Wall Street Journal To PS3: You're Hosed
It is dark times in the world of the PS3. Less than a month after being labeled as a "sinking ship" by the Silicon Alley Insider, the PS3 has been officially given a death sentence by the Wall Street Journal. They even gave them an ominous headline of "Hope Fades for PS3 as a Comeback Player."
What illicited this response? Well, it hit a rock solid third place in the Black Friday sales, a declining economy and a generally underwhelmed public. Black Friday saw a 3-to-1 sales in the field of the Xbox 360 vs. the PS3. This was further evidenced by the fact that the Xbox 360 and Wii had increased sales vs last holiday season, compared to a 19% loss in sales for Sony.
Most of the decreased sales have been attributed to a lack of high profile first party exclusives, a large price tag, and a sharp decrease in price for standalone Blu-Ray players. The fact that consumers can now buy a low-end video player and an entry level Xbox 360 for less than the cheapest PS3 bundle has helped to drive yet another thorn in the PS3's side.
I personally still hold out a little hope for the system. If Sony can manage to drive down the production costs of the system, and push for stronger exclusives, they could still pull ahead, or at least establish a better, solid position in the market.
Asterick
Posted to Video Games on 30 December 2008
· Comments (10)
Other stuff like this: death sentence, poor sales, ps3, wall street
well, this is for US only, as in Europe and Asia, Xbox is far behing PS3.
It seems as though Microsoft and Nintendo have quite the stranglehold over the Video Game market of today. Gone are the days of Sony's unrivaled claim with the PS2. Granted, I'm not happy that lots of people are losing their jobs in Sony factories, but I do believe that Sony is losing a lot of money due to exclusives and ignoring their fan base.
For example...PS3 owners are getting updates way behind 360 owners. Look at content with Team Fortress 2, the loading glitch from Fallout 3, etc...As the Wall Street Journal also stated, a lack of exclusives is a crippling blow to Sony. Metal Gear Solid 4, Little Big Planet, Resistance, and Uncharted just are not enough to warrant spending that much money on a PS3.
I don't want to see Sony throw in the towel, but in today's market it's very hard to lock down exclusive video games to make people want to buy your system. Microsoft got it right by paying to get both Grand Theft Auto and Metal Gear Solid (the second one at least) on their systems...
I really do wish that there were more exclusives for the Xbox and PS3. It doesn't make sense to have 2 systems with an identical library. I miss the days of the Genesis vs. Super Nintendo. You knew that you were getting a unique experience with either console you got. Now-a-days, it seems as though it's all the same (excluding the Wii).
As a consumer, the only reason I would buy a PS3 is if they released their old PS1 games on a sort of download channel. I would do anything to be able to play classics such as Parasite Eve, Dino Crisis, Final Fantasy, etc... I have no use for Blu-Ray. I'm still quite happy with DVD's, and I can't quite justify spending an extra $10 for better quality media.
"Most of the decreased sales have been attributed to a lack of high profile first party exclusives, a large price tag, and a sharp decrease in price for standalone Blu-Ray players. The fact that consumers can now buy a low-end video player and an entry level Xbox 360 for less than the cheapest PS3 bundle has helped to drive yet another thorn in the PS3's side."
The lack of full backwards compatibility doesn't help either.
@James
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PSOne_Classics
You might be interested in Suikoden, but the extremely rare used copy still costs less than a PS3/PSP.
@Brandon
I have a "60 GB" model, so mine's completely backwards compatible (or as close as you can get without controller ports), but I'm still peeved they abandoned it. It should be even easier to stick PS2 circuitry in the system now that they're building with a smaller, cooler process. And as if Sony didn't look incompetent enough, the PS2 memory card manager exists even on incompatible consoles.
The PS3 is an insatiably power-hungry beast that takes forever to update its own or its games' software, and it seems like nothing about it was designed with gaming in mind. More importantly, though, the industry isn't taking it seriously. Every game these days is designed for Unreal + Havok + DirectX, and then later on an ugly port hops over to OpenGL and the PS3 with bad load times and no trophy support. Maybe Sony just didn't think they'd have to try, but if no one is targeting the PS3 for development, no one will target it with their purchase decisions, either.
? this is -way- premature. the ps3 is for the first time starting to pick up steam and they're cutting it off at the legs? the wii is dying.. the interest in it is now from the *i hate this term* casual gaming sect, which means it's a fad. Sure, it's making a fortune now - but nintendo seem set to sit on their laurels and they will pay for that in the next year or two.
I've got the wii, enjoyed zelda, a few other titles - and since then i've disconnected it and it's sitting in a cupboard. Thanks to singstar and RB i even have the 'party games' covered with the ps3.
Nope - sorry, they got this wrong.
I'm not surprised. Even the least expensive PS3 available is still $100 more than what I would pay for a game console (and there are many people for whom even that would be too much) and I'm unwilling to buy a PS3 that doesn't support PS2 backwards compatibility. I don't see any good reason for them not to have kept at least the software-based backwards compatibility. Also, there just aren't enough games on the system that I really want to play. Multiplatform games almost always looks and perform better on the Xbox 360, on which installation is optional for all games. Overall, until the system drops $100-$150, gets a bunch more games I have a great desire to play, and brings back at least some form of PS2 backwards compatibility, I'm happy to go without.
My one question is "how many of the xbox360's were purchased to replace dead/dying ones?" I know I traded my 360 in for a PS3 right before that mess started happening. I was instantly impressed with the quality of the PS3. Also, did the reporter happen to mention that a LOT of things took a beating this season? People took the least expensive route for gifts this season, and they didn't seem to announce death on a lot of other brands. I just can't get over how many people would purchase a game console that has such a high failure rate. It's all how you look at it - a little bit more is a lot less expensive and a lot less of a headache later. This is the same reason I drive a Honda and no longer purchase Fords.
I'm surprise at what Geoff said - 'The Wii is dying'??!!! That's what they said a year ago, hell, that's what they said two years ago! Geoff, you really need to stop looking at it from a core-gamers view point. It's been dead for the core gamers ever since it came out, but it will hardly die for everyone else. Calling it a fad is ignorance, its been over two years! Get over it already!
To Joe: I don't think it matters how many XBox has been replace (I think 33%?), the point in the article is that it is still selling well. The XBox is also a lot cheaper and affordable than the PS3 in the current economic crisis.
I don't believe 3rd place is all that bad. As someone has mentioned, the PS3 is gaining a bit of steam even if it is selling far less than last year. I doubt they will throw in the towel either, the PS2 was the only department at Sony making any money in the previous years. They are still bleeding money of course, and in the current economy, it will only make things worse.
Nintendo made a comeback. I'm pretty sure Sony can do the same.
Bringing backwards compatibility back will only appease the hardcore gamers that likely already have the system. The first models of PS3 were fully backwards compatible and it didn't help sales then. I'll admit, I wanted a system able to play PS2 games as well, so I got my 60GB PS3 from ebay. Since then, however, my few remaining PS2 games continue to gather dust.
Sony took a gamble on making an extremely powerful system and they hoped everyone would pony up the cash for the latest and greatest in technology before the mass market was ready for it and before they could get it to a market-friendly price point. What has been shown, however, is that most people can't tell the difference between Blu-Ray and upscaled DVD, or between Wii graphics and PS3 graphics for that matter, nor do they care.
I see my PS3 as the cornerstone of my admittedly meager home entertainment/media consumption system, and Sony should market it as such a little more strongly. A $299 price tag bundled with a universally appealing game couldn't hurt, either.
"Joe said:
My one question is "how many of the xbox360's were purchased to replace dead/dying ones?" I know I traded my 360 in for a PS3 right before that mess started happening. I was instantly impressed with the quality of the PS3. Also, did the reporter happen to mention that a LOT of things took a beating this season? People took the least expensive route for gifts this season, and they didn't seem to announce death on a lot of other brands. I just can't get over how many people would purchase a game console that has such a high failure rate. It's all how you look at it - a little bit more is a lot less expensive and a lot less of a headache later. This is the same reason I drive a Honda and no longer purchase Fords."
Gotta say I agree with this 110% - I took my time deciding whether to buy a 360 or a PS3 and the real deciding factor was reliability, the 360 has an appalling failure rate. 33% is utterly disgusting and M$ should be ashamed (in fact, someone should be sacked over it imo - if I had a similar failure rate at work I'd have been given my P45 by now). Add to that you have to PAY for access to "live" in order to play your games online.
At the minute the 360 may have the edge in graphics quality, but the PS3 is catching up as developers get used to it - just look at Fallout 3, indistinguishable between the two systems.
Someone at work put it to me like this - who would you rather buy an expensive piece of electrical equipment from, a company with a record of high quality technology or a company best known for releasing buggy operating systems that need half a decade of updates to get them working properly?