Poll: Is it still too early to declare PS3 a failure

It depends what kind of failure you're talking about.

From a business standpoint, yes, it is deffinatlely a failure. The PS3 is on track to sell considerably less than its predecessors, and it cost sony a lot of their market share.

From a gamer's standpont, no one can say. That's puerly a matter of oppinion

Yes. PS3 is such a failure... If only it didn't have such rubbish games like Warhawk, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, Motorstorm, LBP, Resistance, Heavy Rain, Killzone 2, MGS 4 and others. If only it had free online or something coming out soon that allowed people to communicate with avatars in a social environment. If only it could play a 50GB disk that allowed High-Defintion movies on disks. If only it had the most powerful processor of the three systems. If only...

*END SARCASM*

king_bobo

I was looking to see if you threw Lair in there...

[QUOTE="king_bobo"]

Yes. PS3 is such a failure... If only it didn't have such rubbish games like Warhawk, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, Motorstorm, LBP, Resistance, Heavy Rain, Killzone 2, MGS 4 and others. If only it had free online or something coming out soon that allowed people to communicate with avatars in a social environment. If only it could play a 50GB disk that allowed High-Defintion movies on disks. If only it had the most powerful processor of the three systems. If only...

*END SARCASM*

SemiMaster

I was looking to see if you threw Lair in there...

In fact, there is only one right answer in your poll, 'it was a failure since its inception". That is 100% correct, anyone voting otherwise ought to spend a few years in an MBA program (or just think about it for a bit ). Look over all the generations of consoles, not just the ones you have heard of, but also the ones that didn't sell, the ones that failed, the ones that became tied to too expensive of a technology, or too many features that didn't matter.

Now tell me - would you, as a product line manager, ever think "our showcase product should launch at $600, a year later than, and at least $200 more than, our nearest competitor"? Does it sound smart to be more expensive than a system with more games, or a system (Wii ) with more new gamer and casual appeal?

If Sony had launched the PS3 at $400 and matched the 360 price-cut for price-cut, the PS3 would be the number two system on the market by a significant margin. If they had used traditional hardware instead of "the cell", made blu-ray an optional feature for their "high end" model (not used for games), and focused on a standard 60gb hard drive size (which would, at the time, have been a threat to the 360, which does not have a hard drive standard) they could have pushed that lead further.

It's all about costs, and Sony essentially threw the PS3's "reasonable price" under the train to push Blu-Ray and try out this "cell" processor. They ultimately traded millions of PS3 sales for a minor victory in other areas.

subrosian

Sony's only failure was that they tried to market to the non-traditional gaming consumers, and didn't do enough in the beginning to keep all of their loyal gamers. They wanted to draw in the causal gamer with features that would make the ps3 a media hub. They had success with this when the ps2 was not only a gaming unit, but also a dvd player! They didn't concentrate in having enough exclusives or games to accompany the ps3 at launch.

Sony packs too much to have matched 360 price-cuts, would not have been wise for them. While their initial price point was high for many, and did turn many people away from purchasing one, once the blueray won the dvd format wars this gave a little bump to the ps3, so in the end they were smart, big gamble though, but smart. And Sony was trying to differentiate themselves form the 360, so not including a blue ray player would have been a big mistake. Sony n ow is not only making money off of the ps3, but also the blueray dvds! Smart cross selling!

If anything, MS failed, Business wise, since they knowingly sold faulty consoles, and have lost over a billion dollars to date to remedy the problem, and expect to shell out more money. This is a faulty business model. If you see current sales, ps3 isn't far by much considering that the 360 had a 14 month head-start.

Wii is winning the console war in all aspects because it has appealed not only to gamers, but also to the non-gamers, who have become interested in it's interactive games and easy controls. More appeal to the masses = best business model!

I think 360 just keeps bringing innovative features Phazevariance

EDIT: I will give them credit for introducing achievements though.

[QUOTE="subrosian"]

In fact, there is only one right answer in your poll, 'it was a failure since its inception". That is 100% correct, anyone voting otherwise ought to spend a few years in an MBA program (or just think about it for a bit ). Look over all the generations of consoles, not just the ones you have heard of, but also the ones that didn't sell, the ones that failed, the ones that became tied to too expensive of a technology, or too many features that didn't matter.

Now tell me - would you, as a product line manager, ever think "our showcase product should launch at $600, a year later than, and at least $200 more than, our nearest competitor"? Does it sound smart to be more expensive than a system with more games, or a system (Wii ) with more new gamer and casual appeal?

If Sony had launched the PS3 at $400 and matched the 360 price-cut for price-cut, the PS3 would be the number two system on the market by a significant margin. If they had used traditional hardware instead of "the cell", made blu-ray an optional feature for their "high end" model (not used for games), and focused on a standard 60gb hard drive size (which would, at the time, have been a threat to the 360, which does not have a hard drive standard) they could have pushed that lead further.

It's all about costs, and Sony essentially threw the PS3's "reasonable price" under the train to push Blu-Ray and try out this "cell" processor. They ultimately traded millions of PS3 sales for a minor victory in other areas.

PS3Gamer_1

Sony's only failure was that they tried to market to the non-traditional gaming consumers, and didn't do enough in the beginning to keep all of their loyal gamers. They wanted to draw in the causal gamer with features that would make the ps3 a media hub. They had success with this when the ps2 was not only a gaming unit, but also a dvd player! They didn't concentrate in having enough exclusives or games to accompany the ps3 at launch.

Sony packs too much to have matched 360 price-cuts, would not have been wise for them. While their initial price point was high for many, and did turn many people away from purchasing one, once the blueray won the dvd format wars this gave a little bump to the ps3, so in the end they were smart, big gamble though, but smart. And Sony was trying to differentiate themselves form the 360, so not including a blue ray player would have been a big mistake. Sony n ow is not only making money off of the ps3, but also the blueray dvds! Smart cross selling!

If anything, MS failed, Business wise, since they knowingly sold faulty consoles, and have lost over a billion dollars to date to remedy the problem, and expect to shell out more money. This is a faulty business model. If you see current sales, ps3 isn't far by much considering that the 360 had a 14 month head-start.

Wii is winning the console war in all aspects because it has appealed not only to gamers, but also to the non-gamers, who have become interested in it's interactive games and easy controls. More appeal to the masses = best business model!

The one thing that both Microsoft and Sony failed on is the media hub thing. Trying to link your Xbox with a PC, trying to make it a full home theater like the PS3. Most casuals don't have the time or energy for that. I mean just look at it, the word is casual, most people like that are scared of technology.

That whole approach shouldn't be taken for at least another generation, only now are cell phones and laptops becoming infinetely more prevalent in the casual realm. Sony and Microsoft still live on the edge catering to the hardcore gamer and technophile for the most part, they should do well to remember that.

Put it this way, if the PS3 debuted at the same price as the xbox350, then they xbox350 would now be the next dreamcast.

xbox 350 owners just cant afford a PS3, and that's why they dont sell as well.

p2250

haven't heard of a xbox 350 b4

owned!!

It's a failure in Japan but it's doing very well everywhere else. It's not doing as well as Sony expected but it's doing a lot better than many of the PS-haters thought it would. Should come in 2nd place.Floppy_Jim

so 3rd out of 3 globally is doing well?

and i guess you didn't read the press release today, Sony cut it's earnings forecast by over 60%, and analysts say it's still 200% higher than it should be - lol.

[QUOTE="PS3Gamer_1"][QUOTE="subrosian"]

In fact, there is only one right answer in your poll, 'it was a failure since its inception". That is 100% correct, anyone voting otherwise ought to spend a few years in an MBA program (or just think about it for a bit ). Look over all the generations of consoles, not just the ones you have heard of, but also the ones that didn't sell, the ones that failed, the ones that became tied to too expensive of a technology, or too many features that didn't matter.

Now tell me - would you, as a product line manager, ever think "our showcase product should launch at $600, a year later than, and at least $200 more than, our nearest competitor"? Does it sound smart to be more expensive than a system with more games, or a system (Wii ) with more new gamer and casual appeal?

If Sony had launched the PS3 at $400 and matched the 360 price-cut for price-cut, the PS3 would be the number two system on the market by a significant margin. If they had used traditional hardware instead of "the cell", made blu-ray an optional feature for their "high end" model (not used for games), and focused on a standard 60gb hard drive size (which would, at the time, have been a threat to the 360, which does not have a hard drive standard) they could have pushed that lead further.

It's all about costs, and Sony essentially threw the PS3's "reasonable price" under the train to push Blu-Ray and try out this "cell" processor. They ultimately traded millions of PS3 sales for a minor victory in other areas.

SemiMaster

Sony's only failure was that they tried to market to the non-traditional gaming consumers, and didn't do enough in the beginning to keep all of their loyal gamers. They wanted to draw in the causal gamer with features that would make the ps3 a media hub. They had success with this when the ps2 was not only a gaming unit, but also a dvd player! They didn't concentrate in having enough exclusives or games to accompany the ps3 at launch.

Sony packs too much to have matched 360 price-cuts, would not have been wise for them. While their initial price point was high for many, and did turn many people away from purchasing one, once the blueray won the dvd format wars this gave a little bump to the ps3, so in the end they were smart, big gamble though, but smart. And Sony was trying to differentiate themselves form the 360, so not including a blue ray player would have been a big mistake. Sony n ow is not only making money off of the ps3, but also the blueray dvds! Smart cross selling!

If anything, MS failed, Business wise, since they knowingly sold faulty consoles, and have lost over a billion dollars to date to remedy the problem, and expect to shell out more money. This is a faulty business model. If you see current sales, ps3 isn't far by much considering that the 360 had a 14 month head-start.

Wii is winning the console war in all aspects because it has appealed not only to gamers, but also to the non-gamers, who have become interested in it's interactive games and easy controls. More appeal to the masses = best business model!

The one thing that both Microsoft and Sony failed on is the media hub thing. Trying to link your Xbox with a PC, trying to make it a full home theater like the PS3. Most casuals don't have the time or energy for that. I mean just look at it, the word is casual, most people like that are scared of technology.

That whole approach shouldn't be taken for at least another generation, only now are cell phones and laptops becoming infinetely more prevalent in the casual realm. Sony and Microsoft still live on the edge catering to the hardcore gamer and technophile for the most part, they should do well to remember that.

When I said casual, I meant casual gamer. The demographics for console gamers are male between the ages of 18 and 34. Their are other demographics in there, but this makes up the bulk of console gamers. They are also technologically saavy, so not afraid of technology. They were trying to appeal to the casual gamer, or for lack of a better term, non-hardcore gamer who falls in that demographics or outside of it, slightly. They wanted to appeal to technolgically saavy people who would use their ps3's as their main media hub----music, movies, computer, and gaming. Sort of like an all in one package plus gaming. This would especially hold true for sony, who used this same model for their ps2---dvd player and gaming console that was prevalent in the majority of dorm rooms, and young adults during its run.

Wii on the other hand appeals to the most casual of gamers, as well as technologically scared consumers. this is why this is sellign like hot cakes, and if you research the demographics that this console is reaching, it is beyond the regular gaming demographics!

If the console is a failure in its home region then yes it can be considered a failure.

it's too late.

PS3 has proven it's not a failure.

By the end of the generation, in my opinion:

2nd place in sales
1st place in games

Anyone who says it will come in first is a fanboy and anyone who says it has always been a failure is a fanboy. This generation is NOT over. It will be over around.... lets say 2012 or so. The 360's power is going to peak while the PS3's will be discovered. THEN we will see a difference.

I think it will come is second because clearly there is no stopping the wii. I hate that White machine but its a wrecking ball that will destroy everything in its path.

Obviously not.

With nearly 16 million PS3s sold worldwide and the PS3 overtaking the 360 in Europe.

Put it this way, if the PS3 debuted at the same price as the xbox350, then they xbox350 would now be the next dreamcast.

xbox 350 owners just cant afford a PS3, and that's why they dont sell as well.

p2250

I'd rather keep my 360 then buy a PS3.

Game-wise it's pretty mediocre. It had some great games (MGSIV, LBP) but lost FF and Tekken.

System-wise, if comparing to last year, was a flop.

[QUOTE="subrosian"]

In fact, there is only one right answer in your poll, 'it was a failure since its inception". That is 100% correct, anyone voting otherwise ought to spend a few years in an MBA program (or just think about it for a bit ). Look over all the generations of consoles, not just the ones you have heard of, but also the ones that didn't sell, the ones that failed, the ones that became tied to too expensive of a technology, or too many features that didn't matter.

Now tell me - would you, as a product line manager, ever think "our showcase product should launch at $600, a year later than, and at least $200 more than, our nearest competitor"? Does it sound smart to be more expensive than a system with more games, or a system (Wii ) with more new gamer and casual appeal?

If Sony had launched the PS3 at $400 and matched the 360 price-cut for price-cut, the PS3 would be the number two system on the market by a significant margin. If they had used traditional hardware instead of "the cell", made blu-ray an optional feature for their "high end" model (not used for games), and focused on a standard 60gb hard drive size (which would, at the time, have been a threat to the 360, which does not have a hard drive standard) they could have pushed that lead further.

It's all about costs, and Sony essentially threw the PS3's "reasonable price" under the train to push Blu-Ray and try out this "cell" processor. They ultimately traded millions of PS3 sales for a minor victory in other areas.

PS3Gamer_1

Sony's only failure was that they tried to market to the non-traditional gaming consumers, and didn't do enough in the beginning to keep all of their loyal gamers. They wanted to draw in the causal gamer with features that would make the ps3 a media hub. They had success with this when the ps2 was not only a gaming unit, but also a dvd player! They didn't concentrate in having enough exclusives or games to accompany the ps3 at launch.

Sony packs too much to have matched 360 price-cuts, would not have been wise for them. While their initial price point was high for many, and did turn many people away from purchasing one, once the blueray won the dvd format wars this gave a little bump to the ps3, so in the end they were smart, big gamble though, but smart. And Sony was trying to differentiate themselves form the 360, so not including a blue ray player would have been a big mistake. Sony n ow is not only making money off of the ps3, but also the blueray dvds! Smart cross selling!

More appeal to the masses = best business model!

When the PS2 was released in 2000 in the United States, DVD had already been in mass-production for three years. The format stood a good chance of victory, was well established, and the price of the hardware had fallen to a reasonable level. Pushing out a DVD player made sense - not just in terms of storage space (where more was certainly needed) but in terms of an overall product.

When the PS3 released in 2006 in the US, the Blu-Ray format had only been shipping movies for a few months. The format war was in full swing (with Blu-Ray the likely victor), however digital streaming of movies was rapidly growing as a thread to more traditional distribution. Being one of the earliest Blu-Ray players, the PS3 faced delays from its initial release date, price hikes, and huge costs to Sony to release with Blu-Ray.

It is one of the worst business decisions made by a company. The loss of a year to competitor Microsoft, high prices, and lack of mass appeal were absolutely devastating. While Blu-Ray has "won" the format war, it is a pyrrhic victory, forever costing the Playstation brand massive amounts of marketshare. As Blu-Ray was going to "win" the so-called format war without the PS3 (MS and Intel only invested in HD-DVD to slow the victory, as both of them have invested heavily in the idea that digital distribution will replace discs for most content in the long run ) it was a rather foolish sacrifice to make.

-

-

Sony does not make much money off of the sale of Blu-Ray disc. The licensing costs are not nearly as high as they are for game sales, and unless the movie being sold is produced by their own studio, it's simply nothing compared to what they've lost to establish Blu-Ray on the PS3. Sony has burned billions on the PS3 in research alone, and billions more producing, maintaining, and advertising the units. Sony has been reporting rather significant losses, in part due to the death of the Playstation empire. Remember too, Sony is not the sole owner of the Blu-Ray format, they get a cut of a cut of a cut of a cut, a poor value compared to direct licensing fees for games on their Playstation consoles.

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As far as the "mass market" goes, they do not, and never will, give a crap about the PS3. "Casuals" and "non-traditionals" or whatnot don't care about pixels, they care about fun, content, and price. The PS2 was a success with the mass market because it was cheap and had popular games, not because it played DVDs. The general public will be buying into Blu-Ray when the players are being sold for $100 at Walmart, a price point the PS3 won't be hitting any time soon. Already there are $200 Blu-Ray players on the market - and given that DVD players start at $20, while the PS2 is still over $100, I would not bet on Blu-Ray being the "selling point" of the PS3 in the long run.

-

Sony made one of the worst business decisions of all time, while the PS3 is a good system (notice, for the consumer ) they gambled away a Porsche 911 to win a Ford Focus. The money to be earned from having another 120 million selling, software sales dominating, nearly uncontested market god, as were the PS1 and PS2, is simply nuts. It is insane wads of cash pouring from every orifice - whereas right now Sony is bleeding money, and cannot afford to cut the price of the PS3.

-

People NEED a reality check here. I don't care how much you like the PS3. I don't care how great MGS4 is - those are consumer aspects. However, when we discuss "failure", and discuss it in a businss sense, there is no way that you go from "clear market leader" to "struggling for last place" and go "boy, we made smart decisions! We should write a textbook". As I said, only a Playstation fanboy, or someone with no formal business knowledge, could possibly consider the PS3 to have been a good decision. Sony screwed up, big time, they made the wrong system, released it at the wrong time, and were too arrogant to recognize their screw up until it was far too late. Somewhere in the company, there has to be a suggestion card where an employee wrote down "y'know, this seems like a bad idea" - but Sony's management is incompetent, and if you're one of their shareholders, it certainly is a frightening thing to see.

By the end of the generation, in my opinion:

2nd place in sales
1st place in games

angry_fork

you forgot PC. that bumps it down one place for sales.

No one expected the PS3 to be fighting/hoping for 2nd place. I figured it would be a lock for 2nd place back then...though behind the 360 not the Wii.
No one thought it would be fighting to keep up with graphics on the 360. Some people who actually understood specs and recognized the BS did.
No one thought it would ever be beat in sales in Japan. By the 360, I'd agree...but when you looked at the Japanese market and how they were going nuts over handhelds, I expected it to have a fight with the Wii on its hands. My predictions way back in may of 05 were that Sony was in a dangerous position because it was fighting a war on two fronts. I thought the Wii would take Japan from them, and the 360 would take NA with Europe being a crapshoot. I was correct on just about everything except for the Wii taking off so crazily in other regions but japan.
No one thought it would be a complete failure. Complete failure? No, probably not. If you defined what constituted a failure for the PS3 back then, the situation it finds itself in would probably be considered a failure by lems, sheep, AND cows. Back then cows were getting mad at previews saying "Ewwww, those look like 360 graphics" when they thought the PS3 was SOOOOOOOOOOOO powerful. Now when they get a minute advantage in a game they're trumpeting the graphical prowess of the PS3.

Non one thought the stuff above would become true when Sony lied about it as E305, but a lot has happened since then and now we see the above statements as facts. I bet I can dig up posts from other forums dated roughly May 18-20th or so where I said the 360 would bring the same experience as a PS3 but a year earlier. I said the machines were roughly the same with the PS3 having a bit more CPU power and the 360 having a bit more GPU power and BOY did I take the abuse from Cows...it's funny 3 and a half years later I have continually been shown to be deads balls accurate on that call.

stiltzsy

If anything, MS failed, Business wise, since they knowingly sold faulty consoles, and have lost over a billion dollars to date to remedy the problem, and expect to shell out more money.

PS3Gamer_1

A company you claim "knowingly sold faulty consoles" is beating Sony in hardware sales by a small margin, and overwhelmingly dominating them in software sales, and you think Sony is doing a good job? Microsoft, even with the billions they will spend on hardware repairs, is still more profitable in gaming than Sony has been this generation, what does that tell you?

It says to me, someone with no company loyalty, and quite a bit of business experience, that Sony mis-managed this generation. If you're a fan of their products, you ought to wake up, write them a polite letter, and say "listen you, what the hell were you thinking?".

I would much rather have seen a moderately priced PS3, overflowing with games, the popular choice of every gamer. I have no problem with such a product. What Sony offered was not that product, what they offered was an expensive "jack of all trades" system, and ultimately their failure has radically changed the face of this generation.

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And let me add, Microsoft wasn't even supposed to be Sony's competitor this generation. There wasn't supposed to be this fight for second place. The Wii *destroyed* Sony, Nintendo came from being a non-threat to stabbing Sony in the face. A great deal of that happened because Sony released a giant, overpriced mess of a system, while they Wii offered fun gaming at $250. They blew it, big time.

[QUOTE="PS3Gamer_1"][QUOTE="subrosian"]

In fact, there is only one right answer in your poll, 'it was a failure since its inception". That is 100% correct, anyone voting otherwise ought to spend a few years in an MBA program (or just think about it for a bit ). Look over all the generations of consoles, not just the ones you have heard of, but also the ones that didn't sell, the ones that failed, the ones that became tied to too expensive of a technology, or too many features that didn't matter.

Now tell me - would you, as a product line manager, ever think "our showcase product should launch at $600, a year later than, and at least $200 more than, our nearest competitor"? Does it sound smart to be more expensive than a system with more games, or a system (Wii ) with more new gamer and casual appeal?

If Sony had launched the PS3 at $400 and matched the 360 price-cut for price-cut, the PS3 would be the number two system on the market by a significant margin. If they had used traditional hardware instead of "the cell", made blu-ray an optional feature for their "high end" model (not used for games), and focused on a standard 60gb hard drive size (which would, at the time, have been a threat to the 360, which does not have a hard drive standard) they could have pushed that lead further.

It's all about costs, and Sony essentially threw the PS3's "reasonable price" under the train to push Blu-Ray and try out this "cell" processor. They ultimately traded millions of PS3 sales for a minor victory in other areas.

subrosian

Sony's only failure was that they tried to market to the non-traditional gaming consumers, and didn't do enough in the beginning to keep all of their loyal gamers. They wanted to draw in the causal gamer with features that would make the ps3 a media hub. They had success with this when the ps2 was not only a gaming unit, but also a dvd player! They didn't concentrate in having enough exclusives or games to accompany the ps3 at launch.

Sony packs too much to have matched 360 price-cuts, would not have been wise for them. While their initial price point was high for many, and did turn many people away from purchasing one, once the blueray won the dvd format wars this gave a little bump to the ps3, so in the end they were smart, big gamble though, but smart. And Sony was trying to differentiate themselves form the 360, so not including a blue ray player would have been a big mistake. Sony n ow is not only making money off of the ps3, but also the blueray dvds! Smart cross selling!

More appeal to the masses = best business model!

When the PS2 was released in 2000 in the United States, DVD had already been in mass-production for three years. The format stood a good chance of victory, was well established, and the price of the hardware had fallen to a reasonable level. Pushing out a DVD player made sense - not just in terms of storage space (where more was certainly needed) but in terms of an overall product.

When the PS3 released in 2006 in the US, the Blu-Ray format had only been shipping movies for a few months. The format war was in full swing (with Blu-Ray the likely victor), however digital streaming of movies was rapidly growing as a thread to more traditional distribution. Being one of the earliest Blu-Ray players, the PS3 faced delays from its initial release date, price hikes, and huge costs to Sony to release with Blu-Ray.

It is one of the worst business decisions made by a company. The loss of a year to competitor Microsoft, high prices, and lack of mass appeal were absolutely devastating. While Blu-Ray has "won" the format war, it is a pyrrhic victory, forever costing the Playstation brand massive amounts of marketshare. As Blu-Ray was going to "win" the so-called format war without the PS3 (MS and Intel only invested in HD-DVD to slow the victory, as both of them have invested heavily in the idea that digital distribution will replace discs for most content in the long run ) it was a rather foolish sacrifice to make.

-

-

Sony does not make much money off of the sale of Blu-Ray disc. The licensing costs are not nearly as high as they are for game sales, and unless the movie being sold is produced by their own studio, it's simply nothing compared to what they've lost to establish Blu-Ray on the PS3. Sony has burned billions on the PS3 in research alone, and billions more producing, maintaining, and advertising the units. Sony has been reporting rather significant losses, in part due to the death of the Playstation empire. Remember too, Sony is not the sole owner of the Blu-Ray format, they get a cut of a cut of a cut of a cut, a poor value compared to direct licensing fees for games on their Playstation consoles.

-

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As far as the "mass market" goes, they do not, and never will, give a crap about the PS3. "Casuals" and "non-traditionals" or whatnot don't care about pixels, they care about fun, content, and price. The PS2 was a success with the mass market because it was cheap and had popular games, not because it played DVDs. The general public will be buying into Blu-Ray when the players are being sold for $100 at Walmart, a price point the PS3 won't be hitting any time soon. Already there are $200 Blu-Ray players on the market - and given that DVD players start at $20, while the PS2 is still over $100, I would not bet on Blu-Ray being the "selling point" of the PS3 in the long run.

-

Sony made one of the worst business decisions of all time, while the PS3 is a good system (notice, for the consumer ) they gambled away a Porsche 911 to win a Ford Focus. The money to be earned from having another 120 million selling, software sales dominating, nearly uncontested market god, as were the PS1 and PS2, is simply nuts. It is insane wads of cash pouring from every orifice - whereas right now Sony is bleeding money, and cannot afford to cut the price of the PS3.

-

People NEED a reality check here. I don't care how much you like the PS3. I don't care how great MGS4 is - those are consumer aspects. However, when we discuss "failure", and discuss it in a businss sense, there is no way that you go from "clear market leader" to "struggling for last place" and go "boy, we made smart decisions! We should write a textbook". As I said, only a Playstation fanboy, or someone with no formal business knowledge, could possibly consider the PS3 to have been a good decision. Sony screwed up, big time, they made the wrong system, released it at the wrong time, and were too arrogant to recognize their screw up until it was far too late. Somewhere in the company, there has to be a suggestion card where an employee wrote down "y'know, this seems like a bad idea" - but Sony's management is incompetent, and if you're one of their shareholders, it certainly is a frightening thing to see.

I agree that Sony lost a huge amount of market share due to delays (HUGE). These delays, however where necessary because they were fixing issues thay had with their optical drives. MS did not launch the 360 early because they wanted to capture more market share, they did so because they had to. The chips that were used to produce the original Xbox ran out, forcing Microsoft's hand to release the 360 without it being ready. MS just lucked out that Sony had to delay their launch. Sony was playing catch up ever since, which led to many mistakes on their part, but did not want to rush their product without a lower failure rate.

DVD's, while in production during the 3 years prior to the PS2 being relaesed, did not intially take off and make a run for it, and while there were inexpensive dvd players, it was still in the same price range, if not slightly more expensive than the ps2. DVD was the clearly the future at that time, it isn't hard to beleive that Blueray will be the same for now. It may take longer before bluerays overtake dvd's, especially since all blueray dvd players have the capabilities to play dvd's, making dvds still relevant. But the fact that many companies are concerned with piracy, and the push for drm, bluerays stand a good chance of being a major force in the near future with their self-protecting digital concept, which protects bluerays from being tampered. Also with the shift of all tv's having to be digital, which will force many homes to buy a new television, and quite possibly hd tv's, which are becoming increasingly cheaper-----not a far stretch to see that bluerays will be more prominant. But again, these are alot of what-ifs, and Sony is really gambling.

So to say that sony was a failuire because they gambled on their business model---not necessarily true. Many circumstances have made Sony stumble, and have forced them to play catch up, mostly due to the fact that they lost a year on the 360. 360 had to launch earlier than they wanted to because of their dilemma. Sony did play catch up, and stalled their own launch, which did hurt them in the long run.

Sony did screw up in trying to capture a wider audience. they did try to capture the casual gaming and non traditional gaming audience, it introduced the six axis controls a la Wii, once it saw what Wii was doing, as well as trying to sell the console not neccessarily as just a gaming unit but also a multimedia hub that a causal game can use to play as well as other recreational uses, and part arrogance/cheap (they didn't want to pay the company that supplied them with rumble.) they wanted it to be the main focal point to go along with tv's. No need to have mutliple appliances tied to your tvs.....just a tv and a ps3. it failed becuase while trying to do this, it did not maintain its core audience, probably because of arrogance of thinking that ps2 players will automatically just buy the ps3, no matter the price. Remember the ps2 came out at a higher price of any console at that time....$300. The gamecube was cheaper, but didn't win. And when it was sold, Xbox hadn't even come out yet. 2001, Xbox comes out, 1 year after, but PS2 already had that install base. Xbox was price moderatley, but still did not catch up to the ps2. PS2 had too much support from software developers, who were all rushing to develop for P2, since it had the most units sold. The expensive price is because of the wifi, and th bluetooth, as well as the bluray technology it employs. It could have cut down on some of these features, or made them optional.

I guess I am tyring to say that PS3 was a flop, since it has not been able to replicate the success of the ps2, but not necessarily because of Microsoft's "saavy" business techniques. And PS1 and PS2 were market gods because of their positioning. Sega screwed up big time in their competiton with Sony, and by that time Nintendo was still clinging to it's glory days, thinking its name would still move units. Since Xbox became very popular with its online gaming, (this is where sony truly failed) ealry on with the original xbox, this really proved to be one of the highest sellign points for the 360, as well as it's 14 month headstart. PS2 didn't dabble in online gmaing until 2002-----and even then it wasn't comparable at all. We have yet to see if Sony's gamble will pay off in the end. It is obvious that the selling price is not a huge turnoff, since it is sellin units and isn;t too farbehind form MS, despite the delays and MS's price cuts. We just have top wait. But to say that Sony was a failure, we havbe to wait to see how it plays out, a huge flop and disappointing launch---YES.

And I wouldn't be surprised if 360's hardware failure now ill affect the next MS console's sales. Maybe people will delay buying it to see if there are any issues. Maybe, but this is videogamers, and as is apparent now, they obviuosly don't care about quality hardware.

And MS fanboys need a relaity check as well! I am not saying that PS3 was a success, but only a 360 fanboy can be content and continue to endorse a failed product. If this product were anything else, say a vcr, car, what have you, it would not have been continued to be purchased because of its known faulty hardware. But fanboys continue to buy the systems because of the games, and especially because they are fanboys. I had both the ps2 and original xbox. I want the 360, but refuse to endorse a company that knowingly shoved a failed hardware onto its customers, and to say otherwise is blind fanboyism. i agree that Sony has stumbled, but MS has succeeded because of the blind fanboyisms out there.

[QUOTE="PS3Gamer_1"]

If anything, MS failed, Business wise, since they knowingly sold faulty consoles, and have lost over a billion dollars to date to remedy the problem, and expect to shell out more money.

subrosian

A company you claim "knowingly sold faulty consoles" is beating Sony in hardware sales by a small margin, and overwhelmingly dominating them in software sales, and you think Sony is doing a good job? Microsoft, even with the billions they will spend on hardware repairs, is still more profitable in gaming than Sony has been this generation, what does that tell you?

It says to me, someone with no company loyalty, and quite a bit of business experience, that Sony mis-managed this generation. If you're a fan of their products, you ought to wake up, write them a polite letter, and say "listen you, what the hell were you thinking?".

I would much rather have seen a moderately priced PS3, overflowing with games, the popular choice of every gamer. I have no problem with such a product. What Sony offered was not that product, what they offered was an expensive "jack of all trades" system, and ultimately their failure has radically changed the face of this generation.

-

And let me add, Microsoft wasn't even supposed to be Sony's competitor this generation. There wasn't supposed to be this fight for second place. The Wii *destroyed* Sony, Nintendo came from being a non-threat to stabbing Sony in the face. A great deal of that happened because Sony released a giant, overpriced mess of a system, while they Wii offered fun gaming at $250. They blew it, big time.

The success of MS is hugely due to blind fanboys who continued to buy a shoddy product, and be content with refurbished console, and a limited warranty that only addresses some of the 360's known issues. Actually only one, a huge one, RROD. And this will follow MS in its future products sales.

And the Wii actaully destroyed everyone, not just Sony. MS was always Sony competitor, since it was launched to directly compete with the playstation. To say otherwise is a mistake. The Xbox directly competed with sony by having similar titles, and many ports from ps2. No one, not even Nintendo ever dreamed that the Wii would be this huge.

[QUOTE="PS3Gamer_1"]

If anything, MS failed, Business wise, since they knowingly sold faulty consoles, and have lost over a billion dollars to date to remedy the problem, and expect to shell out more money.

subrosian

A company you claim "knowingly sold faulty consoles" is beating Sony in hardware sales by a small margin, and overwhelmingly dominating them in software sales, and you think Sony is doing a good job? Microsoft, even with the billions they will spend on hardware repairs, is still more profitable in gaming than Sony has been this generation, what does that tell you?

It says to me, someone with no company loyalty, and quite a bit of business experience, that Sony mis-managed this generation. If you're a fan of their products, you ought to wake up, write them a polite letter, and say "listen you, what the hell were you thinking?".

I would much rather have seen a moderately priced PS3, overflowing with games, the popular choice of every gamer. I have no problem with such a product. What Sony offered was not that product, what they offered was an expensive "jack of all trades" system, and ultimately their failure has radically changed the face of this generation.

-

And let me add, Microsoft wasn't even supposed to be Sony's competitor this generation. There wasn't supposed to be this fight for second place. The Wii *destroyed* Sony, Nintendo came from being a non-threat to stabbing Sony in the face. A great deal of that happened because Sony released a giant, overpriced mess of a system, while they Wii offered fun gaming at $250. They blew it, big time.

you just saved me 5 minutes of typing, thanks... If you want to look at an example of squandering an empire in gaming you need look no further than under the crusty hood of a PS3... Fanboys say alot of things but one thing has always been said and will always be clear despite every mathmatical statistic the sony boys come up with... ITS TOO EXPENCIVE!!! we dont want/need bluray, we dont want/need the cell... Sony STOP forcing this unneeded tech down everyones throat and offer a gaming machine that matches up with the 360, is it that hard?

you people are sad, if you crapbox owners spent more time playing all the games you claim to have these dumb threads would not come up. last i checked the ps2 and the ps3 are 2 different consoles. but you all are talking about a system that launched an entire year after its direct competition and are already ready to declare a 2nd place winner. system wars justs continues to fail, oooops i forgot logic is teh fail here. sorry ignore everything i said.LoZonedOut

Done

It is too early to tell. Sony is still losing money on the thing, 2 years after it came out. On top of that, it really isn't gaining on the 360 like some in here said it would as far as HW sales go (MS still has a solid 6 to 7 million unit lead). Of course it will never catch the Wii and the fact it is now losing in Japan to the 360 on week to week sales is just sad.

I think the PS3 will eventually catch on and sell great, but compared to what its 2 bigger brothers did, it will be considered a failure because I don't see the PS3 selling over 100 million units. Hell I think it will struggle to sell 50 million for its life span, but that is still good. The big question is, will it ever make Sony a profit?

What a fanboy. How did the Wii destroy the 360? The 360 has already surpassed original Xbox sales! It is the PS3 that looks to lose a whopping market share from last gen. Also, if RROD effects 20% of 360's, I think MS will be happy if 60% or so of current owners who have NOT had RROD problems (still a majority) adopt their next system.AdmiralDan

How is it being a fanboy? We are measuring success by market share, are we not? That is what subrosion stated. PS3 was a failure because it lost market share. On that it is a failure. PS3 flopped because of this. Agreed?

So how is the Wii outselling both the 360 and the PS3 in sales, even when it was launched a year after the 360, not destroying both the ps3 and the 360? Where is the fanboyism in that remark? It has destroyed all consoles this gen, and that is a fact! it is the only console actually making money on every console sale, since both sony and ms are still in the red in their gaiming unit. Wii is cheaper to make, and sees a profit in every unit sold, and has the largest market share. That is true success. To ignore this is true fanboyism!

It's going to be a battle for second, and not saying that ps3 will come out on top, or 360, but may be close, and to early to tell. as for the initial thoughts. yeah ps3 is stumbling. But either way, i don't care as long as we get great games.

Oh and stay tuned to really find out about the 360's failure rate. They are trying to get a classaction law (in LA) suit against MS for lying about the true failure rate, and knowingly selling a substandard product to its consumers. They were denying it to be 30% (not 20), and had originally state dit was 3%, only to sya it was 30%. And RROD is not the only thing wrong with the 360.

I am a fanboy of games a good products. When MS states that is has no more hardware issues, and it is proven, i will buy my 360. I hope the falcon chip and new heat sink really does it, because I want it before Alan Wake comes out-----

The success of MS is hugely due to blind fanboys who continued to buy a shoddy product.

PS3Gamer_1

What "blind fanboys"? Unlike the Playstation, the Xbox brand did not start the generation with a large fanbase. The Xbox was at around 24 million, the PS2 had over 100 million - four times the fanbase (or more) of the Xbox. And yet the 360 is gaining marketshare, while the PS3 has lost enormous amounts of marketshare.

If the contest is "who has the most fans?", Sony would have won, MS wouldn't even be on the map. If anything, it's Sony who owes the survival of the PS3 to their strong fanbase. Were it not for the Playstation brand name being a househould name, the PS3 would not have sold nearly as well.

I am a fanboy of games a good products. When MS states that is has no more hardware issues, and it is proven, i will buy my 360. I hope the falcon chip and new heat sink really does it, because I want it before Alan Wake comes out-----

AdmiralDan

Falcon chips are waaay more reliable then the 1st and 2nd gen 360 consoles. Most of the RROD's you still hear about are the older consoles. The Falcons have an acceptable failure rate and the even newer Jaspers that should be hitting right about now should be even better.

Its a complete failure with the loss of former exclusive games such as Final Fantasy XIII , Tekken 6 , DMC 4 . Plus its getting a beat down in Japan by the Wii and Xbox 360.

[QUOTE="PS3Gamer_1"]

The success of MS is hugely due to blind fanboys who continued to buy a shoddy product.

subrosian

What "blind fanboys"? Unlike the Playstation, the Xbox brand did not start the generation with a large fanbase. The Xbox was at around 24 million, the PS2 had over 100 million - four times the fanbase (or more) of the Xbox. And yet the 360 is gaining marketshare, while the PS3 has lost enormous amounts of marketshare.

If the contest is "who has the most fans?", Sony would have won, MS wouldn't even be on the map. If anything, it's Sony who owes the survival of the PS3 to their strong fanbase. Were it not for the Playstation brand name being a househould name, the PS3 would not have sold nearly as well.

I guess this discussion will never end. I agree that the ps3 has been a failure compared to the ps2, and especially with the huge hurdles placed in front of it this gen. But 360 gained market share because of its early launch, and ealry adopters. Wii was the biggest surpise, since it actually expanded its demographics, reaching consumers outside of the normal gaming industry demographics.

And alot of it is blind fanboys. Blind fanboys will say ps3 did not fail compared to last year (yes it did), but has it failed completely, not yet, this gen is still not over. Not saying it will come out on top, but still to ealry for anyone to claim the crown. Blind fans will say 360 fails for RROD, and blah, blah. Does this mean it does? Not necessarily. it may actually beat everyone. But the truth is both the ps3 and the 360 are not yet making money on their gaming division. Wii is a beast (who knew)

I bought a ps3 becauseof its games, as well as blueray. this coupled with 360's hardware problems did it for me. If the 360 didn't have any hardware issues, I prob would still have my 360. I bought a 360 first (since cheaper, and had games that I could get used for cheaper), but after my cousins and friend's 360's failed and I read this is a bigger issue (I didn't know about it till after I bought it) I exchanged.

But to say that 360 is a total success when it had to shell out 1 billion plus in warranty, and take a hit in its reputation as a hardware designer is blind fanboyism at its best. I also am loyal to no brand, and also know a thing or 2 about business. Shelling out money to cover hardware failure of that magnitude is not good business strategy.

To state ps3 is king, also blind fanboyism. This is what is keeping both systems afloat. We have to wait and see in software, since this gen 3rd party developers are loyal to no one but the almighty dollar. So we have ways to go before declaring a winner. But as of now, ps3 has stumbled and flopped compared to prior systems.and nintendo has just taken it and run off with it!

Either way, this is a win-win situation for gamers. hopefully better games form 1p and 2p dvelopers and better hardware with better features in the future.

And remember, while ps3 has stumbled out of the gate, it has sold 14.1 million worldwide, compared to 360's 20 million worldwide. This is with 360 being cheaper, and having a bigger game library, and 14 month headstart. Sony can still do somethings right!

Also, 360 is slicing its prices, and has been outselling the ps3 in japan for the past 2 months only. This is the first time that the 360 has been sellign any units in Japan.

So while this is a deep threat to Sony, since not only is wii killing them in japan, but now 360, it may be a temporary thing due to the price cuts and anticipated jrpgs. Sony needs to up its jrpgs, it has a few up its sleeves, in order to oust 360. This is an interesting development! Again, we have to see in the long run how it pans out.

I

I agree that Sony lost a huge amount of market share due to delaysI'm not so sure about that...if the PS3 had been the huge step up from the 360 like they claimed, the damage would have been minimal. Since the PS3 came out behind graphically and everything rather than ahead like they were supposed to be the bleeding probably could have and would have stopped. (HUGE). These delays, however where necessary because they were fixing issues thay had with their optical drives. A drive that wasn't nessesary to the success of the platform, when your system is equal in power you darn sure better launch at the same time. MS did not launch the 360 early because they wanted to capture more market share, they did so because they had to. The chips that were used to produce the original Xbox ran out, forcing Microsoft's hand to release the 360 without it being ready. I think it was "ready", or at least on track to be ready. The .065 micron process chips that are just coming out now were probably close to two years behind schedule. If those chips had come when they intially thought they would RROD would have been confined to mostly launch systems. MS just lucked out that Sony had to delay their launch. True, MS was shooting for a simultaneous launch, and the delays gave them a year headstart they weren't expecting. Sony was playing catch up ever since, which led to many mistakes on their part, but did not want to rush their product without a lower failure rate.

DVD's, while in production during the 3 years prior to the PS2 being relaesed, did not intially take off and make a run for it, not true, DVD was already well on its way to usurping VHS and there was no other tech vying for the optical market. and while there were inexpensive dvd players, it was still in the same price range, if not slightly more expensive than the ps2(For a very short time, by this same time in the PS2's lifespan DVD players were sub 100 bucks.. DVD was the clearly the future at that time, it isn't hard to beleive that Blueray will be the same for now. Bluray had not one, but two competitors vying for the HD market. DVD players had image quality and usability enhancements that EVERYBODY could take advantage of. Bluray ONLY is a bonus for those who have HDTV's(roughly 1/4 of the home market) with none of the usabilty benefits over DVD. Also, the proliferation of not only broadband, but now cable TV services are in 80% of homes means digital distribution already has an estalished infrastructure that reaches most homes TODAY. Digital distribution is going to continually eat away at blurays potential market. It very well may be on its way to being the optical market leader like DVD is today, but by anybody's estimation that market could end up being MUCH smaller than it is today. It may take longer before bluerays overtake dvd's, especially since all blueray dvd players have the capabilities to play dvd's, making dvds still relevant. But the fact that many companies are concerned with piracy, and the push for drm, bluerays stand a good chance of being a major force in the near future with their self-protecting digital concept, which protects bluerays from being tampered. Also with the shift of all tv's having to be digital, which will force many homes to buy a new television(or buy a converter box, which is likely for those who don't already have cable, because either they don't watch much TV(leading to a converter being a much cheaper option), or can't afford cable(leading to a convertor being a much cheaper option), and quite possibly hd tv's, which are becoming increasingly cheaper-----not a far stretch to see that bluerays will be more prominant. But again, these are alot of what-ifs, and Sony is really gambling.

So to say that sony was a failuire because they gambled on their business model---not necessarily true. Many circumstances have made Sony stumble, and have forced them to play catch up, mostly due to the fact that they lost a year on the 360. 360 had to launch earlier than they wanted to because of their dilemma. Sony did play catch up, and stalled their own launch, which did hurt them in the long run.

Sony did screw up in trying to capture a wider audience. they did try to capture the casual gaming and non traditional gaming audience, it introduced the six axis controls a la Wii, once it saw what Wii was doing, as well as trying to sell the console not neccessarily as just a gaming unit but also a multimedia hub that a causal game can use to play as well as other recreational uses, and part arrogance/cheap (they didn't want to pay the company that supplied them with rumble.) they wanted it to be the main focal point to go along with tv's. No need to have mutliple appliances tied to your tvs.....just a tv and a ps3. it failed becuase while trying to do this, it did not maintain its core audience, probably because of arrogance of thinking that ps2 players will automatically just buy the ps3, no matter the price. Remember the ps2 came out at a higher price of any console at that time....$300. (Not only this, but they were the last system released at the highest price. The PS2 got a year to sell consoles and become the de facto standard before a cheaper alternative laucnhed.)The gamecube was cheaper, but didn't win. And when it was sold, Xbox hadn't even come out yet. 2001, Xbox comes out, 1 year after, but PS2 already had that install base. Xbox was price moderatley, but still did not catch up to the ps2. PS2 had too much support from software developers, who were all rushing to develop for P2, since it had the most units sold. The expensive price is because of the wifi, and th bluetooth, as well as the bluray technology it employs. It could have cut down on some of these features, or made them optional.

I guess I am tyring to say that PS3 was a flop, since it has not been able to replicate the success of the ps2, but not necessarily because of Microsoft's "saavy" business techniques. I would say that it intially wasn't because of MS's saavy, but it is MS savvy and strategy that will make it hard to comeback. All of MS's decisions back then now allow them to hold a significant price advantage for the rest of this generation and be profitable doing so. MS has basically made it so that sony has to choose between marketshare or profit...and maybe not even profit but just varying degrees of how much they'll lose. And PS1 and PS2 were market gods because of their positioning. Sega screwed up big time in their competiton with Sony, and by that time Nintendo was still clinging to it's glory days, thinking its name would still move units. Since Xbox became very popular with its online gaming, (this is where sony truly failed) ealry on with the original xbox, this really proved to be one of the highest sellign points for the 360, as well as it's 14 month headstart.(12 months) PS2 didn't dabble in online gmaing until 2002(XBL didn't launch until 2002 either...I think they launched it on their one year anniversary)-----and even then it wasn't comparable at all. We have yet to see if Sony's gamble will pay off in the end. It is obvious that the selling price is not a huge turnoff, since it is sellin units and isn;t too farbehind form MS, despite the delays and MS's price cuts.(That's all because of the RROD. When the PS3 launched most people would have laughed if you suggested the PS3 would struggle to catch a reliable 360, much less a 360 plagued with the RROD. Sony should thank its luck stars for the RROD, otherwise we wouldn't be asking IF the PS3 is a failure, we'd be calling it one of the most colossal failures of all time. We just have top wait. But to say that Sony was a failure, we havbe to wait to see how it plays out, a huge flop and disappointing launch---YES.

And I wouldn't be surprised if 360's hardware failure now ill affect the next MS console's sales. Maybe people will delay buying it to see if there are any issues. If there is one thing we should have learned by now it is that people go for the games regardless of the hardware. The problems of the PS1 didn't slow down the PS2, and the DRE isn't why the PS3 sales went awry. If the RROD is indeed fixed by Jasper, in 3 years the RROD will seem much less significant(like how people now massively downplay the DRE issues), if things progress as they have, all people will remember is that the 360 had the best games, and that the new xbox probably will to. Maybe, but this is videogamers, and as is apparent now, they obviuosly don't care about quality hardware.Nope, they always have and always will go where the games are.

And MS fanboys need a relaity check as well! I am not saying that PS3 was a success, but only a 360 fanboy can be content and continue to endorse a failed product. People continually endorsed the PS2, and Sony didn't handle it anywhere NEAR as well. If this product were anything else, say a vcr, car, what have you, it would not have been continued to be purchased because of its known faulty hardware. Because there are multiple machines that can do all those functions. The only way to play 360 games is to buy a 360. But fanboys continue to buy the systems because of the games, yep and especially because they are fanboys. Not really. I had both the ps2 and original xbox. I want the 360, but refuse to endorse a company that knowingly shoved a failed hardware onto its customers, and to say otherwise is blind fanboyism(So you're going to go with Nintendo then? Since they are the only ones who haven't shoved "a failed hardware" on their customers.. i agree that Sony has stumbled, but MS has succeeded because of the blind fanboyisms out there.MS succeeded because they out sony'd sony. To succeed because of fanboyism suggests their is no other reason to own one...they have the best library, and a much cheaper pricetag.

PS3Gamer_1

Compared directly to the PS2 in:

-hardware sales

-software sales

-exclusives

-3rd party support (and exclusives)

-marketshare

....the PS3 is an abject failure. It's marketshare and 3rd party support bare next to no resemblance to the PlayStation 2. In short, it is Sony's Nintendo 64. For all the wrong reasons.

as I recall from a thread we talked about this in before, Sony has something like 60% less marketshare at this point in the PS3's lifecycle than the PS2 had at this same point.

60%!

And remember, while ps3 has stumbled out of the gate, it has sold 14.1 million worldwide, compared to 360's 20 million worldwide. This is with 360 being cheaper, and having a bigger game library, and 14 month headstart(November of 05 to November of 06 is 12 months not 14). Sony can still do somethings right! Ok, MS is succeeding because of fanboyism, yet Sony is doing something right by still selling with a more expensive machine and a worse library? You don't see how backwards that is? What YOU just said is a perfect example of succeeding because of fanboyism.

Also, 360 is slicing its prices, and has been outselling the ps3 in japan for the past 2 months only. This is the first time that the 360 has been sellign any units in Japan. Nobody ever expected the 360 to outsell the PS3 on its home turf for 2 days, much less two months.

So while this is a deep threat to Sony, since not only is wii killing them in japan, but now 360, it may be a temporary thing due to the price cuts and anticipated jrpgs. Sony needs to up its jrpgs, it has a few up its sleeves, in order to oust 360. This is an interesting development! Again, we have to see in the long run how it pans out. The odds are the PS3 is gonna finish the gen right where it is now...dead last. There is NO reason to hang on to this belief that the PS3 is going to suddenly shoot past the 360, as that goes against all established history in this market.

I

PS3Gamer_1

[QUOTE="PS3Gamer_1"]

And remember, while ps3 has stumbled out of the gate, it has sold 14.1 million worldwide, compared to 360's 20 million worldwide. This is with 360 being cheaper, and having a bigger game library, and 14 month headstart(November of 05 to November of 06 is 12 months not 14). Sony can still do somethings right! Ok, MS is succeeding because of fanboyism, yet Sony is doing something right by still selling with a more expensive machine and a worse library? You don't see how backwards that is? What YOU just said is a perfect example of succeeding because of fanboyism.

Also, 360 is slicing its prices, and has been outselling the ps3 in japan for the past 2 months only. This is the first time that the 360 has been sellign any units in Japan. Nobody ever expected the 360 to outsell the PS3 on its home turf for 2 days, much less two months.

So while this is a deep threat to Sony, since not only is wii killing them in japan, but now 360, it may be a temporary thing due to the price cuts and anticipated jrpgs. Sony needs to up its jrpgs, it has a few up its sleeves, in order to oust 360. This is an interesting development! Again, we have to see in the long run how it pans out. The odds are the PS3 is gonna finish the gen right where it is now...dead last. There is NO reason to hang on to this belief that the PS3 is going to suddenly shoot past the 360, as that goes against all established history in this market.

I

Steppy_76

It's not blind hope. i for one don't care, as long as games are produced for the platforms I have. You may have a crystal ball I am not aware of that you can tell the future....is it really that far fetched to beleive that the ps3 can actually catch up to the 360, especially if it has sold 14.1 million compared to 20 million by 360, who had a year headstart. Or maybe you are clinging to blind hope?

i will respond to your other posts in a few!

And remember, while ps3 has stumbled out of the gate, it has sold 14.1 million worldwide, compared to 360's 20 million worldwide. This is with 360 being cheaper, and having a bigger game library, and 14 month headstart. Sony can still do somethings right!

Also, 360 is slicing its prices, and has been outselling the ps3 in japan for the past 2 months only. This is the first time that the 360 has been sellign any units in Japan.

So while this is a deep threat to Sony, since not only is wii killing them in japan, but now 360, it may be a temporary thing due to the price cuts and anticipated jrpgs. Sony needs to up its jrpgs, it has a few up its sleeves, in order to oust 360. This is an interesting development! Again, we have to see in the long run how it pans out.

I

PS3Gamer_1

You need to get the rigjht numbers Microsoft announced today in its Financial report that it has sold 22.5 Million Xbox 360 's world wide . Oh and whats wrong with cutting price last year Sony cut the PS3 price. Microsoft is a very serious threat to sony and has already taken much of sony's marketshare

[QUOTE="PS3Gamer_1"]

I agree that Sony lost a huge amount of market share due to delaysI'm not so sure about that...if the PS3 had been the huge step up from the 360 like they claimed, the damage would have been minimal. Since the PS3 came out behind graphically and everything rather than ahead like they were supposed to be the bleeding probably could have and would have stopped. (HUGE). These delays, however where necessary because they were fixing issues thay had with their optical drives. A drive that wasn't nessesary to the success of the platform, when your system is equal in power you darn sure better launch at the same time. MS did not launch the 360 early because they wanted to capture more market share, they did so because they had to. The chips that were used to produce the original Xbox ran out, forcing Microsoft's hand to release the 360 without it being ready. I think it was "ready", or at least on track to be ready. The .065 micron process chips that are just coming out now were probably close to two years behind schedule. If those chips had come when they intially thought they would RROD would have been confined to mostly launch systems. MS just lucked out that Sony had to delay their launch. True, MS was shooting for a simultaneous launch, and the delays gave them a year headstart they weren't expecting. Sony was playing catch up ever since, which led to many mistakes on their part, but did not want to rush their product without a lower failure rate.

DVD's, while in production during the 3 years prior to the PS2 being relaesed, did not intially take off and make a run for it, not true, DVD was already well on its way to usurping VHS and there was no other tech vying for the optical market. and while there were inexpensive dvd players, it was still in the same price range, if not slightly more expensive than the ps2(For a very short time, by this same time in the PS2's lifespan DVD players were sub 100 bucks.. DVD was the clearly the future at that time, it isn't hard to beleive that Blueray will be the same for now. Bluray had not one, but two competitors vying for the HD market. DVD players had image quality and usability enhancements that EVERYBODY could take advantage of. Bluray ONLY is a bonus for those who have HDTV's(roughly 1/4 of the home market) with none of the usabilty benefits over DVD. Also, the proliferation of not only broadband, but now cable TV services are in 80% of homes means digital distribution already has an estalished infrastructure that reaches most homes TODAY. Digital distribution is going to continually eat away at blurays potential market. It very well may be on its way to being the optical market leader like DVD is today, but by anybody's estimation that market could end up being MUCH smaller than it is today. It may take longer before bluerays overtake dvd's, especially since all blueray dvd players have the capabilities to play dvd's, making dvds still relevant. But the fact that many companies are concerned with piracy, and the push for drm, bluerays stand a good chance of being a major force in the near future with their self-protecting digital concept, which protects bluerays from being tampered. Also with the shift of all tv's having to be digital, which will force many homes to buy a new television(or buy a converter box, which is likely for those who don't already have cable, because either they don't watch much TV(leading to a converter being a much cheaper option), or can't afford cable(leading to a convertor being a much cheaper option), and quite possibly hd tv's, which are becoming increasingly cheaper-----not a far stretch to see that bluerays will be more prominant. But again, these are alot of what-ifs, and Sony is really gambling.

So to say that sony was a failuire because they gambled on their business model---not necessarily true. Many circumstances have made Sony stumble, and have forced them to play catch up, mostly due to the fact that they lost a year on the 360. 360 had to launch earlier than they wanted to because of their dilemma. Sony did play catch up, and stalled their own launch, which did hurt them in the long run.

Sony did screw up in trying to capture a wider audience. they did try to capture the casual gaming and non traditional gaming audience, it introduced the six axis controls a la Wii, once it saw what Wii was doing, as well as trying to sell the console not neccessarily as just a gaming unit but also a multimedia hub that a causal game can use to play as well as other recreational uses, and part arrogance/cheap (they didn't want to pay the company that supplied them with rumble.) they wanted it to be the main focal point to go along with tv's. No need to have mutliple appliances tied to your tvs.....just a tv and a ps3. it failed becuase while trying to do this, it did not maintain its core audience, probably because of arrogance of thinking that ps2 players will automatically just buy the ps3, no matter the price. Remember the ps2 came out at a higher price of any console at that time....$300. (Not only this, but they were the last system released at the highest price. The PS2 got a year to sell consoles and become the de facto standard before a cheaper alternative laucnhed.)The gamecube was cheaper, but didn't win. And when it was sold, Xbox hadn't even come out yet. 2001, Xbox comes out, 1 year after, but PS2 already had that install base. Xbox was price moderatley, but still did not catch up to the ps2. PS2 had too much support from software developers, who were all rushing to develop for P2, since it had the most units sold. The expensive price is because of the wifi, and th bluetooth, as well as the bluray technology it employs. It could have cut down on some of these features, or made them optional.

I guess I am tyring to say that PS3 was a flop, since it has not been able to replicate the success of the ps2, but not necessarily because of Microsoft's "saavy" business techniques. I would say that it intially wasn't because of MS's saavy, but it is MS savvy and strategy that will make it hard to comeback. All of MS's decisions back then now allow them to hold a significant price advantage for the rest of this generation and be profitable doing so. MS has basically made it so that sony has to choose between marketshare or profit...and maybe not even profit but just varying degrees of how much they'll lose. And PS1 and PS2 were market gods because of their positioning. Sega screwed up big time in their competiton with Sony, and by that time Nintendo was still clinging to it's glory days, thinking its name would still move units. Since Xbox became very popular with its online gaming, (this is where sony truly failed) ealry on with the original xbox, this really proved to be one of the highest sellign points for the 360, as well as it's 14 month headstart.(12 months) PS2 didn't dabble in online gmaing until 2002(XBL didn't launch until 2002 either...I think they launched it on their one year anniversary)-----and even then it wasn't comparable at all. We have yet to see if Sony's gamble will pay off in the end. It is obvious that the selling price is not a huge turnoff, since it is sellin units and isn;t too farbehind form MS, despite the delays and MS's price cuts.(That's all because of the RROD. When the PS3 launched most people would have laughed if you suggested the PS3 would struggle to catch a reliable 360, much less a 360 plagued with the RROD. Sony should thank its luck stars for the RROD, otherwise we wouldn't be asking IF the PS3 is a failure, we'd be calling it one of the most colossal failures of all time. We just have top wait. But to say that Sony was a failure, we havbe to wait to see how it plays out, a huge flop and disappointing launch---YES.

And I wouldn't be surprised if 360's hardware failure now ill affect the next MS console's sales. Maybe people will delay buying it to see if there are any issues. If there is one thing we should have learned by now it is that people go for the games regardless of the hardware. The problems of the PS1 didn't slow down the PS2, and the DRE isn't why the PS3 sales went awry. If the RROD is indeed fixed by Jasper, in 3 years the RROD will seem much less significant(like how people now massively downplay the DRE issues), if things progress as they have, all people will remember is that the 360 had the best games, and that the new xbox probably will to. Maybe, but this is videogamers, and as is apparent now, they obviuosly don't care about quality hardware.Nope, they always have and always will go where the games are.

And MS fanboys need a relaity check as well! I am not saying that PS3 was a success, but only a 360 fanboy can be content and continue to endorse a failed product. People continually endorsed the PS2, and Sony didn't handle it anywhere NEAR as well. If this product were anything else, say a vcr, car, what have you, it would not have been continued to be purchased because of its known faulty hardware. Because there are multiple machines that can do all those functions. The only way to play 360 games is to buy a 360. But fanboys continue to buy the systems because of the games, yep and especially because they are fanboys. Not really. I had both the ps2 and original xbox. I want the 360, but refuse to endorse a company that knowingly shoved a failed hardware onto its customers, and to say otherwise is blind fanboyism(So you're going to go with Nintendo then? Since they are the only ones who haven't shoved "a failed hardware" on their customers.. i agree that Sony has stumbled, but MS has succeeded because of the blind fanboyisms out there.MS succeeded because they out sony'd sony. To succeed because of fanboyism suggests their is no other reason to own one...they have the best library, and a much cheaper pricetag.

Steppy_76

The drive is was part of the original design. They are going to switch over last minute because the other system flinched? they tried to push up th date, but met with unforseen delays.

And the 360 was ready for the most part, but last minute they added some features that caused vents to be blocked, hence the high incidence of ROOD alonf with other problems with overheating. They rushed it to market instead of doing a thorough QC of the final product.

Actually XBL was launched on 2001, and it had the infrastructure of online gaming since beginning of the xbox design, where as for ps2 it was an after thought. seeign as you had to purchase an extension to log on.

PS1 had hardware problems with the launch units with over heating, but wasnt's as wide spread as RROD or the PS2 issues. So really no big history there. Maybe more so with ps2, and they weren't going to repeat the same thing with the ps3.

The only reason that 360 addressed the issue was because of the publicity and how widespread the RROD was. They knew if sued they would lose like PS2 did, so it's a premptive stike.

And not goign with nintendo yet.I enjoy the games offered on the ps3 pretty much same games as 360, except for som exclusives which I would like to play, but am not dying to buy.

MS succeeded because they through their wieght around. Very good game plan luring games awy from ps3. They were very smart.

And no hypocrisy in my posts. Just because I couldn't be as clever as you and come up with a better username doenst make me a fanboy. I can sense in your post your veiled fanboyism. I can admit that ps3 is not that giant that ps2 was. DO i care? NO, just as long as the ps3 doesn't go the route of dreamcast. People have to realize that most 3rd party games will be multiplat, and the differentiated games will be the 1p and 2p games. This just makes gaming more exciting, since you will have more comepetion and better gaems out there. Why can't you just admit that people are blind with the fact that xbox 360 is a shoddy hardware, and you just don't care about it since ms's bandaid gives a temporary fix for it?

As for my objectivity, do u see me saying ps3 will win...who cares. Just saying I can't predict the future. Did you ever expect the wii to outsell these consoles? Never in my wildest dreams, but if your crystal ball told you, congrats!