Why Sony can't kill the PS3

So many flaws in this version of events I don't even know where to begin.

Funny . . . "Xbox is losing money hand over fist for the vole." . .

Have any supporting facts, or are you just flamming?

The reason why PS3 has not dropped the price is because it has been out for two years. Compared to the XBox that has been out for three years. It's great that the PS3 has dropped $200 in two years. Where as the Xbox has only dropped the price in $150 in three years. Also, the Wii has NOT dropped the price at all in two years.

I would also be demanding a price reduction for the PS3 if it has been selling for three years like the Xbox but it has not. It is quite early in it's lifecycle.

The price will drop this spring just like they did last year.

Don't get me wrong, I agree and believe the argument that it would sell more if the price were lower.

But it does not make sense to lower the price so much so early the product's lifecycle, it might send the wrong signal. The time in which the PS3 will lower the price is when the price of competitive Blu Ray players also go down. I believe that it would be sometime this spring.

Also, Blu Ray has been the new "official" format for less than a year. So give time for companies to start infiltrating the market with more and more blue ray players.

Remember DVD. The cheap compititive DVD did not appear until a few years after it was the "official" format.

It's possible that PS3 will not surpass the Xbox (I believe that it will) in sales. If Xbox keeps leading the price cut war, the PS3 will never recover the momentum.

If there is a company to leave the console arena it would be Sony as they have been cutting back by slashing jobs. I own a PS3 as well as a VoleBox and I have been disappointed more so with the PS3.

Their online service is pants, there aren't as many games as are on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 also has issues with reliability. I guess everyone seems to forget about PS3 Bluray drive failures or the infamous "YLOD" Yellow Light of Death.

I starting to get the feeling that the PS3 is the next Dreamcast.

I'm a family man more than a console geek. And just this fall we finally bought a PS2, along with GH3. Really, considering that we still have a CRT TV, and money is tight, I don't see any reason for HD capable console yet. Or the extra money that Wii or XBox would be over the PS2 (not to mention the availability of used&new games).

Now were I to find my self in lots of extra money, I would buy a HDTV, and then likely a PS3. In that order. I wouldn't see myself buying Wii or XBox even then.

With production cuts coming about anyways, Sony can certainly keep the PS3 around and keep building them only as required.

I won't point out all the potential fallacies in the article as I'd argue there are quite a few, though in fairness I can't make a claim of omniscience either.

What I feel I must say is that if Sony want to release a console outside Asia, they can't just ditch physical media. I mean, come off it! The UK has like an average broadband speed of around 4Mbit/sec with draconian download limits per month. The fact that my fair usage policy is considered better than average at 60GB over a rolling 30 day period is just laughable for any HD content or large games.

It may be brighter in Europe, but unless Sony are going to blackmail BT and the other cable companies into dropping fair usage policies and traffic shaping heavy downloaders, you're living in a dreamland. No-one is willing to pay for even a current generation broadband service in the UK, let alone the next generation ones. Until they literally lay fibre optic cables across the whole of Europe, the UK and America, any hope of abandoning physical media is just a joke.

I mean no offence by this. I'm just being practical. I haven't even mentioned the added cost that would be needed to install HUGE HDDs on each console to make this feasible.

Just my two pence.

I agree with Steve on this one.

I'd love to get a PS3 but I just can't warrant spending nearly £300 (or possibly more if I want a couple of games and extra controllers too) on a next gen games console. I did that with the Saturn when I had money to burn, now having a family to look after I just can't warrant spending £300 on anything unless it's really urgent or I have a good case.

If the PS3 came down to about £200 I'd buy one this Christmas. I'm eager to get a Blu-ray player but I'd rather go for a PS3 for the upgradability (rather than being stuck on a low Blu-Ray profile) but it looks like I might just have to plump for the £100 Bush Blu-Ray player from Argos or just hang on until next Christmas and see if the prices go down a bit.

Rob

I bought into DVD in 1997, and am a classic early adopter; until I bought HD DVD (region free, higher quality and cheaper than Blu-ray) but was burnt. Now I couldn't care less about Blu-ray and prefer to pay for DVDs or rent HD movies rather than buy them on another optical disc format -- I've already bought some movies on VHS, DVD, HD DVD, why should I buy them again on Blu-ray?

So I could care less about Blu-ray on PS3, it has to live or die as a games machine for me.

On that front it's not done too well. There is not a single multi-format game that is better on PS3, they are all superior on Xbox 360 (Eurogamer.net publish excellent technical analysis monthly that demonstrate this is always the case); in addition PS3 'exclusives' either leave me cold or not sufficiently warm to lay out hundreds of pounds just to play them.

So, I'll be taking Microsoft up on the (as of today) less than £100 Xbox 360 Arcade -- which is pretty darn cheap for a games console -- and I might even stretch to a 60GB version ... I think I can buy two 60GB hard drive equipped versions for one PS3.

I think Nick Farrell's commentary is not far off the mark, Sony know they have got a lemon and are simply trying not to loose too much money with it hence they will not drop the price.

Nick,

I think you are "right on" with your comments. You just showed a keen understand of business that I don't always get to see with these online "rags". Your article here is part of the reason why I keep coming back to the "The Inq".

Its fairly common knowledge that the Xbox 360 costs microsoft more to make than it generates in revenue, its not too hard to find facts for this if you look.

Whether or not the games and licensing revenue offsets this is unknown. My guess is Microsoft are once again using their enormous wealth to put competition out of business.

However the most inaccurate part of this article is the comment that the Wii is a passing fad and people will want proper graphics.

This comment indicates the author has completely missed the point of the Wii, and that is: "Its fun to play" and the games are about fun and playability, which the Wii wins and is why it sells.

If it were about graphics, then any old HD movie would be blockbuster because its in HD so it must be great right??

WRONG, its about content, playability and price and this is where the Wii serves up aces everytime, and will continue to do so.

This actually proves the graphics are secondary to the game, which consumers knew all the time.

People view the PS3 as only a gaming console and its Sony’s fault for not doing a better job at marketing. Many feel that the price of the PS3 is too much to pay for just gaming console. They overlook the built in Blu-ray payer and the other non-gaming features of the PS3. When you consider that you can easily spend $300 for a Blu-ray player, the price PS3 isn't that bad.

I know many people that just use their PCs to access the internet. My 80 year father used WebTV for years because he just wanted to access the internet without of the hassles of Windows. I use the PS3’s browser a lot when I’m watching TV and just want to look quickly look something up on the internet or pay a bill during a commercial. I also use it to watch YouTube videos and view camera pictures on my big LCD. The PS3 is so much more than just a great gaming console. The PS3 could even replace a basic PC if Sony would just add full functionally to their browser and permit the use of net apps e.g., Google docs.

Sony playing safe trying not too lose too much money when the wii has clearly won the console war but the wii being a passing fad? Maybe, I don't own one but my poor eyes can't tell the difference from the old Dreamcast graphics and today's new machines.

Microsoft has additional revenue from xbox live subscriptions and the ads on xbox live. Additionally the 360 has a game attachement rate of 8.1 which is significantly higher than either the PS3 or Wii. Add the fact that it has had 1 more year of sales and you can see why Microsoft can afford to lower it's console prices.

this article if full of wishful thinking, fail, BS and...

"Any fad value of the Wii will have long since passed "

denial. face it. the ps3 is dead. why?
it uses a retarded @ cumbersome retro gamepad. gaming is just an afterthought for sony, instead of dropping bluray the choose to cut of the bc on all the playstations. thats a clear example of their priority @ faith in their platform.

Personally i think Sony's PS3 will be left 4 Dead (sorry for the pun)next year simply because next year for the same money you can purchase a PC that will outperform it with ease. Lets face it with the economy in its state for at least another year prices of Graphics Cards and Cpu & Memory will be such that it won't take much in terms of $$$ to put a hurt on Consoles in general .
We will see in the next 4 months.

MS is not loosing $ hand over fist on the 360. Most of the analysis I have seen suggests they loose less per machine then Sony does on the PS3 (excluding the $1bbn RROD issue). Meanwhile Nintendo makes a whopping $6 per Wii.

When are people going to stop focusing on the # of consoles sold and pay attention to who is moving the most software. That is where the $$ is.

MS has a staggerring 7.1x attach rate. Over the life of the console 360 owners are spending 3x more $$ on software then Wii owners and 6x-7x more then PS3 owners. And then you have to add in games, movies and TV shows on marketplace and Gold subscriptions.

360 is a typical razor and razor blade model. Loose $50 a machine and make hundreds over the life of the console on other stuff. Nintendo did an admiral job coming up with a "survival" strategy. Make a bit of $$ on each console, because you don't know how many will sell and you don't know how good 3rd party support will be after the disaster that was the N64. They are also making a tidy sum on low development cost 1st party games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Mario, Zelda etc...

Sony is dead in the water. They spent a FORTUNE designing and launching the PS#. They are loosing $100 on each console and they aren't selling any software. Blueray is a technically great, but is suffering from horrible consumer adoption. Downloadable movies and games are 5 years behind Microsoft. They will not have the $$ to do a PS4, while MS and Nintendo are already talking about the next generation.

The Wii's fun-instead-of-graphics image is flawed. There is nothing fun about squinting at a blurry screen or running into walls in Mario Kart because you can't see anything. Also, the low resolution makes many kinds of games more frustrating (those where it helps to see detail). The bad graphics of the wii actually do impair the fun. It more fun to interact with recognizable objects in a game world than blurry blobs.

Let's not forget that MS has just cut their production costs another 40% with the new Jasper chipset and done away with any potential RROD's. They are now making a small bit on each console. Sony is still losing money hand over fist and are too stuborn to change. If you recall correctly, Ken Kutaragi said when asked about the high price of the PS3, "for consumers to think to themselves 'I will work more hours to buy one'. We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else." Remember that the Japanese are very material and the social structure there look down on those who don't have or can't afford the latest innovations. They will never dropped the price much because they don't think like the rest of the world and truly believe their console is golden.

elementary. Farrell continues to astound and teach. Braviaio! Mystrow! Encour! "Sony intends to adjust product pricing to mitigate the impact of the appreciation of the yen, curtail or delay part of its investment plans, and downsize or withdraw from unprofitable or non-core [Apple]." "To the extent permitted by law, You authorize and license SCEA a royalty free and perpetual right to use, distribute, copy, modify, display, and publish your User Material for any reason without any restrictions or payments to you or any third parties," Sony explains. "You further agree that SCEA may sublicense its rights to any third party, including its affiliates and subsidiaries. You hereby waive all claims, including any moral rights, against SCEA, its affiliates and subsidiaries for SCEA or any other third party's use of User Material to the extent permitted by applicable law."
So don't nick us... We'll nick you.
Thank you Nick.

1, MS lost a lot of money in original Xbox "By September 15, 2005, Microsoft reported a four billion dollar loss in selling the Xbox gaming system" - Wikipedia

2, MS lost a lot of money so far with X360, due to the redring problem. as of june 2007 - 18 month into its life cycle, they lost 1.15 billion, this is another 18 month in and so far 25 milliom x360 sold, we can estimate roughtly another 1.15b is lost, meaning each x360 on average cost MS 100 USD in warranty. if they lost 50 dollars just sell each console, it means they lose total of 150 wither every x360, i dont think at current rate they are making it back via profit in game sales.

3, PS3, expensive as it is, is a lot more powerful than Xbox, new applications for more than just gaming are strong possiblity, and sony is making a lot of money from Blu-ray disc sales, by people who watch blu-ray on PS3.

4, X360 has more games, but personally i find its hard to find truly great games. consoles do not excel in FPS games, yet the only decent game X360 has is FPS, PS3 has the best Racing game - GT5P, best Action game - MGS3, best fighting game - Tekken 5 DR and next year Tekken 6 BR.

5, Wii has more console sales but so what? majority of wii buyers I know never bought any game after their console purchase, and over 50% of them had sold their wii after 6 month, because it simply is not pleasant to look at bricks. if one enjoyed looking at bricks, it is better to buy a PS2.

Simple truth is, console gaming market is not profitable in the moment, each of the three makers in trying to survive with their own strategy, and they all have their own strength and flaws.

I'll never understand why there can be only room for one console in the world. Almost any review feeds the impression that a "winner" must be crowned and the looser thrown to the wolves. Certainly success is determined by profitability and customer satisfaction, not just your market share vs. the competition?

Sorry bout that, meant that as a flame not a reply comment, formats all messed up. I already submitted a complaint.

PS3.NET. Downloadable games, 1TB HD, Optional Blueray drive, Internet apps, 1080P graphics (setable for lower to match output device), upgraded CPU, GPU and audio with native backwards compatability.

Another possibility is that the Wii is the future of gaming.

Here's a thought. Consoles have moved from being a niche toy appealing to teenage boys to being a family toy. Wii and PS2 have caught that change in the market. XBox and PS3 have not, and remain in a FPS ghetto shooting it out with PC-based games.

Christmas sales are driven by family-oriented purchases, so Wii gains at the expense of XBox and PS3 during that period.

PlayStation 3 has different hard drive sizes ranging from 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, 120GB, 160GB from $299.00 - $499.00 wireless network adapter included. The Xbox 360 is $509, $449, $549 to get it equally equipped as the PS3. The Xbox 360 ends up costing you more than a PS3 or similar price. So why would Sony have to reduce the price? next time Nick compare closer don't be led blindly.

Glen the lack of quality that Wii offers in its titles will hurt it in the future. Biggest reason the Wii sells a lot is because its a side machine that both 360 and PS3 owners buy to blow the dust off the machine for the occasional game.

To say they are making any money off the xbox360 is like saying the ps3 is selling better than the wii. Anything that affects your bottom line determines if you have made any profit or not in a product.

I have at some point owned every console there is (been playing since 1981, atari 2600 anyone?) and if history serves me right the ps2 did not picked up until after 2 1/2 years of release. I currently own a wii, 2 ps3, and a dead 360 elite. For what I understand the problems with the 360 are over (only time will tell) and seeing how quickly MS killed the xbox, makes me afraid of another 360. look at how long the ps2 was around. The wii is quite fun ,with the interaction scheme but after buying a hd tv the graphics really do look dull, forget the fact that it doesnt have rechagergable batteries or any sort of official player(you can use a linux hack for dvd, but that is not for the faint of heart) you got a machine with a lifetime or 3-4 years tops. ms may abandon the 360 soon and sony will be left alone. owning a 360 in the long run is expensive not because of the rrod, but because of the addons, gold subcriptions, having to go out and buy a bd player( not to metion my hd-dvd paperweight) I'll admit I love the awesome selection of 360 games and in the end is up to the customer to decide what they want: a multi entertaintment platform(ps3), a dedicated online gaming machine xbox360, or a family gathering fun machine like the (wii). Some may argue the 360 has netflix and hd isnt a problem have a harddive fail on it and what happens to the movies, you guessed it bye bye, some may argue with the ps3 online capabilties, it isnt as robust as the 360, no way jose, and some may argue with the wii, actually no you cant it is what it is, is fun and interactive but in short bursts, then your muscles hurt and so does you vision. Tke your pick people.

I like how people have been saying that MS has lost a lot of money with the XBox360, but have fixed the RRoD problem with smaller process parts.
Believe me the fix for most RRoD is cheap (About 1 Aussie Dollar) and is simple as.
Yet MS doesn't change the way they make their consoles, why is that?

Reliability
Most people I know that have had a 360 have had multiple due to issues with them, and in Australia both the 360 and the PS3 aren't exactly cheap. PS3 is the only logical option, besides as mentioned above, it costs more to have a 360 with roughly the same capabilities of a PS3 than getting a PS3.

Games
Is less games for the PS3 worse than XBox360's 'massive' game library? No, most of the games on PS3 are genuinely better games. Lastly most developers BS a lot, programming on the PS3 isn't hard, it's quite easy as is the XBox360.

We've heard of it..

The 360 did well for many reasons, most beyond the ken of the crystal-bothering gitwizard.

It didn't do well because of the production process/production engineering, that was beyond horrible, we know that. It didn't win because it was the most powerful, as it isn't, in pure hardware terms. The PS3 is loads more grunty.

Nope, it was first to market- first huge victory. Software library growing from day one=win. Also, MS stuffed a lot of brown envelopes to delay PC releases or tacitly encourage crap ports- something they did on the original Xbox (halo anyone?). So the games situation was hugely strong for the 360.

MS also produced an excellent toolchain, and have really good developer support. It's relatively cost-effective to develop for the 360, you get nice tools, good docs and decent backup, especially if you're one of the big boys. Sony's dev support is basically "meh", and they pushed a machine out of the door with massive hardware concurrency, and little or no dev support for this- games devs aren't used to this hard problem, they aren't supercomputer parallel processing wonks, and it scares them. They also can't afford to spend ages building something from the ground up just from the PS3, or learning how the damn thing works despite Sony's best efforts to obfuscate it.

Make no mistake about it it- if the two machines came out at the same time, and Sony's toolchain and dev support had been as good, they would have creamed the 360, as their product is nicer hardware. However, they didn't, so devs are more comfortable, experienced and better supported writing 360 games- plus now there's a clear market lead, there's a snowball effect to be had from the 360.

With all the horrbile RROD crap on the 360, it shows how badly Sony failed to stick it to MS, PS3 hardware is relatively stable, is a lot less ugly, is quieter, you know the score. However, the same games running on both consoles is an eye-opener, the 360 version is generally smoother and sharper, and less crashy, despite being a less powerful machine in a lot of ways.

Of course, there's more to it than that- the hastily-included GPU on the PS3 isn't as nice to work with as the setup on the 360 (which is surprisingly nice), and various other bits. However, punters don't care- they care about more and better games, which is where the 360 wins hands down.

Shame, really. Ah well, Sony lost all my sympathy in the rootkit fiasco anyway, so screw them :)

"The Wii's fun-instead-of-graphics image is flawed. There is nothing fun about squinting at a blurry screen or running into walls in Mario Kart because you can't see anything. Also, the low resolution makes many kinds of games more frustrating (those where it helps to see detail). The bad graphics of the wii actually do impair the fun. It more fun to interact with recognizable objects in a game world than blurry blobs."

You're totally right! We could never enjoy our games during the 8. 16. 32, and 64 bit eras, or even on the old PS2 and Game Cube. You've really enlightened us to why the Wii is a "failure."

Next time try using a functional TV and a pair of glasses.

There is no doubt that the cell processor is innovative and powerful but that does not make the PS3 more grunty. The xbox gpu is (was) innovative with its unified shader model and the developers have less restrictions with how they use memory. It also has a big advantage with its anti-aliasing. Which probably goes some way to explaining why so many games look better on the 360. I actually have both but have only played one game on the PS3 - Uncharted and that, while a fun game to play, was hampered by dreadful frame rate issues - the screen tears constantly. Sony needs to stop wasting time with things like LBP and Home and get some decent games cos soon Blu Ray will get a final spec and we'll see Korean and Chinese companies producing decent players for far less that the PS3

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Consoles made sense when they were 1/3 price of a computer, back before 1990.

Consoles are now for fools who like to waste their money, that's the only logical reason I can see they still exist.

Console games have worse graphics than their equivalent PC games.

Console games cost 30-40% more than the same game on pc. You're a fool if you buy them.

A console can only play games yet costs the same as a basic family pc. Are you reading and replying to this on your console? Thought not.

You have to be a bit dumb or a child to buy a console.

The exception to this is the Wii because anyone can use and it's "family fun" type games.

Don't you console owners get sickened when you buy the same game with less features costing you 40% more? What sort of fools are you?

Hey, I've got a great idea, lets sell car owners a "fancy" car. The "fancy" car costs 40% more at the fuel pumps, is only allowed in the slow lane, and doesn't have all the ususal features you get in a car. We can just target it at those same fools who buy consoles!

PS2 - makes sense if bought secondhand with games included. Then it's approx 1/3 price of a new PC.

I like to answer one of the comments above first regarding the comparison of the PS3 to the dreamcast before I go onto other things. The PS3 is not the dreamcast because the dreamcast sold world wide after 2 years 2 million units and sony has now after 2 years sold over 17million units worldwide. It would be more accurate to compare sony PS3 is right now to the nintendo was with the gamecube 2 years after its launch. Since the gamecube went on for the full 5 years of console life so too will sony but at 7+ years. Most likely the PS4 will not be a revision of a PS3 but be a whole new system based off of the parts in the PS3 but be 4x-8x more powerful depending on with part of it your looking at. Also just HD game downloads and not blu-ray are not going to be possible because of the sheer amount of game data that will be required per game (50-100GB by 2010) and would slow the internet down to a crawl (especially during the holidays or a anticipated killer-app game release) or even crash it do to all the downloads, and that not everyone has access or can afford high-speed internet or if they can afford it its only basic and takes hours if not days to download a game size of 100+GB. Also pirating would be easier to do with just downloading games. And again the games that take up 100GB on average youll need a large HDD that would increase the consoles price and even with a large one eventually game will get to the near 400GB limit by the middle or the end of the next console life and you would be constantly buying new bigger HDD/SSDs just to keep up and even worse you'll have to re-download to the new HDD/SSD you get. So HD downloading, while nice if we are talking the sizes of 10-25GB per game and you have a high-speed internet over 5Mbps, would not work out and would be extremly expensive.

I am sorry. It is 'LOSING'. Your entire argument just disappears when you keep on using the word 'LOOSING' incorrectly.

*Consoles made sense when they were 1/3 price of a computer, back before 1990. Consoles are now for fools who like to waste their money, that's the only logical reason I can see they still exist*

The reason why they exist is that the manufacturers can lock down the specs and make more money. Also they are optimised to play games with no hassle.

*Console games have worse graphics than their equivalent PC games.*

Depends on the game. It also depends on what graphics card, processor, hard drive, and dvd drive you have in your pc. Console games are standard and will look uniformly great as they have been designed with one GPU and chipset in mind.

*Console games cost 30-40% more than the same game on pc.*

Right again. Except for second hand games which are about the same. Also you can sell the games you buy back to the shop and make two thirds of your money back. So ultimately no.

*You're a fool if you buy them. A console can only play games yet costs the same as a basic family pc.*

Ahh. Now this is incorrect. A console (eg Xbox 360) cost about £150. I would love to see a family PC run GTA4 that cost £150. In fact, a decent graphics card costs more than the console.

*Are you reading and replying to this on your console? Thought not.*

Nope. I am browsing the net. This is a seperate activity from playing a game.

*You have to be a bit dumb or a child to buy a console.*

Or like playing games without messing around with drivers and having to use windows.

*The exception to this is the Wii because anyone can use and it's "family fun" type games. Don't you console owners get sickened when you buy the same game with less features costing you 40% more?*

Nope. You are kind of repeating yourself now though.

*What sort of fools are you?*

The type of fools that like playing games?

*Hey, I've got a great idea, lets sell car owners a "fancy" car. The "fancy" car costs 40% more at the fuel pumps, is only allowed in the slow lane, and doesn't have all the ususal features you get in a car. We can just target it at those same fools who buy consoles!*

How about a car that is optimised for one thing, speed? Also it doesnt require defragging, antivirus software, and you can use it to call your friends who all have a headset? Also, greatly reduced piracy?

*PS2 - makes sense if bought secondhand with games included. Then it's approx 1/3 price of a new PC.*

Erm. Not really. Unless you live in a very poor area? Hey guess what? an Atari 2600 is 1/55 the price of a new pc. Even better, no?

Jerk.

Don't know where to begin, there is so much Vole infused misinformation and FUD.

I like this one...

"I'd love to get a PS3 but I just can't warrant spending nearly £300 (or possibly more if I want a couple of games and extra controllers too) on a next gen games console."

Clearly nobody has told you that you can get a PS3 with 3 of the hottest titles this year from Argos for £270... And this a fully spec'd PS3, not some feature cut, headline grabbing gimped 360...

From where I am sat, the PS3 is doing just fine, in Europe it's killed the 18month headstart the 360 enjoyed (in which it was the only competitor), in Japan, it's 2.5m consoles ahead of the 360. In the US, it's oldsold the 360 YTD.

How is that bad???

PS3 is indeed way more grunty, if you're any good at concurrency. However, most people aren't. Sony delivered a better hardware platform, but that's only half the product- Microsoft trumped them on the rest.

The 360 is lovely to work with, but in a world where you had unlimited time and manpower, the PS3 is a lot more grunty. However, most people are too pushed for time and budget, so only Sony-funded stuff will even begin to stress it. Most other stuff will be mostly high level language ports, without any big structural changes.

The PS3 is way more grunty. The 360, however, delivers better games as you can actually use what grunt it has.

I couldn't agree more with what the original article has said. The PS3's problems began before it was released, with the awful boomerang controller idea. Not a console-killer, but not a good starting point. It got worse from there, Blu-ray vs HD-DVD, high prices, a lack of good games, developers such as Gabe Newell publicly slating the console because its so hard to program for. Even Little Big Planet's release didn't go smoothly (delays because of the stupid soundtrack).

The PS3 will never catch the 360 now, while the Wii will always be percieved as the affordable alternative (which doesn't make me like it any more). Still, I hope Sony come back strong with a PS4, because competition is a good thing.

I just wanted to chime in as others have on the comment about MS. The games division is actually making money now. They took a hit with the whole RROD thing, but at the same time the corners they cut led them to the position they are in now.

Also I find it very doubtful that PS3 owners would all go out and buy a PS3.5 as the writer states in this article. Where's the motivation to do so? Will Sony have any exclusives out for it that are must buys? As it is now they have yet to really find the killer app for the PS3. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see a Wii-like add-on for the system bundled with a cheaper console package coming in the next year.

More grunty? More like "believe the marketing hype"! From a purely technical standpoint the PS3's CPU is a 1x PowerPC core with 2x threads and six usable SPE (not CPU, but scalar and vector processors); GPU is an off-the-shelf NVIDIA G70 (DirectX9 tech) that runs slightly quicker than the 7800 GTX it is but with less pipelines and reduced memory bandwidth; memory is horrible to access. Xbox 360's CPU is a 3x PowerPC core with 2x threads per core; GPU is a custom unified shader (first DirectX10 type GPU), also has a separate hardware scaler so no performance hit for scaling to any resolution; memory access is sweet. So how exactly is PS3's 2x threads plus maths co-processors more 'grunty' than 6x threads plus superior graphics capabilities?

To think that a PS4 would be out before The next XBox is somewhat strange.

The 360 came out a year or more earlier, and is still throwing out more features by the quarter. I'm not sure how one would think that Sony would create a new flop before microsoft, only because the fabrication process shrinks? It may drop the price 15%, but it's not likely to make it affordable for anyone that just likes to play games... especially in these times.

Don't get me wrong, I own all 3 consoles.. But the 360 still stands out a bit more than the others as far as versatility goes(imho).

All this speculation about the price, makes me think that the reason the ps3 is not selling is very simple. It hasn't been hacked. I wonder how the sales will go once people can start pirating games for it....

Because I can't play FPS games on a controller. I'm old school an need a keyboard + mouse. Having competed for a short time also, I understand why games are dumbed-down for controller play. I prefer the accuracy and speed of the PC style interface. And XBOX doesn't allow mouse + keyboard online, and the PS3 doesn't have the masses of people that XBOX has online to pwn.

Oh, and you don't need to have a PS3 for the homebrew & emulation shit, Sony allows you to install FAILinux on it already.

Well, for a flawed console that graphics so bad its uplayable the WII is doing very well indeed.

In fact its completely p*ssing on all the others for sales and revenue by a HUGE HUGE margin.

That means only one thing @Moto

Your thoughts and comments bear no basis in fact or reality. If you find the games blurry and difficult to play, get your TV and your eyes checked, because World+dog who is buying it says you're talking out your a*se.

I use a Sony KDL40x3000 tv with a Wii, PS3 and an XBox360.

And the winner is..... the WII....

Even when someone is pointing out why the x360 is trampling all before it, the ps3 fanbois still aren't happy. Welcome to "no intellegent debate regarding consoles", population quite a few. Enjoy your stay, kids.

some of what daniel said (Not going to subject you to the whole wall of text)

daniel said: this is another 18 month in and so far 25 milliom x360 sold, we can estimate roughtly another 1.15b is lost, meaning each x360 on average cost MS 100 USD in warranty. if they lost 50 dollars just sell each console, it means they lose total of 150 wither every x360, i dont think at current rate they are making it back via profit in game sales."

MS does not lose that much on every console sold. You pulled that number out of your ass LOL MS would have been stupid not to fix the RROD after that big write off. To say that they have lost another 1.5BILLION on the RROD is false and would mean that they never fixed it, which they have for all intents and purposes.

I bought an elite over a year ago (Oct 07). I have used it consistently since then. Whether to stream movies/tv shows from my PC or playing games. I have not had one problem with it. Every friend I know that has bought a NEW 360 in the past year and a half have not problems either. If you buy a crap refurb that wasn't correctly fixed or a used launch unit then yeah you will have a higher chance of RROD. But buying a new 360 your chance will drop dramatically. MS has brought failure rates down to an normal level. If new consoles were getting RROD left and right still, you would hear about it all over gaming news sites and the like. Or you would hear about in financial reports or MS would have announced another writeoff but they haven't!

What they have stated is that they are making money from selling games so your wrong there too. MS HAS made a profit from the games and live and etc. For every 360 sold, they sell EIGHT games. The official attach rate is 8.1:1 and that is much higher then the Wii and PS3, that is just a fact.

XBox 3-Siddy... Let's see... They just barely (and only allegedly) got around to fixing the heat issues causing RRODs with the new "Jasper" release. POS tray-loading disc drives that trash your disks if you breathe too heavily next to the console while it's running. I don't know, why not pay an extra $100 or $200 for a console that wasn't designed by a bunch of retarded monkeys on crack?

Also, keep in mind that Microsoft knew about these flaws before launch and shipped (err.. shitted) them out anyway, blatantly and deliberately screwing their customers (that's right Fanbois, take it hard, you know you like it).

..you are an angry little scamp, aren't you, Erik? Too much sugar again?

(Hooray, the flaming under console stories is even worse than under Mac stories)

I love all the people that respond to market based FACTS with personal oppions about how powerful and great the PS3 is. What you think of the quality of the platforms is irrellevant to the discussion about which consoles are CURRENTLY succeeding as the spelling of the word "losing".

MS is currently making $$ on the 360, that is all that matters. I don't care if you think the games stink. You happen tobe wrong (GOW2, FO3, GTA4, F2, Dead Space) but what we THINK is not the point. The point is MS has an amazing attach rate.

Sony is LOSING tons of $$ on each console sold. They have a horrible attach rate. People are not buying blueray disks (I have a PS3 and love Blueray - but I Netflix). And they are 5 years behind on game and video downloads.

Nintendo makes $$ on each console sold and makes $$ on Nintendo made games. MS might have lost $$ on the 1st Xbox and during the launch and RROD issues of the 360, but they are making $$ now. Throw in what is now an 8x attach rate, Gold subscriptions, record setting marketplace game and video downloads and 360 is currently a good business for MS.

Now factor in the fact that Sony is selling consoles at 50% the speed of MS and 1/6th Nintendo and any idot can see that this generation MS and Nintendo are battling for #1 while Sony needs to reconsider even staying in the market

Yeah, PS3 is powerful if you ignore most game developer just use the core and ignore the SPE.

Don't get me wrong, the Cell processor are indeed powerful, it could shine really bright as server or supercomputer. But only company/institution with deep pockets or a lot of really bright minds can benefits from it.

The average game company just don't have the ability to program.

At the end of the day, 3rd party developer will flock to console with the largest customer base. Doesn't this become apparent when so many previous PS3 exclusive title have announced a xbox 360?

Nintendo are fighting the seventh console war with its creativity. Microsoft are trying to push through with cold hard cash which they got a lot. So spare me the story about Microsoft lost a billion a two. They can afford to a lot more billions before they give up.

If Sony can't keep PS3 figure at least on par with xbox 360. It will find itself in the embarrass situation Sega found themselves in a few years ago.

There will be a next gen console from Nintendo and also Microsoft, but if PS3 sales keep lagging like this. I am not sure will Sony push for a PS4 if the Blue Ray market is not as profitable as they belief. Trust me, they are not making that much money from those exploding batteries.

By the way, I got the Wii and PS3 but not yet the Xbox 360(Probably getting it now since Jasper is out). So don't accuse me of being a fanboy.

This article fails on so many levels its not funny. The PS3 while being outsold since M$ dropped the price of their ceramic heater, has kept pace and even outsold the box in '08, at almost double the price mind you. The argument the PS3 has nothing but bluray to offer is ridiculous, there are great games, an ever evolving FREE online service and community and video DL service. Thanks for the Wii Miis and the subscription to netflix I NEED to use it..M$. M$ may...I say may be losing $$ but they're not going anywhere either, they smell loads of $$ in the games biz and they like that smell, with a couple of million kids paying $60 a year to 'play in their world' they're laughing all the way to the bank. Sony can't even retire the PS2 yet because it sells too much, and they know the PS3 will be the same way in 5 more years. M$ biggest mistake was putting the original box out to pasture long before it needed to. I could go on, but its obvious these are just flaming fanboy articles.

you are the on pulling idiotic comments out of your arse. here is a hint, open your I.E, go to google, put in keyword "1.15 billion xbox360" and check the results you get.

each 3RRD xbox cost MS a hell lot more than 100 usd, in its customer service personell cost, logistics cost, and labour cost, the cost of replacement chip is only a very small part. $ 100 per console is only an average. just because you and your friend didnt get it, doesnt mean it didnt happen in a massive scale, there are all sorts of reports supporting it.

is MS making a profit right now? maybe, maybe not, we dont know for sure. But this is after 4 billion lost in Xbox1 and then possible 2.3 billion lost in X360, that adds up to 6.3 billion, with 25 million x360 out there, it means MS gaming division needs to make $250+ to break even for all these years of loss. Good Luck.

Bluray is making its penetration slowly but steadily, the rental market is good, here in New Zealand renting a BRD is the same price as DVD, everyone I know that has a PS3 has not rented a DVD since they got their PS3.

again, this is not about which console is better, i am simply pointing out that Sony has its own strategy of survival, and as far as I am concerned, it is doing well.

"The Xbox 360 ends up costing you more than a PS3 or similar price"

How do you work that one out? I bought a 360 for £149 and it had everything I need in the box, including a headset and a video cable capable of carrying a HD signal - 2 things the PS3 doesn't come with. Not everyone needs to buy a wireless adapter, yet these ridiculous "once you buy this and that" comparisons never seem to end. Where can I get a PS3 that doesn't have wireless and a Blu-Ray player, as I don't want or need either? Oh yeah, I can't, so I have to pay for them regardless.

Sony has lost more money on the PS3 than all of the profit they ever made from the PS2 which is why we're not seeing price cuts. They just laid off 16,000 people, their share price has dropped 75% this year and it looks like they may post their first loss as a company for 15 years.

I think all console manufacturers have made mistakes this time around, it looks like Sony have gotten themselves in the most trouble this time.

Nintendo have been constantly constrained by a lack of manufacturing capacity. They got the strategy spot on with a reasonably priced console and they targeted everyone not just gamers.

Microsoft have made mistakes with their hardware design and choice of DVD vendor. From a gaming point of view they got their strategy right too. With the high attach rate and great revenue from Live subscriptions, film rentals and XBLA. While they got a few things wrong they got a lot of things right.

Sony has been unlucky to some extent with them being very late to market, and they released a very expensive console right next to a global recession. I don't think we'll see such an expensive console from Sony again.

For me I still think Sony's lack of focus on an area and developing a strategy around it has hurt them.

The Playstation brand was considered the best in gaming before the PS3, what exactly does Playstation mean now? I don't think even Sony can answer that now.

It's too expensive to be a gaming console, it'll be an expensive BR player soon. If they want it as HTPC/Media Center then develop a strategy around it, rather then this mish-mash of different ideas.

I'd disagree, it's a lot more like the Saturn than anything else...

The PS1 was a great console, drummed up a lot of interest for the company. Sounds a lot like the Master System.

The PS2, they've peaked releasing an extremely successful games system. Megadrive anybody?

The PS3, very expensive and full of features nobody really cares about all that much. It has some extremely powerful but difficult to code for hardware although all the third party games are going elsewhere. Ah, yes, the Sega Saturn did that, too.

Now if the PS4 turns out to be the first Playstation console with a decent launch lineup and a reasonable price but fails because of the Xbox720, then we can draw a comparison.

im just waiting for the iconsule to come out. at 3 times the price as the current ones. oh and y the f*** do people argue one consule over another. no one is gona win thats the my d**K is bigger then yours argument. to each his own. and we will see in a couple of years who comes out on top. not buy who sold the most consules or software but who made the most $$$$ cuz thats wat their after. fanboys r just big $$$ to them. oh and i have a PS3 and Wii and i bought them 5 days after they both came out. well i bought several and made $$$ off of them. no matter wat anyone says i don't regret spending $600 well free after the money i made on either one. to each his own thats all i can say

While this is not a volume driver for the PS-3, it is still the best deal for a capable workstation around with a fair number of apps and a development environment. The XBox 360 has no such use since it's a closed box and Microsoft's orientation is strict DRM. That's what the XBOX 360 and Vista are about. I would not try to crack Microsoft's stuff as a hobby, I'm just interested in getting work done. The PS3 also makes a great little supercomputer of more general use than gpu arrays which may be faster when you can use them. I understand there's a 10 PS3 computer being used for the Stanford protein folding project.

Educators should pay more attention to populate a college lab with decent Unix machines with much better performance/price than equivalent PC's.

I believe that the Linux can be downloaded from http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-Systems/Linux-Distributions/Yellow-Dog-Linux-10407.shtml . It was downloadable from www.terrasoft.com but they have been bought out recently and their site is not presently active. Terrasoft included a full Cell development environment partly developed by Mercury Computer, a Cell system supplier. The download page above says it supports the PS3, double check for the development environment but it's probably there.

To make do-it-yourself cheap super machines -
http://www.physorg.com/news148749271.html
"Scientists Write Guide to Build Supercomputer from Sony Playstation 3
December 17th, 2008 in Electronic Devices / Hardware

(PhysOrg.com) -- UMass Dartmouth Physics Professor Gaurav Khanna and UMass Dartmouth Principal Investigator Chris Poulin have created a step-by-step guide to building a home-brewed supercomputer that can reduce the cost of university and general computing research.

Found at http://www.ps3cluster.org , the resource fully illustrates how to create a fully functioning and high performance supercomputer with the Sony Playstation 3.
..."
"The guide is freely available to the public under an open source license.

The Cluster Workshop project is partially funded by the National Science Foundation and was first announced and demonstrated at the 2nd Annual Georgia Tech, Sony/Toshiba/IBM Workshop on Software and Applications for the Cell/B.E. Processor.
..."

So the PS3 can be quite a blessing as budgets decline. Of course the flip side is that, as Bill Joy pointed out in his article "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", that means that smaller, less funded, possibly very antisocial groups have access to real computing power in design and simulation. That would be true for PC/parallel GPU setups also though they seem to have more restricted usefulness.

Tyler, same price as PS3 are Intel Quad Core 6600 based pc's with ok graphics cards. These are for under £400.

Instead of buying a few consoles, you can buy one pc. The money saved on the hardware means you can up-spec the pc.

Games, the money saved on the games means you can up-spec the pc. Or spend the money on something else.

PC's can do many things well, including play games at 30% lower price than consoles.

Consoles are ok for playing at other people's homes, but in my own I prefer the PC. However if money was no object I suppose I would have them all, but end up playing mostly the PC.

Good, it couldn't happen to a worse and also more deserving company. I hope the entire Sony corporation goes belly up.

And then you woke up! MS announced a while (this year) ago they broke even and are now making nothing but profit on the 360 and rumors are abound they next generation is in the board room. They saved BR but screwed the system in the end. I keep my game system separate from my DVD player (soon to be Blu this xmas I hope) because I don't want to ruin it by running it all the time. If it's not movies I gaming it would be on 24 7. I wanted a PS3 until they included the player and drove the price point out of my range. Also they games just are not must haves (for me anyway)

I don't know where u get the idea that HD downloading is going to be available to the masses anytime soon. In parts of Europe some have only just moved from dial-up to a 1MB BB connection and others still cannot get any BB at all. Fast BB is just not that widely available to base a console around it.

So are you living in a castle in scotland Tony L? Or where do you get that 'europe only just got 1mbit' nonsense? Please consult some real data, preferably from after 1985.

This article reads like a PS3 fan-boys pipe/wet dream... not only that- where are the facts? I don’t think Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo are hurting THAT much. Sony has blu-ray and free online play, Nintendo has the sheer hardware sales, and Microsoft has xbox live fees and Software sales. Each of the systems has founds its groove into the homes of all people wanting to turn zombie.. now where are the BRAINS! Seriously though as a side note- the Wii is a fad that will soon find every pawnshop trying to hock the system... just like Tupperware, or any other fad the Wii is woman/wife approved and thus it is selling like hotcakes. You get women buying it you sell a ton because as men we must admit we all know who really controls the bank account…am i right fellas?

I think once people figure out that the combined price of their Wii console PLUS the price of several Wii controllers AND the price of a Blu-Ray player are far greater than that of a PS3, you might see some market shift. An average price for a good Blu-Ray player is about $300. You can spend about $30 on a typical Wii controller, but you will may need several of these depending on your tastes. So the $400 price tag looks better if you consider the hidden costs. Assuming the typical Wii console goes for $300, it seems a bit dumb to buy a Wii simply because it is "less expensive". Seems a bit myopic. I would have never guessed that consumers would want to jump around and waste so much valuable energy to play a video game. Do people really prefer this to being a real COUCH POTATO with THUMBS OF STEEL? If I wanted to jump up and down for entertainment, I'd find a real (non-video game) pick-up basketball game.

Sorry, so called "hardcore gamer crowd", you don't have the numbers or the pockets to justify having a video game system developed for you. The 360 and the Ps3 are not user friendly, and they are not family accessable. Gameplay is what sells consoles, and Nintendo proved it. Hard core gamer, you are about as relevant today as a dinosaur.

Given the hundreds of millions of dollars in profits MS reports from their home entertainment division every quarter, that Zune must be really racking up the cash if the Xbox 360 is losing money. Otherwise, how could the division be making a profit?

My brothers and I bought our parents a Wii- so that their grandkids have something to do when they visit. It was amazing to watch my parents play video games. I think this explains the success of Wii.

But there is more: you can see the attention to the user interface even in non-games. I bought Opera-based $5 web-browser for my parent's Wii. It is tremendously better (clearer font, easier to browse, does not prompt every time I want to run a plug-in) than the PS3 browser, even given the fact that the PS3 is HD.

Now you can run Linux on PS3 and run firefox- but there is no good flash player for Firefox on Power.