News > Geek > Is Sony Blowing The Console Wars?

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FRIDAY JANUARY 20 2006 5:00 AM

Is Sony Blowing The Console Wars?

Submitted by jake_lex

Edited by Shal

More and more people are raising doubts about the ultimate success of the Playstation 3 amid reports of a delayed launch and high price for the unit. The PS3 was promised for "Spring 2006", but now it looks like an actual release date will be closer to November -- a full year after the launch of the XBox 360.

If the PS3 does launch in November, Sony will have given Microsoft a full year's worth of potential sales of its next-generation console, the Xbox 360. "Microsoft's lead time in building share for this console generation is real," says NPD Group's Anita Frazier. "The longer that lead time is, the greater the initial risk for Sony."

Then there's the worry that there won't be enough PS3s to go around when the machine finally does launch. Gamers had these fears realized the last time around, when only 600,000 of them got their hands on an Xbox 360 during the last two months of 2005. "But that was the most restricted launch supply of any major console platform," says Frazier.

Other analysts have estimated that Sony could launch about a million PS3s before 2006 is over but that's the same number of units that were shipped by Sony during the launch of the PS2, and if a million units wasn't nearly enough in November 2000, it won't be enough in 2006 either.

And then there's the price. While the original price for the XBox was $300 for the system and $400 for a package that included several extra items, the PS3 might end up costing $500 at launch -- and that will still be at a substantial loss to Sony. The culprit for the price is Sony's insistence on using the new Blu-Ray HD DVD system in the units.

But Sony's use of the Blu-Ray disc drive means even more is at stake for the company Nintendo and Microsoft aren't including a high-definition player in their consoles (though Microsoft will offer an optional HD-DVD drive for sale before the year's end). The PS3 will cost Sony more to make, but the payoff in the future could be worth it.

Even the cheapest new Blu-Ray DVD players will retail for about $1,000. David Carey, president of electronics-component specialist firm Portelligent, says the Blu-Ray drive could add about $100 to the cost of owning a PS3.

Other components will drive up the cost of the PS3, Carey says. Based on his estimate that Microsoft loses about $100 for every Xbox 360 sold, he projects that Sony could see a $200 deficit per set-top box. That means consumers will pay $200 less than the cost of goods.

Add to that the fact that by that time, Microsoft will have many more titles for the XBox 360 on the street, which is where that deficit in the price of the hardware is made up. And they may be able to further slash the price of the XBox 360 by next Christmas: a XBox 360 for half the price of the Playstation 3, perhaps?

Sony has become completely silent on the PS3, down to not having any news on it at all at the CES. Between their well-documented DRM debacle, and the system that's supposed to continue their dominance of the console market and give Blu-Ray a major foothold in the American market slipping to a date that will put it at least a year behind its competition, you have to wonder what the suits at Sony are doing.

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Comments

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN

July 2003

JAN 26, 2006 10:16 PM

Zelda doesn't feature any more character development or increased skill sets than other entries into the adventure/platformer genre. And it has rather fewer RPG-esque characteristics than, say, the last four or five Castlevania games, which I still wouldn't really class as RPGs except in a veeeery loose sense.

That list...well, many of the games on that list I either do not consider RPGs (Animal Crossing being a standout example.) or are multi-platform titles that are all available for PS2 and most of them for Xbox (these are in no way bad games, they just don't constitute a reason to own a particular console they support). But it's beside the point. I wasn't trying to list all RPGs for the competing consoles, but the turn-based, exclusive ones. So far as I know, Gamecube has the three I mentioned, and Xbox has none. (Unless you count exclusivity only among consoles, and since I have a PC...I don't.)

The only Square title I've heard of being in development for Xbox 360 is FFXI. I hated FFXI on PC. Something tells me the 360 version (which is largely identical) would not sway me. Still, Hironobu Sakaguchi's new studio is putting some stuff out for 360, and if he's still got the touch...we'll see. It's certainly a good move. One of the big reasons I like consoles is that I get to play Japanese games. Their PC titles virtually never make it overseas for whatever reason. And the Xbox's big flaw, imho, is that it's been treated like PC lite. A lot of shooters and Xbox/PC cross platform releases and very little in the way of quirky Japanese titles or things I need to play on a console. About the only reason I have as many Xbox games as I do is that it's the system with a hard drive and so obviously I opt for the Xbox version of multi-platform titles just to avoid mucking around with memory cards. I remain amazed that they couldn't figure out what a huge selling point the hard drive was and dumped it (effectively) for the 360.

Cigarette

Cleveland, OH

April 2004

JAN 26, 2006 10:24 PM

kevinski said:

Inamourada_Flux said:
Come on... ZELDA!

You know, I do find it amusing whenever younger kids who got a PlayStation 2 mere because their friends did end up wanting a Mario or Zelda game that comes out. Hilarious. Stupid bastards should've looked at the game selection first.

[Edited on Jan 25, 2006 5:16AM]

I bought the PS2 pretty much just to play GTA:Vice City. I'm going to buy myself a Gamecube some day. And my uncle is giving me his X-Box in exchange for buying him an X-Box 360 game.

pb

USA

December 2003

JAN 26, 2006 10:35 PM

To counter the release of the PS3, Microsoft intends to launch Halo3 on the same day. That makes this really really really suck for me for that reason only.

I hope BGates reconsiders.

kevinski

Allison Park, PA

June 2005

JAN 30, 2006 01:53 PM

Clov said:
I bought the PS2 pretty much just to play GTA:Vice City. I'm going to buy myself a Gamecube some day. And my uncle is giving me his X-Box in exchange for buying him an X-Box 360 game.

Don't bother with GameCube at this point. Just wait for the Revolution to launch. It'll be backwards-compatible with GameCube games, and you'll be able to download a shitload of games from past Nintendo consoles for a small fee.

Anyway, I suppose that the definition of an RPG varies from person to person. Honestly, the fact of the matter is that RPG's are far more popular than they were before the arrival of Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation, and they've somewhat evolved (or devolved?) since then. I still love reading negative reviews of re-released games such as the Phantasy Star series on GBA. Granted, the games were very unforgiving in terms of difficulty at times, but fans of RPG's back in the day were easier to please, I suppose.

William_Miller

South Berwick, ME

January 2005

JAN 30, 2006 02:22 PM

painbearer said:
To counter the release of the PS3, Microsoft intends to launch Halo3 on the same day. That makes this really really really suck for me for that reason only.

I hope BGates reconsiders.

Oh, he did. There's still no actual release date for Halo 3, and it definitely will not be a 2006 release. I imagine Bill got a call very soon after he made that announcement -- "Um, did you just guarantee we'd be releasing that soon?"

Although his wording was very vague. "When the PS3 launches, it'll be walking right into Halo 3" doesn't neccessarily mean anything about it releasing day-and-date with PS3; it just means that we'll probably see the game within the system's first year, when it's building a userbase. Somehow Bill thinks that'll take the system down a few notches.

Of course, I'm seeing Sony making sure there's at least one huge franchise ready by launch day, in addition to stuff like a new Warhawk (eeeeee!), Unreal Tournament 2007, and a lot of ports and sports games.

To be honest, I think Microsoft might have blown their foot off. The time when the 360 will be hitting it's stride will be knocked aside by a new Nintendo machine and then quickly followed by the PS3, which'll have the whole of the Sony empire behind it this time (the PS2 wasn't as much of a concern to the company as a whole -- but given recent events, they're definitely putting more of the company's assets behind this one). Plus, right now, the market they really appealed to with the 360 -- Japan -- still doesn't seem to give a shit about the brand.

We'll just say that E3 this year's going to be an interesting event. Microsoft will have to unveil something big to keep the buzz that they've managed to get about the 360 going in light of Nintendo promising to show off the Revolution in full, and Sony probably announcing the price point and release date for the PS3 officially (and I'll take a stab and say Sony will take the ballsy move, putting the system out at $400 or maybe even a little less, matching both the low-end HD-DVD system and the 360).