Support NeoGAF

[titiklabingapat]

I just got an HDTV too but the cost to simply enjoy my TV, etc. is so much more than I anticipated. I'm not really surprised HD adoption, and by extension, Sony's blu ray and the PS3 is having a tough time resonating with consumers.

 

[Stinkles]

Horribly.

People:

ipod headphones
upscaled dvds
American cars
McDonalds
Tract homes

Gaf:

Grado cans.
Lossless HD Audio
Nissan Skyline GTRs
Kobe Beef
robertsan's waterfront condo full of hot bitches and self-idolatry.


Hurts, doesn't it?

 

[manueldelalas]

The fact that

-LittleBigPlanet
-Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
-Motorstorm: Pacific Rift
-Resistance 1 & 2
-Metal Gear Solid 4
-Warhawk
-wipEout HD
-Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
-PixelJunk Monsters & Eden

are all incredible pieces of software and exclusive to the PS3 should mean that the console does have a respectable games lineup.

Pfft, "mediocre" :lol

mmm you are beginning to sound just like Wii fans defending games on that console, really really similar...

Shitty article, clearly bad investigated, but... this is what people will read, the average person that don't see the difference between a blu-ray player and a dvd player.

Now I'll just quote something that came long ago in GAF:

"Now you know how it feels"

The Nintendo fans.

So true =P.

 

[Movement]

People:

ipod headphones
upscaled dvds
American cars
McDonalds
Tract homes

Gaf:

Grado cans.
Lossless HD Audio
Nissan Skyline GTRs
Kobe Beef
robertsan's waterfront condo full of hot bitches and self-idolatry.


Hurts, doesn't it?

Haha, so true so true.

 

[Barrett2]

Sony needs to fire who's in charge of their marketing, people barely know about their IP's. They dropped the ball with LBP by not releasing any merchandising or starting any pre-hype outside the internet. Nintendo's IP"s are this succesfull because back in the NES days Mario's face was on all kinds of products. Cereal, Mcdonalds, merchandising etc. There's Wii and DS product placement on all kinds of TV shows.

Microsoft did the same with the HALO franchise. Their advertising was so good that I bought HALO allthough I didn't care about the series at all and I'm still shocked that I actually got it at launch.

Starting an expensive marketing campaign for a new IP is a big investment, but it pays off when millions of 'fans' are ready toe buy the sequel. You'd think that after both PS1 and PS2, Sony knows how to market consoles and games.

Sony's holiday TV spots are horrible. A poorly lit street which has PS3 games playing in the reflection of windows? Those commercials are shit, the only thing it conveys to consumers is that the PS3 has driving and shooting games.... no kidding.

IMO, if Sony had a commercial in which a PS3 sat prominently against a white background, and a few Sackboys played on and around the actual system, maybe with props or something, and then the commercial conveyed a sense of online interaction with the Sackboys... something like this would actually be visually interesting, cute, accessible, and non-intimidating. Until Sony drops the 'generic racing game' playing in the background type of commercial and starts uniquely advertising their exclusive IP, they won't gain traction. Let alone the obscene Uncharted bundle. The last thing they should be doing is associating their system with an even higher price-point.

 

[Nizz]

Isn't this thread a bit redundant with 3 other sales threads around ?

LTTP here but exactly this. This doom and gloom regarding PS3 is getting tired...

 

[[Nintex]]

Sony's holiday TV spots are horrible. A poorly lit street which has PS3 games playing in the reflection of windows? Those commercials are shit, the only thing it conveys to consumers is that the PS3 has driving and shooting games.... no kidding.

IMO, if Sony had a commercial in which a PS3 sat prominently against a white background, and a few Sackboys played on and around the actual system, maybe with props or something, and then the commercial conveyed a sense of online interaction with the Sackboys... something like this would actually be visually interesting, cute, accessible, and non-intimidating. Until Sony drops the 'generic racing game' playing in the background type of commercial and starts uniquely advertising their exclusive IP, they won't gain traction.

Here in the Netherlands they suddenly stopped airing all the crappy LBP and other commercials and went with The Dark Knight Blu-Ray instead, showing some footage from the movie and the PS3. That might be a better marketing angle to sell the machine.

 

[RSTEIN]

The journalist is both right and wrong about the mediocre games library comment. On one hand, looking at metacritic scores, the PS3 DID have the best exclusive line up this year. This can't be debated. Of course it comes down to individual tastes, but let's go with it and say indeed the PS3 did out-exclusive the 360 this year.

However, looking at sales data, the journalist is right when saying that the PS3 doesn't have any must have exclusives. The fact is that aside from MGS4, which did move some consoles for a brief period, the PS3 hasn't been able to drum up any serious console moving exclusives when compared to the 360 and Wii. LBP failed to register in the top 20. Resistance 2, a solid follow up to Resistance 1, sold less than 500,000 units. These are high, high quality titles. AAA by any measure. Unfortunately the sales data indicates they're not the tentpole releases Sony hoped they would be.

 

[1-D_FTW]

Sony's holiday TV spots are horrible. A poorly lit street which has PS3 games playing in the reflection of windows? Those commercials are shit, the only thing it conveys to consumers is that the PS3 has driving and shooting games.... no kidding.

IMO, if Sony had a commercial in which a PS3 sat prominently against a white background, and a few Sackboys played on and around the actual system, maybe with props or something, and then the commercial conveyed a sense of online interaction with the Sackboys... something like this would actually be visually interesting, cute, accessible, and non-intimidating. Until Sony drops the 'generic racing game' playing in the background type of commercial and starts uniquely advertising their exclusive IP, they won't gain traction.

I've made this statement before too. Those are not commercials for a last place company. Those are commercials for when you're the market leader and you're just reinforcing your "cool" status.

If they have the exclusives that are truly system sellers, then bombard the air with reasons people need a PS3. Sledgehammers are needed, not subtlety. Not that advertising is their big problem, but they're sure not helping themselves any.

 

[Karma]

I was assuming he was talking about true upscaling via a player. Don't most HDTV's treat 480p content like shit?

It depends what scaler chip the display vs dvd player is using. I hope most $2000+ HDTV have better scaler chips than $99 DVD Upscalers. I know my TV does a great job.

That said I buy only Blu-Ray movies because I can see a difference and it would kill me not to have the better picture. Just not sure most other people would care about the difference.

 

[Ponn]

A lot of you guys seem to be forgetting the 40-90 dollar Upscaling DVD players being made now.

Why the hell would a person buy a Blu Ray player when they go into Best Buy and the guy in the DVD sections tells them that a DVD player at the fraction of the price can make the DVDs they already have look better?

I know personally, I'm not buying a Blu-Ray player until they massively drop in price and the Blu-Rays aren't a ridiculous price to rent at Blockbuster. I bought a 1080p Upscaling DVD player for my 42" and I couldn't be happier.

Because blu ray players are cheaper now, sub $200 and close to $100. Saying a "fraction of the price" is being generous.

And why spend between $50 and $100 bucks for a player when the next, better thing is already nearing that price. That's horribly wasteful spending.

 

[Thrakier]

Why care? I mean I can see why people cared the generations before this, but this generation won't see a real looser from the perspective of a gamer, just a clear winner (Nintendo). The bad PS3 sales, even if they stay that way (which they won't because there will be pricecuts) won't affect the game we'll play on it because of the market situation. Third Parties will going on with doing multiplat games because it's the best they can do to get money and both MS and Sony will go on creating some great 1st and 2nd Party Games. So why isn't everyon happy!?

 

[Opus Angelorum]

Burai is correct. We can argue the merits of the article and the intent of the writer forever and a day, the bigger issue is why it was created in the first place.

Within the confines of NeoGAF, criticism of the PS3 has no far-reaching consequence.

It is much more telling and concerning when the mainstream media feel it necessary to create such an article (even if it does show a lack of integrity/professionalism).

There is a negative perception surrounding the PS3, one which is clearly not an accurate reflection of both the actual platform and what it offers.

 

[The Librarian]

What's with everyone's butt getting hurt in this thread?

 

[Crayon Shinchan]

The PS3 is tanking in sales. There's no denying that.

But I'm not feeling hard done by the lack of sales. It still gets big exclusives, it's an excellent piece of hardware, take full advantage of it as a blu-ray player, confident that Sony won't be backing out of the industry altogether, and they continue to develop their PS platform.

It's a pity for them, that their big early missteps have cost them so dearly. But it doesn't seem to have affected me as a consumer that much. Other than having witness a storm of ignorant criticism, and twisted desire for schadenfreude from some fanboys.

If this generation is anything to go by, it's that the next is a new ballgame in consumer perception.

 

[[Nintex]]

The journalist is both right and wrong about the mediocre games library comment. On one hand, looking at metacritic scores, the PS3 DID have the best exclusive line up this year. This can't be debated. Of course it comes down to individual tastes, but let's go with it and say indeed the PS3 did out-exclusive the 360 this year.

However, looking at sales data, the journalist is right when saying that the PS3 doesn't have any must have exclusives. The fact is that aside from MGS4, which did move some consoles for a brief period, the PS3 hasn't been able to drum up any serious console moving consoles when compared to the 360 and Wii. LBP failed to register in the top 20. Resistance 2, a solid follow up to Resistance 1, sold less than 500,000 units. These are high, high quality titles. AAA by any measure. Unfortunately the sales data indicates they're not the tentpole releases Sony hoped they would be.

I think a console doesn't win if it has alot of games, instead you need one or two titles that people actually want to play and they should not be part of oversaturated markets. Resistance 2 is competing against a bunch of other FPS games. Mario Kart and Wii Sports however have no competition at all.

 

[CrunchinJelly]

What's with everyone's butt getting hurt in this thread?

Too many Ruby Murray's.

 

[gregor7777]

What's with everyone's butt getting hurt in this thread?

Bells tolling. There's a lot invested here.



The article is wrong in most things, except the title.

 

[Zoe]

It depends what scaler chip the display vs dvd player is using. I hope most $2000+ HDTV have better scaler chips than $99 DVD Upscalers. I know my TV does a great job.

That said I buy only Blu-Ray movies because I can see a difference and it would kill me not to have the better picture. Just not sure most other people would care about the difference.

The kind of people who wouldn't care aren't going to be the kind who buy $2000+ HDTV's :lol

 

[Kill Your Masters]

The bigger thing that this guy missed out on is that Sony still sells hundreds of thousands of PS2's each month, a stream of revenue that Microsoft abandoned when it moved to the 360. Sony also has a nice handheld division that Microsoft doesn't have. When you combine the sales from the 3 systems Sony has in the marketplace, they sold over 1,000,000 new systems in November. Microsoft sold 836,000.

Oh snap!

 

[Stinkles]

Too many Ruby Murray's.

Nice cuppa Rosie Lee.

 

[RSTEIN]

I think a console doesn't win if it has alot of games, instead you need one or two titles that people actually want to play and they should not be part of oversaturated markets. Resistance 2 is competing against a bunch of other FPS games. Mario Kart and Wii Sports however have no competition at all.

Yeah, you need certain tentpole titles on your console that capture the excitement and imagination of consumers. As I said above, the PS3 had the best suite of exclusives this year but for some reason none of them created any consumer excitement.

For some reason, Microsoft was there with Gears. Looking back, Gears 1 may be the single biggest game this generation. They really hit the nail on the head. Perfect timing, perfect advertising, and a good game to boot. I don't think the 360 would be where it is today without Gears. The big knockout punch came with Halo 3 but the knockout punch never could have been delivered without the Gears set up.

 

[dfyb]

the solid mid-year sales where they were outselling 360 make it pretty apparent that the PS3 has demand. it's all about the price. sony needed a significant price cut to stay competitive and they dropped the ball.

 

[Y2Kev]

360 is the applebees of food amirite!!!!!!!! oriental chicken salad for everyone!!!!!

 

[Karma]

The kind of people who wouldn't care aren't going to be the kind who buy $2000+ HDTV's :lol

Yeah, you are right about that.

Like to add that I also get Blu-Rays for the cool Blue semi-transparent case. Looks so cool. :lol

 

[Crayon]

sony needs a mascot.

 

[Lord Error]

A lot of you guys seem to be forgetting the 40-90 dollar Upscaling DVD players being made now.

Why the hell would a person buy a Blu Ray player when they go into Best Buy and the guy in the DVD sections tells them that a DVD player at the fraction of the price can make the DVDs they already have look better?

I know personally, I'm not buying a Blu-Ray player until they massively drop in price and the Blu-Rays aren't a ridiculous price to rent at Blockbuster. I bought a 1080p Upscaling DVD player for my 42" and I couldn't be happier.

I read somewhere that for the holiday month so far standalone BD players have sold more than upscaling DVD players actually. BD players are starting to be pretty cheap now, you could get one for $170-180 already, maybe even less on some deals, and I actually think it's finally beginning to work against the PS3 which was the cheapest option for this for the longest time.

Understatement of the Year

The MGS4 bundle was wildly popular. This bundle has been a massive flop. It's the SKU nobody asked for. Expect the bundle's price to be significantly reduced after the holidays because of retailers have stacks of this "limited bundle" left unsold.

A shame too. Instead of putting a great game in hands of more people, I bet they managed to make the whole thing seem somehow repulsive as a package. It would cost them next to nothing to just include the game with the regular 80GB and sell it at $400.

LBP failed to register in the top 20. Resistance 2, a solid follow up to Resistance 1, sold less than 500,000 units. These are high, high quality titles. AAA by any measure. Unfortunately the sales data indicates they're not the tentpole releases Sony hoped they would be.

LBP was #10 last month I think in NPD, but it's pretty safe to say that it didn't sell as much as Sony hoped it would.

 

[Automatisch]

"LittleBigPlanet" has generated decent buzz but isn't a game-changer, and neither is Sony's new virtual world "Home."

Seems like he couldn't think of a good word or phrase and just made this up. What the hell is a "game-changer"? He could have said system seller or something similar, and yet he uses this. And no, I have no idea why this of all things bothers me the most.

 

[Farnack]

People:

ipod headphones
upscaled dvds
American cars
McDonalds
Tract homes

Gaf:

Grado cans.
Lossless HD Audio
Nissan Skyline GTRs
Kobe Beef
robertsan's waterfront condo full of hot bitches and self-idolatry.


Hurts, doesn't it?

Yeah, people are stupid, and, no, it doesn't hurt to know I'm better than them. 8D

 

[gregor7777]

Seems like he couldn't think of a good word or phrase and just made this up. What the hell is a "game-changer"? He could have said system seller or something similar, and yet he uses this. And no, I have no idea why this of all things bothers me the most.

Hard to tell if you're being sarcastic. Maybe it's just an American phrase or something.

Game changer, changed the "game".

 

[Teddman]

I disagree with this bad "journalist" man, PS3 is not teh doom3d.

My reasons why:

1. I can see the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD on my 13" HDTV.

Thank you.

 

[RSTEIN]

LBP was #10 last month I think in NPD, but it's pretty safe to say that it didn't sell as much as Sony hoped it would.

Yeah, it broke the top 10 for October. I was referring to November NPD numbers.

 

[dralla]

I like how 1up has a story on the CNN story.

 

[sca2511]

i thought tekken 6 for 360 is different than the one for ps3. Plus Final Fantasy was on Nintendo first IRC

 

[[Nintex]]

i thought tekken 6 for 360 is different than the one for ps3. Plus Final Fantasy was on Nintendo first IRC

You don't think Namdai/Scamco will do an easy port?

 

[loosus]

Dunno about the rest of it, but the part about it having few must-have games is absolutely true. In my opinion, it has zero, but I think the general consensus (not at GAF, obviously) is that even if it has something that you might like, it just doesn't have enough.

It's a very GameCube-esque situation. Yeah, Super Smash Bros. Melee was a good game, but few people were going to buy a GameCube to buy just that one game, no matter how cheap the system got.

 

[kevm3]

The journalist is both right and wrong about the mediocre games library comment. On one hand, looking at metacritic scores, the PS3 DID have the best exclusive line up this year. This can't be debated. Of course it comes down to individual tastes, but let's go with it and say indeed the PS3 did out-exclusive the 360 this year.

However, looking at sales data, the journalist is right when saying that the PS3 doesn't have any must have exclusives. The fact is that aside from MGS4, which did move some consoles for a brief period, the PS3 hasn't been able to drum up any serious console moving exclusives when compared to the 360 and Wii. LBP failed to register in the top 20. Resistance 2, a solid follow up to Resistance 1, sold less than 500,000 units. These are high, high quality titles. AAA by any measure. Unfortunately the sales data indicates they're not the tentpole releases Sony hoped they would be.

Just going on the guys claim that you can hardly tell the difference between a Blu-Ray and a DVD on TVs less than 50 inches in size immediately tells me he has no idea what he's talking about.

Saying the PS3 library is mediocre is absurd, especially when it shares much of its library with the 360. The PS3 also has phenomenal exclusives. If he said the sales of PS3 software is mediocre, that would be one thing. Saying that the PS3 software lineup itself is mediocre is idiotic.

Also, what does sales have to do with not having any must-have exclusives? They aren't selling like hotcakes because Sony completely started sucking at marketing this generation around.

 

[chespace]

Certainly. But my wife cannot. And is mildly enraged when I buy or preferentially rent Blu Rays.

I'm waiting for someone in this thread to call your wife a "blind fucktard troll".

 

[H_Prestige]

Understatement of the Year

The MGS4 bundle was wildly popular. This bundle has been a massive flop. It's the SKU nobody asked for. Expect the bundle's price to be significantly reduced after the holidays because of retailers have stacks of this "limited bundle" left unsold.

That's my point. They need to put ps2 BC in.

 

[dork]

I just want to point out that we haven't sold 1 ps3 since the first week of november, at my gamestop. Not 1 uncharted bundle either. THe same goes for 8 other gamestops around me.

 

[loosus]

The PS3 also has phenomenal exclusives. If he said the sales of PS3 software is mediocre, that would be one thing. Saying that the PS3 software lineup itself is mediocre is idiotic.

Why? Because you don't think it's mediocre? What kinda fucking stupid logic is that?

 

[lsslave]

Troll : The nice thing of the PS3 over the 360 is that I was able to buy a USED launch console (YAY BC ) and am not worried about it dying on me whenever I play it /Troll

Much better argument than just pointing out the games guys, if your that defensive

Blu Ray is beautiful but it is frivolous compared to the jump from VHS to DVD which gave us a small disc that doesn't just get its insides pulled out from the player, chapter selection, etc.

In all honesty I love my PS3, I was going to get a 360 but most games are multi-plat and with The Last Remnant coming to PS3 there is nothing on the system to drag me to the 360 except Fable 2 which doesn't seem enough for a console anyhow

The fact of the matter remains though, the Wii has universal appeal and many great games and many more great upcoming games, and the good ones are all exclusive games

the 360 MS are willing to take losses on and sell it incredibly cheap

The ONLY savior the PS3 has at this point is a massive price cut, 300$ PS3s will sell ridiculously well because the 100 dollar gap between it and the 360 Arcade will make it seem like a much better deal (don't get me wrong, all the features that come with the PS3 makes it worth 400 to someone like me, not so much to the average person)

I will say looking at the game sales thread... the PS3 sells a lot of titles considering its install base, and they do have the EU regions and JP regions over 360 still (although they need to get off their asses and focus on some JRPGs before the Japanese finally take the 360)

but 800K on a smaller install base still looks worse than 1.2-1.5 million on a HUGE install base, if they can match the 360s install base and keep the same sale ratio THEN they would be doing great

 

[chespace]

Why? Because you don't think it's mediocre? What kinda fucking stupid logic is that?

It is the logic of Snah and Private Hoffman.

 

[Warm Machine]

Just going on the guys claim that you can hardly tell the difference between a Blu-Ray and a DVD on TVs less than 50 inches in size immediately tells me he has no idea what he's talking about.

Its about distance from the viewing source. On my 52 inch 1080p TV at a 10 foot viewing distance I can barely tell. Any closer and it becomes more and more obvious. A DVD on this 22inch monitor I'm looking into right now looks awful, a 1080p movie on it looks amazing but I'm two feet away from it.

 

[RadarScope1]

Just going on the guys claim that you can hardly tell the difference between a Blu-Ray and a DVD on TVs less than 50 inches in size immediately tells me he has no idea what he's talking about.

Again, he's not saying YOU can't tell a difference, or even that HE can't tell a difference, he's saying that Joe Average Wal-Mart can't tell enough of a difference to drop a few hundred bucks on a BD player or PS3.

 

[Zoe]

Why? Because you don't think it's mediocre? What kinda fucking stupid logic is that?

Considering the vast majority of games on the system are multi-platform, saying the PS3 has a mediocre line-up is also saying that the 360 has a mediocre line-up.

 

[kevm3]

Why? Because you don't think it's mediocre? What kinda fucking stupid logic is that?

Do you even have a PS3? So games like Metal Gear Solid 4, Siren Little Big Planet, Resistance 2, Motorstorm 2, etc., are all mediocre titles? How is the PS3's lineup mediocre when it also shares much of the 360's lineup as well? I guess the 360's lineup is mediocre as well, right? The opinion that the PS3 lineup is mediocre is about as heavy on substance as your post is.

 

[Zoe]

Again, he's not saying YOU can't tell a difference, or even that HE can't tell a difference, he's saying that Joe Average Wal-Mart can't tell enough of a difference to drop a few hundred bucks on a BD player or PS3.

Too bad no one seems to care about hi-def DVDs. The differences between Blu-Ray and DVD are hard to see on a TV less than 50".

No mention of Joe Average there.

 

[Dunlop]

Being mainstream media, the real kicker of this article is that it happened before x-mas. It could have a direct impact on the holiday sales for last minute shoppers or people who after reading this just return the unit.

Sony just can't buy a break

 

[lsslave]

No mention of Joe Average there.

Zoe you've been on GAF long enough, by now you should know

Selective reading allows him to pretend he is winning an argument