Microsoft Corp. sided with rival Nintendo Co. Ltd. on Wednesday in the fight to unseat video game leader Sony Corp., saying many consumers will choose to buy both of their machines for the price of one PlayStation 3.
The bad blood between Sony and Microsoft in the fight for dominance in the nearly $30 billion video game industry has escalated over the last few days, with both sides trading barbs at the E3 Expo, the video game industry’s annual trade show.
“Tell me why you would buy a $600 PS3?” Peter Moore, a Microsoft vice president, said in an interview. “People are going to buy two (machines.) They’re going to buy an Xbox and they’re going to buy a Wii … for the price of one PS3.”
$600 price tag is a bit high. The only advantage to the PS3 is that you get a full fledged blue ray player along with the console. In you are in the market for both then its not a bad deal. However if you only want the console then it is way over priced and personally I hope Sony falls on its face on this one.
ANd…
the upper end model, ALSO will be FULLY HD 1024p output…
Spending that kind of money for a Blu-Ray drive is nonsense. DVDs did not take off until the prices of the players got cheap. Now you can get a DVD player for 20 bucks.
So, it’s simply best to wait. And if Sony refuses to let Blu-Ray players get cheap, they’ll never dominate and they’ll be synonymous with the Beta. The next video format will not go to the best, it’ll go to the cheapest. That’s why I predict that Sony will lose this round.
Spending that kind of money for a Blu-Ray drive is nonsense.
Agreed.
Scary thing is, its a few hundred dollars less than some of the MSRP prices I’ve seen mentioned for Blu-ray [but maybe the $1000+ price is just for Pioneer’s upscale model?]
If sony keep pushing Blu-Ray as the reason for getting the system… it will die. Thats like pushing PC’s by saying “Hey! It’ll run Vista!”
Its an upgrade no-one cares about.
Nice to see Nintendo getting some good press at E3 – I’m a root for the underdog kinda guy, and they’re the only one really doing anything interesting with the next-gen consoles. That aside, no one mentions the huge base of people who own a PS1 or 2 – those people will really drive PS3 sales because it, and none of the other consoles, will play their old games. Might pick up Blu-Ray sales a bit as well … still, if Nintendo can do with the Wii what they did with the DS I see an increase in market share in their future.
There are a couple of advantages to the PS3. It will play all your old PS2 and PS1 games. XBOX 360 only plays some XBOX games, although the emulation upgrades are being made available as downloads on XBOX Live (a pay service) as they become available. Each upgrade has to be written specifically for each game so it may take a while. It is likely that many old games will never run on the XBOX 360.
Also, the PS3 online service is FREE! That is $70 to $80 bucks that you will save each and every year you own the machine when compared to the XBOX 360.
Finally, as mentioned previously, you get a BluRay disc player built in.
All in all, it is seems the PS3 is a not a bad deal, especially if you plan on using the online features for years to come and intend to use the HD-DVD feature. I expect M$’s XBOX Live fees will have to come way down to stay price competitive with the PS3 over the long haul.
“It will play all your old PS2 and PS1 games. “
It might. While the PS2 actually included PS1 hardware to play booth, the PS3 will play prior games with emulation. Thus, there is no certainty that it will work with every game.
And I’m not really sure what the big deal with backwards compatibility is anyway. If you have huge collection of PS2 games, you certainly have a PS2.
“Also, the PS3 online service is FREE! “
What Sony is doing is setting up a system where each individual game publisher can charge for network play. So, with the Xbox/360, you’re paying a single monthly fee for all games, with Sony you’re going to be paying multiple monthly fees to different publishers.
With an Xbox Live! account you can rent games and immediately get online with them. With the Sony, you’re probably going to be fumbling around for your credit card a lot.
“Finally, as mentioned previously, you get a BluRay disc player built in.”
And how is that a selling point?! The vast majority of people with HDTVs are not even watching HD content and they’re quite happy with the picture. Much like DVD-A and SACD, both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will be a niche market until the prices come WAY down. That’s several years from now, if ever. (It never came for either audio format!)
DVD players are ubiquitous almost entirely because they’re so darned cheap AND the content is so damn cheap. Do you really think that Blu-Ray movies are going to sell for 10 bucks at Walmart anytime soon?! And any videophile is not going to waste his time buying a console to watch movies on, he’s going to buy a real one. Those guys love spending extra money for crap like that.
People with too much money, too much time and no lives; debating the relative features and costs of electronic games. I guess the games are filler for their otherwise empty and pathetically dull existance.
Sounds like Wofford has some pent up rage. Why so angry, John? If this topic is so empty and dull, why are you reading it? Perhaps you should go read a book instead.
SN
I agree with you but something I found funny that not everyone may remember…
“So, it’s simply best to wait. And if Sony refuses to let Blu-Ray players get cheap, they’ll never dominate and they’ll be synonymous with the Beta. ”
…Sony created the betamax.
And don’t forget one important thing too:
IT’S A SONY BLU-RAY PLAYER.
That means that it will only read certian commercial products (probably ONLY sony products) it won’t read MP3s and if it does only the ones encoded by Sony, plus don’t forget that the hard drive will be ladden with rootkit DRM. Even worse, I wouldn’t be surprised that some games would have an expiration date and you won’t even be play them after a certain date.
IMO I’d rather wait for an el cheapo Jwin blu-ray player. It might not live as long as a Sony product. But I’d rather work the machine up than spend years with a big lump of plastic that won’t do anything at all.