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AndrewB

PlayStation 3 launches explosively into Europe

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http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2007/03/23/playstation_3_gets_off_to_a_feeble_start_in_australia_media_exposed.html

Desperate producers unashamedly asked the crowd to fake excitement when the cameras were rolling, while a team from 2Day FM let out bogus cheers to convince their radio listeners that a launch extravaganza was underway.


http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/gadgets_and_gaming/article1558263.ece

In Paris only about 50 people turned out to buy the 1,000 PS3s that went on sale at a ceremonial launch at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower.

At the Myers Department store in Sydney just 65 eager gamers queued for four hours to take the first devices away at midnight – barely outnumbering store staff and publicists.


http://www.playfuls.com/news_06689_PS3s_French_Debut_A_Total_Disaster_95_of_Consoles_Left_Unsold.html

Yesterday, in the evening before the launch (March 22) more than 200 journos gathered underneath the Eiffel Tower, but soon realized something was wrong: the streets around the tower were empty, and, as the time passed by, Sony officials began to worry. A little late, I might add…

The only faithful French fans of Sony are truly amazed to find themselves alone (in the dark…). Serge, 31, tries to come up with an explanation: “It’s true that it’s expensive, but with a HD player, it’s worth it”. Frank, 19, who’s been waiting for more than 7 hours, begins to feel the regret: “I’m disappointed, there’s nobody here. I could have waited tomorrow [March 23]. Moreover, they’ve promised us animations and nothing happens”.



Sony's official launch in London was even more awesome. Some are reporting that they actually managed to sell more than 100 systems at the event, although this could be attributed in part to the one-day special: Buy a PS3, and we'll throw in a $4k TV.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13255

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Man, this generation of consoles isn't doing so well. PS3 is flopping, the Wii's gimmick is starting to wear thin, and Xbox 360 sales aren't too hot either (not to mention the bugs due to the rushed development).

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Dr. Zin said:

, the Wii's gimmick is starting to wear thin,

I don't really think the Wiis gimmick is wearing thin, I think they just need to get more titles out there, more full games and less minigame stuff. And definetly release some of their promised titles. HEAR THAT NINTENDO, FINISH UP WITH METROID PRIME 3!

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Dr. Zin said:

Man, this generation of consoles isn't doing so well. PS3 is flopping, the Wii's gimmick is starting to wear thin,

Umm it's friggin' near April and it's still sold out everywhere.

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Dr. Zin said:

Man, this generation of consoles isn't doing so well. PS3 is flopping, the Wii's gimmick is starting to wear thin, and Xbox 360 sales aren't too hot either (not to mention the bugs due to the rushed development).

This is a bogus statement. As andrewb said, wii's are still sold out practically everywhere; every time they come in they're snatched up. The xbox 360 has a full year ahead of the other guys, so they're not expected to be selling an asston of units right now. Your observation is purely speculative and hollow at best.

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Even more expensive than it's US counterpart, and lacking full backwards compatibility, it's not surprising the PS3 has pretty much fallen on it's face in Europe. It's too bad .. I really wanted to see the PS3 succeed, but it seems Sony has hamstrung itself 10 times over.

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Mancubus II said:

This is a bogus statement. As andrewb said, wii's are still sold out practically everywhere; every time they come in they're snatched up. The xbox 360 has a full year ahead of the other guys, so they're not expected to be selling an asston of units right now. Your observation is purely speculative and hollow at best.


Well, considering the PS2 sold more units in 2006 than the Xbox 360...

As to the Wii: Reading reviews of the next set of titles coming out, it seems that developers are putting out rehashed games and hoping the novelty of the controls will sell them. You can't do that indefinitely.

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udderdude said:

Even more expensive than it's US counterpart, and lacking full backwards compatibility, it's not surprising the PS3 has pretty much fallen on it's face in Europe. It's too bad .. I really wanted to see the PS3 succeed, but it seems Sony has hamstrung itself 10 times over.

The ps3 indeed is really wearing thin of it's title. Besides Resistance, what else isn't exclusive to that system? Capcom just confirmed work of DMC4 on the 360, along with Virtua Fighter 5. Konami has been talking about putting MGS4 on the 360 as well. GTA4, also 360. Playstation is the new Dreamcast folks, and until they start getting a great game lineup like they did with the ps2, they won't be selling too high. One thing that would make me buy a ps3(only to trade it back in after doing so) is if God of War III was in development, and released it when a price-drop occurs.

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Dr. Zin said:

Well, considering the PS2 sold more units in 2006 than the Xbox 360...

As to the Wii: Reading reviews of the next set of titles coming out, it seems that developers are putting out rehashed games and hoping the novelty of the controls will sell them. You can't do that indefinitely.

The Wii has one heck of a game drought laid out for 2007. So does the PS3. In fact, so has basically every game system had in its first year and a half of sales a game drought.

And let's not overlook the fact that developers like EA initially put way more confidence in the PS3's selling ability than what was perhaps deserved. Now that devs are realizing that this was a massive mistake, they're scrambling to switch over to the Wii. Given the 18 months it usually takes to make a good game, Nintendo can expect the flood of quality titles to come in around fall '08.

Until then, there's MP3, Galaxy, Strikers, Brawl, Alien Syndrome, Paper, Hammer, Sadness, Kombat, Disaster etc to help fill in the gaps.

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Glassyman said:

PS3 seems to be a great console, but I think the games aren't so good.

It's not that, I don't think anyone is willing to shell out $500 for a console, especally when compared to the price of the Wii.

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Why is it everyone always seems to overlook the Ratchet & Clank series? The first three had awesome gameplay, and they all sold by the bucket load. Yet the fact a new Ratchet & Clank game is coming and it's exclusive to the PS3 always seems to be forgotten when people are complaining/bragging about the lack of PS3 exclusives.

Besides, are there even any decent XBox 360 exclusives out this year, other than Halo 3 and Mass Effect? I can think of plenty of other awesome games coming out on that system (Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, C&C: Tiberium Wars, GTA IV, Jericho, Mercenaries 2, Starwars: Force Unleashed, etc), but they're all also coming to the PC and/or PS3.

As for the Wii, I think the main reason it's suffering from a lack of games ATM is because companies can't easily port recent/current games from other systems to it. Those that do will by neccessity have to be heavily stripped down, making it a clear choice for us consumers of better graphics versus Wiimote. Most publishers currently seem to think that the majority of gamers are more interested in amazing graphics than they are awesome gameplay, so it is up to us to prove them wrong. (Note that I specifically said publishers; many developers would love to focus more on the gameplay side of things, but unfortunately they're usually not the ones in charge of the financial decision making).

Of course, altering the engine so the game is playable on a less powerful system costs the developer a considerable amount of extra time, resources, and money, hence the reason ports are so rare. The Wii is going to have to mainly rely on exclusives, and with publishers preferring more-and-more to develop games on two or more systems simultaneously, it doesn't look too good.

That said, we do eventually have Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles 2, Metroid Prime 3, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, and Super Mario Galaxy to look forward to. Plus if the total number of Wiis sold ever surpasses the combined number of 360s and PS3s (which could easily happen), it'll force more publishers to focus their attention on the developing Wii exclusives instead of multiplatform games.

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Csonicgo said:

Hahaha. Sony sucks.

Sony produces many reliable, highly ranked products.

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I don't think the stupidity of a $600 game console can even come close to that of a $600 video card.

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GGG said:

Sony produces many reliable, highly ranked products.


like those three stereos I bought that broke within 3 months? consecutively? 9 months of hell.
like that Playstation I bought that broke due to a bad CD-ROM? that was just a fluke.
How about that time I bought a walkman that couldn't play MP3s without sound "glitches"?
Or that Sony Viao that I bought that had no SSE support ( it was intentionally blocked), had heating issues, and where the battery lasted 15 minutes Brand new?

At least it didn't explode like the recent Sony batteries did!

Sony is truly like no other(tm)!

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And now the really stupid question:

Why should I spend $600 on a gaming console when I can buy a decent PC for $100 more?

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The PS3 isn't about gaming. It's about getting Blu-ray players and movies into as many hands as possible along with whatever media exposure Blu-ray gets. Once Blu-ray "defeats" HD-DVD anyone that wants to make a movie or just a disk has to pay Sony. This is where they plan to make their money. If the PS3 fails as a gaming console, but HD-DVD dies, Sony will still consider it a win.

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GGG said:

Sony produces many reliable, highly ranked products.

For me, I prefer quality in the products I buy. I have noticed that Nintendo products can easily survive a 3-5 foot drop and still function fine, I know this because I have been rather clumsy at times when transporting them.

Sony products however, seem to have a hard time staying in one piece from standard use:

-My Sony stereo is slowly falling apart piece by piece so much that I just sits in the corner of my room.
-Every Sony VHS player we've had eats tapes after about a year. None of the other brands of ours have done that.
-Sony dvd player stopped mounting dvds correctly so my dad got a drill and installed a coat hanger you have to pull to lift the dvd into position.
-Sony cd player is so sensitive that pressing the play button will cause it to skip.
-Sony computer monitor has a severe tearing problem.
-Sony television broke the day we bought it and we had to take it back to Sears to get another one.

...so Sony either is showing the consumer how much they care about their them by selling fragile crap or they have a great business model by selling easily breakable products to force the consumer to keep buying more Sony products... but I'm leaning more towards the former.

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I actually got a chance to play the Wii recently. I had a lot of fun... but I do get the impression violently swinging the controllers might become a real chore. I have a bad shoulder and certain movement gives me searing pains (like raising my arm to write on whiteboards). I ended up trying to play the Wii sports bowling with my left arm to compensate (hilariously, I went REAL bowling later that night and had to bowl with my left arm as well). I can't imagine having to swing wildly for every motion in a game, I understand you can just flick the controller, but it doesn't seem to be very effective in some games. I really just prefer to sit down and hold a controller to play games.

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I find it kind of funny that everyone rushes to get a PS3 upon release when there are no particular good titles out. Most launch titles, imo, suck ass.

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Bungleist said:

Why is it everyone always seems to overlook the Ratchet & Clank series? The first three had awesome gameplay, and they all sold by the bucket load. Yet the fact a new Ratchet & Clank game is coming and it's exclusive to the PS3 always seems to be forgotten when people are complaining/bragging about the lack of PS3 exclusives.


Animal characters don't sell game consoles anymore. Yes, the games are fun, but they weren't exactly system sellers and they certainly didn't sell by the bucket load (they all just barely became Greatest Hits titles). Plus, that's one game.

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DoomDan said:

It's not that, I don't think anyone is willing to shell out $500 for a console, especally when compared to the price of the Wii.


In New Zealand the price is $1200!

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Even accounting for currency differences that is a pretty raw deal.

(1200 NZD = 852.48 USD)

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Bungleist said:

Most publishers currently seem to think that the majority of gamers are more interested in amazing graphics than they are awesome gameplay, so it is up to us to prove them wrong. (Note that I specifically said publishers; many developers would love to focus more on the gameplay side of things, but unfortunately they're usually not the ones in charge of the financial decision making).

This is true. I don't like how they put more effort into the "shiny" factor rather than the actual content and gameplay. While the PS3 does cost a lot of money, I don't believe that to be the sole reason why it's not selling so well. I think it's because not many gamers give a damn if their consoles are powerful enough to do backflips, nor do they want to take a chance and shell out the extra cash for a disc format (Blu-ray) that will probably never make it.
Hopefully, by looking at the Wii and PS3, publishers will eventually see what really sells games.

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