the PS3 from outright failure... but at what cost to the company?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123050978162738293.html
Hope Fades for PS3 as a Comeback Player
In Battle of the Game Consoles, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox Widen Leads Over Sony's PlayStationArticle
TOKYO -- For most of this year, Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 videogame console seemed finally to be taking off after a slow start. The PS3, trailing Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 consoles, was closing in on the No. 2 Xbox 360, with new games and quarterly sales growth at twice the speed of last year.
Sony CEO Howard Stringer, seen in June, committed to making the games division profitable after a heavy investment in the PlayStation3.
But early results from this holiday season aren't promising. U.S. sales of the PS3 fell 19% last month from a year earlier, while sales doubled for the Wii console and rose 8% for the Xbox 360, according to research firm NPD. Analysts say they expect PS3 sales for this month to be flat or lower than last year, while sales for its rivals are likely to rise. And Sony may not reach its goal of selling 10 million PS3 consoles in the fiscal year through March, analysts say.
The sales decline is a heavy blow to Sony, which was banking on the videogame division to provide a bright spot as its core electronics business is hit by the global economic downturn. Sony in May forecast that its games division would turn a profit this fiscal year after two years of losses since launching the PS3 in 2006. Meanwhile, poor sales of television sets and digital cameras are forcing the company to lay off thousands of staff and close factories.
Sony's strategy of selling a pricey game machine with advanced features and cutting-edge components appears to be backfiring as a deepening recession has U.S. consumers more price sensitive than ever.
If Sony doesn't close the gap with its rivals, it could risk making the PS3 an afterthought to game publishers, who focus most of their resources on the machines with the most users. At the end of September, the Wii had a wide lead with nearly 35 million units sold since its launch in 2006 compared with about 22 million Xbox 360 consoles and 17 million PS3 machines. Nintendo last month sold 2 million Wii machines in the U.S., while Microsoft sold 836,000 Xbox 360s and Sony sold 378,000 PS3s, according to NPD.
Sony said earlier this month that it was happy with the "strong momentum" of the PS3 and focused on the machine's 60% rise in the year-to-date sales. A spokesman at Sony's game division declined to comment further, saying it is working hard to close the quarter strong.
A key factor behind the decline in sales may be the PS3's high price. At $399, the entry-level PS3 model costs at least $150 more than the Wii or the least expensive Xbox 360. Sony emphasizes that the PS3 comes with a Blu-ray high-definition video player and an 80-gigabyte hard drive, features not available with the Wii or Xbox 360.
Microsoft cut Xbox 360 prices in early September and started bundling games with the most basic console for $199. Nintendo has maintained the Wii's initial $249 price, but sales are rising now that it has overcome an early supply shortage.
Part of Sony's strategy hinged on selling the PS3 as a relatively inexpensive Blu-ray player. But prices of Blu-ray players have fallen so sharply recently -- new players are available for less than $200 -- that it's possible to buy a Blu-ray player and an Xbox 360 for less than a PS3. Meanwhile, the economic downturn has cooled sales of flat-screen TV sets and Blu-ray players this holiday season.
Industry watchers say they were surprised Sony didn't cut PS3 prices to boost sales before the holidays. One reason may be Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer's commitment to making the games division profitable after heavy investment in the PS3 machine. Console makers hope to eventually recoup development investment with game sales and production cost reductions. Sony is still losing money on every PS3 it sells at $399, so a price cut could push the games division back into the red, analysts say.
"With Stringer saying, 'We will be profitable,' you can't cut price," says Michael Pachter, a research analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles. He expects Sony to cut prices at the start of its new fiscal year in April, which could help boost sales.
Sony also is suffering from a lack of attractive titles that are exclusive to the PS3. Microsoft has hit the jackpot with two action-adventure game franchises, Halo and Gears of War, which are available only on the Xbox 360. Most of Nintendo's top games are made in house and playable only on the Wii.
Sony used to have a stable of exclusive games. But in recent years, Microsoft has persuaded most game publishers to release highly anticipated games to it and Sony at the same time.
Last month, four of the five best-selling U.S. games were exclusive to either the Wii or Xbox 360, according to NPD. Sony's best-selling game during the month was an action shooter game, Call of Duty: World at War from Activision Blizzard Inc. But twice as many people bought the Xbox 360 version.
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http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/114413
PS3 settling in as #3 gaming console
Mon Dec 29, 2008 1:47PM EST
See Comments (44)
Buzz up!on Yahoo!One pundit famously told me this summer that 2008 would be "the year of the PlayStation 3," presuming that must-have new games and the rise of Blu-ray would turn the PS3 into, if not the top console on the market, then at least a strong #2.
Alas, things haven't turned out so well for Sony's flagship PS3: Sales of the console are down 19 percent vs. last year, and analysts are now warning that Sony may not hit its goal of selling 10 million consoles this fiscal year (which ends in March 2009).
Why the hefty decline? You can try to blame the economy at large, but that's looking in the wrong direction: Gaming has been experiencing a booming market in 2008 -- even during the recession-stricken holiday season. Sales of the Wii console this November were twice what they were in 2007, and the Xbox 360 saw sales increase 8 percent, as well (driven largely by a well-timed price cut). And those trends are likely to continue when December numbers are in.
Most analysts are looking at the hefty PS3 price tag as the reason for its misery. At a bare minimum price of $399, the PS3 is wildly more expensive than anything else on the market (and double the entry-level Xbox), and that's after some price cuts already. Yet the PS3 is said to be so expensive to make that cutting the price would further erode Sony's plummeting profitability (it's already laying off thousands of workers and shutting down factories). And Sony's old selling point -- that at $399 the PS3 is a relatively cheap way to get a Blu-ray player -- doesn't really work in an era of sub-$199 standalone Blu-ray units. The Wall Street Journal (linked above) now notes that you can get a Blu-ray player and an Xbox 360 for less than the price of a PS3.
The fatal blow could come in the form of game developers, which have limited resources and have to choose which platforms they want to develop for. It's already rare for a title to be released on all three consoles, with exclusives becoming more popular: Again, as the WSJ notes, four of the top five selling games in November were exclusive to either the Wii or the 360. And even when a PS3 version is available, that doesn't mean much, with WSJ noting, "Sony's best-selling game during the month was an action shooter game, Call of Duty: World at War. But twice as many people bought the Xbox 360 version."
With a terrible economic outlook for 2009 and the holiday season now behind us, what is Sony's next move? A huge price cut might save the PS3 from outright failure... but at what cost to the company?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123050978162738293.html
Hope Fades for PS3 as a Comeback Player
In Battle of the Game Consoles, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox Widen Leads Over Sony's PlayStationArticle
TOKYO -- For most of this year, Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 videogame console seemed finally to be taking off after a slow start. The PS3, trailing Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 consoles, was closing in on the No. 2 Xbox 360, with new games and quarterly sales growth at twice the speed of last year.
Sony CEO Howard Stringer, seen in June, committed to making the games division profitable after a heavy investment in the PlayStation3.
But early results from this holiday season aren't promising. U.S. sales of the PS3 fell 19% last month from a year earlier, while sales doubled for the Wii console and rose 8% for the Xbox 360, according to research firm NPD. Analysts say they expect PS3 sales for this month to be flat or lower than last year, while sales for its rivals are likely to rise. And Sony may not reach its goal of selling 10 million PS3 consoles in the fiscal year through March, analysts say.
The sales decline is a heavy blow to Sony, which was banking on the videogame division to provide a bright spot as its core electronics business is hit by the global economic downturn. Sony in May forecast that its games division would turn a profit this fiscal year after two years of losses since launching the PS3 in 2006. Meanwhile, poor sales of television sets and digital cameras are forcing the company to lay off thousands of staff and close factories.
Sony's strategy of selling a pricey game machine with advanced features and cutting-edge components appears to be backfiring as a deepening recession has U.S. consumers more price sensitive than ever.
If Sony doesn't close the gap with its rivals, it could risk making the PS3 an afterthought to game publishers, who focus most of their resources on the machines with the most users. At the end of September, the Wii had a wide lead with nearly 35 million units sold since its launch in 2006 compared with about 22 million Xbox 360 consoles and 17 million PS3 machines. Nintendo last month sold 2 million Wii machines in the U.S., while Microsoft sold 836,000 Xbox 360s and Sony sold 378,000 PS3s, according to NPD.
Sony said earlier this month that it was happy with the "strong momentum" of the PS3 and focused on the machine's 60% rise in the year-to-date sales. A spokesman at Sony's game division declined to comment further, saying it is working hard to close the quarter strong.
A key factor behind the decline in sales may be the PS3's high price. At $399, the entry-level PS3 model costs at least $150 more than the Wii or the least expensive Xbox 360. Sony emphasizes that the PS3 comes with a Blu-ray high-definition video player and an 80-gigabyte hard drive, features not available with the Wii or Xbox 360.
Microsoft cut Xbox 360 prices in early September and started bundling games with the most basic console for $199. Nintendo has maintained the Wii's initial $249 price, but sales are rising now that it has overcome an early supply shortage.
Part of Sony's strategy hinged on selling the PS3 as a relatively inexpensive Blu-ray player. But prices of Blu-ray players have fallen so sharply recently -- new players are available for less than $200 -- that it's possible to buy a Blu-ray player and an Xbox 360 for less than a PS3. Meanwhile, the economic downturn has cooled sales of flat-screen TV sets and Blu-ray players this holiday season.
Industry watchers say they were surprised Sony didn't cut PS3 prices to boost sales before the holidays. One reason may be Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer's commitment to making the games division profitable after heavy investment in the PS3 machine. Console makers hope to eventually recoup development investment with game sales and production cost reductions. Sony is still losing money on every PS3 it sells at $399, so a price cut could push the games division back into the red, analysts say.
"With Stringer saying, 'We will be profitable,' you can't cut price," says Michael Pachter, a research analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles. He expects Sony to cut prices at the start of its new fiscal year in April, which could help boost sales.
Sony also is suffering from a lack of attractive titles that are exclusive to the PS3. Microsoft has hit the jackpot with two action-adventure game franchises, Halo and Gears of War, which are available only on the Xbox 360. Most of Nintendo's top games are made in house and playable only on the Wii.
Sony used to have a stable of exclusive games. But in recent years, Microsoft has persuaded most game publishers to release highly anticipated games to it and Sony at the same time.
Last month, four of the five best-selling U.S. games were exclusive to either the Wii or Xbox 360, according to NPD. Sony's best-selling game during the month was an action shooter game, Call of Duty: World at War from Activision Blizzard Inc. But twice as many people bought the Xbox 360 version.
God of War 3 should help the PS3 out.
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God of War 3 should help the PS3 out.
So should Little Big Planet and Metal Gear Solid 4 and finally launching home (assuming they let you say hello without a curse filter kicking in)
With the high price point, I don't think GOW3 will have as much an impact on new purchasers...especially in such a recession
(There's a few 'most anticipated games' of 2009 articles out there on the web, i wonder if protoype will ever come out)