Sony's Lies

[XPCportables]

It's not that hard to manufacture, they just underestimated, and besides, Blu-Ray discs are cheap to make, they are within 10% of dvd production costs. I think that the Blu-Ray will succeed not because of the PS3, but because of the 360. With hddvd being an add on option, I doubt it will sell very well to the masses, but every PS3 owner will have a blu-ray. so I think that from microsoft's lack of strong Hd-DVD support that the Blu-Ray will succeed

[Triton]

its both, sony underestimated and it is more complex to manufacture than a red diode. considering that sony delayed their own standalone BD player till after the release of the ps3 and the fact that current BD players (pre ps3) cost a thousand dollars versus the less than 800 of HDdvd players i would lean towards agreeing with atari2600a there

[vskid]

PS I wouldnt buy a PS3 if someone had a gun to my head

You would die if you got the PS3, of starvation!

[Sparkfist]

MORE OFF TOPIC: Speaking of Sony, I now think the Blu-Ray format will go the way of the Betamax. Reasons: Price & the availability of players. Think about it, if that blue diode is so hard to manufacture, then how much players do you think will get to the masses?

Well irony is a funny thing as Sony is the key reason that BetaMax died. Sony made a rival format that fix the big issue everyone had with BetaMax, the time format. This format is known to us all as VHS.

More to the point both formats suffer price difficulties, and really they offer little to nothing over the previous format. So you can see that fine stuble on a guys chin or some over kill detail like that. DVD quality is more then enough, hell most TVs that DVD player are connected to don't even meet the resolution qually. So until there is a real feature that can be offered they both will do nothing but stagnate.

It's not that hard to manufacture, they just underestimated, and besides, Blu-Ray discs are cheap to make, they are within 10% of dvd production costs. I think that the Blu-Ray will succeed not because of the PS3, but because of the 360. With hddvd being an add on option, I doubt it will sell very well to the masses, but every PS3 owner will have a blu-ray. so I think that from microsoft's lack of strong Hd-DVD support that the Blu-Ray will succeed

Where to start. First blue lasers are not very cheap and easy to make as say a red or green. This is the key reason that the next gen, perticularly the Blue-Ray is expensive. Second is that you may be dealing with the same type of materials, namely the plastic for the disc, aluminum reflactive surface, and varnish protective coating. This doesn't mean that the price is the same.

Blue-Ray ustilized a process of recording the data closer to the surface, really to improve dual layer later down the road, but they also claim that this will inhance readin the information. Further much like the issues they had to work out with going from CD to DVD, you're making a 7 fold incread on the density of the information. That is not an easy technical feat.

Finally does anyone think that Sony would deliberatly cripple themselves when they're going to launch the new system? No if htey had all the manufacturing problems hammered out they would have something like 750,000+ units for the U.S. launch. The PS2 launch showed them that the U.S. market can't be predicted by the Japanese market.

[benheck]

You know, it's kind of expensive, but the games DO look good and the PS3 is probably capable of some cool stuff. There's talk of downloading PS1 games off the Sony service and then Wi-Fi-ing them to your PSP. That's pretty killer. If they made some sort of "PS1 game ripper" off the original discs there'd be a mad rush on PSP's in stores.

And although you CAN'T turn the system on with the controller (I can see Jones' eyes rolling now it does use an internal PSU, unlike the Wii or the 360 and is allegedly pretty quiet (unlike the 360)

So, there's no doubt it's gonna be a slick machine. They just won't meet demand for quite a while. Once they do, it could really take off.

I've been reading about Commodore and looking up old computers in general lately. Those old suckers sold for $600 in 1979 / 1983 dollars, and people bought them like mad. Inflation adjusted, the PS3 is a lot less, so if it can whiz-bang people they'll buy it, price be damned.

(insert comment about iPods costing 5 times as much as CD walkmans here)

EOM

[Triton]

i agree with your points sparkfist but JVC made VHS not sony lol

[CronoTriggerfan]

There's talk of downloading PS1 games off the Sony service and then Wi-Fi-ing them to your PSP.

Wonder where $ony got THAT idea. C'mon, Ben; you rip on the Wii's virtual console, let's at least be consistent with our accusations. Although transfer to PSP would be neat, I don't know if that's a service that Sony would hand out for free, especially if they're talking about charging money for demos. And I bet Nintendo'll have a similar feature when the DS hooks up to the Wii, as that's the one side of development they've kept fairly quiet about. Hey, Sony's been copying Nintendo since the beginning, I think it's time they repaid the favor!

CTFan

[jones]

I'm sorry jones but the Xbox can do 720p and 1080i, here is a list of xbox1 games and their supported resolutions http://www.hdtvarcade.com/hdtvforum/ind ... age=xboxef

Hmmm... Interesting. I've never heard of this before and as far as I'm aware there is no place on the Xbox to set the resolution any higher than 480p... Odd.

I wonder if these are BC games and they have been played on the 360 and the person was able to display them in the higher resolutions on the 360 without issue perhaps? Just taking a stab at this.

Unfortunately I don't have any of the games listed or I could try it out on my dust enshrouded original Xbox.

Thanks for the tip though!

[jones]

You know, it's kind of expensive, but the games DO look good and the PS3 is probably capable of some cool stuff. There's talk of downloading PS1 games off the Sony service and then Wi-Fi-ing them to your PSP. That's pretty killer. If they made some sort of "PS1 game ripper" off the original discs there'd be a mad rush on PSP's in stores.

And although you CAN'T turn the system on with the controller (I can see Jones' eyes rolling now it does use an internal PSU, unlike the Wii or the 360 and is allegedly pretty quiet (unlike the 360)

So, there's no doubt it's gonna be a slick machine. They just won't meet demand for quite a while. Once they do, it could really take off.

I've been reading about Commodore and looking up old computers in general lately. Those old suckers sold for $600 in 1979 / 1983 dollars, and people bought them like mad. Inflation adjusted, the PS3 is a lot less, so if it can whiz-bang people they'll buy it, price be damned.

(insert comment about iPods costing 5 times as much as CD walkmans here)

EOM

Ben, Ben, Ben...

You, yourself have ripped on the quality of the PS1 games! Do you really think anybody would care about being able to download Madden 98 and then wi-fi'ing (that's an abomination of the english language if I've ever seen one) to their PSP, or Ridge Racer or most any other PS1 game for that matter? I find it highly unlikely. I don't know of anyone who plays PS1 games anymore (which can be done on the PS2)... Maybe someone on these boards does...

The problem Sony has, is that there are very few games in their library that people would be nostalgic for (Microsoft has the same problem). They are both still relatively new gaming companies (Microsoft especially), so this is an area where Nintendo does have the upper hand. People do get nostalgic about Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc. and that is why people will use the Virtual Console even if it may be a little pricey in my opinion. I loved the PS1 when it was out, but I can't think of 1 game for that I could not live without, or would even care to download. I'm sure I'm not alone. Sony would be better off following Microsoft's model, where they take classics like Pac-Man, Frogger, Doom, SF2, and update them with some online functionality and then make them available for download. This has been very successful, because these are 10+ year old games that people like me remember playing when they were young and so they want to experience them again after being away from them for many years. Those games connected with us on some level and that's why they're still popular.

I'm not a Sony hater (although I question some of their tactics I.E. the subject of the original post), but I look at this as a last minute, half-assed attempt on their part to provide downloadable content akin to what MS has and what Nintendo will have. No dice Sony. Try harder next time.

That said, I do agree that the 360 is a bit on the noisy side (**gasp** Jones said something negative about the 360 ) and hopefully this will be corrected in future builds of the system. I think it is a little foolish on Sony's part not to have the ability to power on the system from the controller. It's not a feature that will impact someone's decision to buy the system, but it is a very nice feature that I can attest to firsthand. Also, this is another feature that both MS and Nintendo will have.

In the end though the PS3 will sell over time and based on screenshots and whatnot someo of the games do look gorgeous, but as with the Wii we'll have to see how the final product holds up (just a few weeks away now!) to make any final statements on the subject.

When the dust settles, in a few years, I will probably own all 3 systems. It happened in the previous gen, so it will probably happen in the next.

[jones]

I found this interesting tidbit today regarding the PS3 wireless controller courtesy of the following article.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/612542 ... ck=topslot

However, you won't be able to replace the controller battery. If the rechargeable battery ever dies, you'll have to buy a new controller or send the dead one back to Sony for replacement. We're guessing it'll take several years before the battery dies, so let's hope we've all moved on to the PlayStation 4 by then. Sixaxis wireless PS3 controllers will sell for $50.

On the one hand I commend them for including the rechargeable battery with the controller (unlike Microsoft), but it is pretty sad that they chose not to make it a component that could be swapped out when it fails.

[totokan]

Nice triple-posting right there.
In reply to that third one about the battery, I'm sure it's easily hacked off and replaced, as Sony uses standard phillips heads on their controllers.

[jones]

Nice triple-posting right there.
In reply to that third one about the battery, I'm sure it's easily hacked off and replaced, as Sony uses standard phillips heads on their controllers.

My apologies. I had a lot to say.

Is there a better way?

I guess we'll have to wait and see on the controller thing. They'll probably pull some proprietary BS like all of these companies do. It probably will be possible, but the complexity of what it will take to do it will be the question.

[SpongeBuell]

Nice triple-posting right there.
In reply to that third one about the battery, I'm sure it's easily hacked off and replaced, as Sony uses standard phillips heads on their controllers.

My apologies. I had a lot to say.

Is there a better way?

It's preferred that you kind of double (or even triple) up a bit. Quote the person, insert comments. Repeat. You can always copy what they are saying below, and add the quoting stuff yourself. In your case it's not quite as bad, in my opinion, since that would make for a long ass post. Sometimes people will ask a question, then add on to their question (literally) about 2 minutes later, even though they can just as easily edit the post. That's the reason people sometimes frown upon doing that stuff.

[jones]

Nice triple-posting right there.
In reply to that third one about the battery, I'm sure it's easily hacked off and replaced, as Sony uses standard phillips heads on their controllers.

My apologies. I had a lot to say.

Is there a better way?

It's preferred that you kind of double (or even triple) up a bit. Quote the person, insert comments. Repeat. You can always copy what they are saying below, and add the quoting stuff yourself. In your case it's not quite as bad, in my opinion, since that would make for a long ass post. Sometimes people will ask a question, then add on to their question (literally) about 2 minutes later, even though they can just as easily edit the post. That's the reason people sometimes frown upon doing that stuff.

I see. Thanks for the feedback Spongebuell! I'll keep it in mind for future posts.

[XPCportables]

http://gaming.engadget.com/2006/10/20/s ... controlle/

and this article shows that Sony will replace them when they do die, free of charge.

Oh and BTW Ben and Jones, the Ps3 can be powered on by the controller. check the second video, they show them using the controller to turn it on.
http://www.psm3mag.com/page/psm3?entry=ps3_movies_here