Console Lineup: The Year Ahead

[Strazos]

Where are these people that spend $600 on graphics cards? Certainly not anyone I know.

[stray]

I'm sure there's a few here that you know.

Doesn't matter though.


This whole line of argument (not necessarily from you, but in general) about what someone "needs" or "doesn't need" for gaming is pure bullshit. We don't need to even play games at all. It's a total money waster no matter what you spend for it.

[Strazos]

Let me jump in and say I can agree with that before this threads turns towards the truly moronic.

[stray]

Cool.


Lets see if I can get this back on track with a Tekken 6 trailer (not sure who's hotter -- Zafina or Leo?).


And umm, this Conan console game (which will more than likely be more fun than that MMO).

[Velorath]

Gametrailers has the first part of their interview with Jaffe up.  Not much of note (other than watching Jaffe be Jaffe), but presumably the next part will get into Calling All Cars a bit.

[HaemishM]

When these 2 issues are yesterday's news, and the machine drops to, say AU$250-300 then I'll no doubt buy one. It'll happen eventually, as it has happened for every other console to date, and in that time the software library will expand and mature, and there'll be some fantastic games (whatever the cream of the crop is right now) for dirt cheap, while others will be into their second or third iteration (ie FIFA 2009 will include all of the teams in the world, as well as hi-def creases in uniforms and Ronaldhino's horse teeth) so there's no need to stress.

Not willing to pay it now? Fine. Buy it later.

And that's what I'm talking about. When the PS3 is what I consider a good value (around $250-$300) and a shitload of games. By that time, there will also be a clearcut winner in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format wars, which probably won't matter much in the purchase of the machine because the standalone players will be cheap enough to buy as well. By that time, the newest version of the X-Box will be out, with a hi-def DVD drive of whichever format wins, and will likely be more money than I want to spend.

But right now, I'm being told that I MUST have Blu-Ray storage capacity for games (which isn't true) and that I MUST pay the premium price for it. The reason I'm being told this is because Sony wants Blu-Ray to win the MOVIE FORMAT wars, which has fuckall to do with games. You'll forgive me if I, as a gamer on a budget, resent being used that way in a pawn for a market war that I really don't give a shit about. I might be more inclined to not be a dick towards the format wars if I could pay a small ($5 or less) fee to trade-in the legal DVD's I own for new spiffy Blu-Ray/HD-DVD versions. But being expected to pay AGAIN for the same movies in a new format as well as having a $600 console shoved down my throat by the Sony overlords sticks in my craw.

Blu-Ray is NOT absolutely necessary to the creation of hi-def games (as evidenced by the 360). Disc-swapping is not a dealbreaker for me when it comes to a game; if the game is worth it, I WILL get up and switch discs. Hell, not having hi-def isn't a dealbreaker for me, since I still enjoy my X-Box and my Wii games and won't pay $600 for a new graphics card for my PC.

[stray]

BD already is the winner Haem. It's been consistently outselling hd-dvd since the PS3 came out (hardware and disc wise), and has already had a movie that hit the 10 ten DVD sales charts. Which is pretty much the nail in the coffin, if anything.


Not saying you should get one or anything. Holding off for price drops and more titles is perfectly reasonable. But saying you're going to wait to see who wins hd disc format wars is silly.

[Azazel]

Well, I understand your point, but who's telling you that YOU MUST embrace Blu-Ray at a premium price? Stray is a mild fanboi for the PS2, but he's not trying to make you (or me, or Strazos) buy the thing so much as defend his purchase for him. Even schild's comment was something along the lines of "if you're cereal about games you will buy one eventually". Not for you right now? Cool, same here.

I mean, I resent the Sony-proprietry-format-movie-player thing as well, and would like to see both of the new formats fail dismally in the near-term. Even so, that's all meaningless for the moment and irrelevent to the points here.


You seem to be taking umbrage at being expected to go out and buy your entire DVD collection again on new shiny formats.. except.. well..  who said anything about that, anyway? They're both trying to be teh wave of teh future, and good for them. Doesn't mean you have to go toss your old copy of Scarface in the trash and buy it again on Blu-Ray anymore than the last special edition DVD of Scarface made you need to throw your initial release DVD in the bin..

I'm not seeing any MUST here at all. Even from Sony.

?

[schild]

Every 5 to 7 years, this happens in the gaming industry. Every 5 to 7 years, one console is more expensive than the others. Every 5 to 7 years, one of them launches earlier than the other ones. Every 5 to 7 years, a bunch of people gnash about how expensive things are and say things like "THEY'RE FORCING ME, WHY IS MICROSOFT EVEN PUTTING OUT A CONSOLE?"

Get over it.

[MrHat]

I wish every 5-7 years my income would increase 50%.

[Yegolev]

Sorry, watched the R&C video, and all I could do is shrug. Sorry, but I don't see how that makes an argument for BD.

I felt Captain Quark summed it up nicely.  I'm psyched.  If you haven't played any of the R&C games, I can see how you might not understand and quite possibly think that R&C is like Sly Cooper or Mario, however I am confident that the creativity of Insomniac can be brought to bear more fully on my brain if they have more storage and processing power.  Also, I won't have to get up off of the sofa.  I paid $600 so I would not have to pry my ass off of the sofa to power on my console, I don't want to fucking do it to swap discs.

Am I imagining things, or did Sony produce the CD and DVD standards?

[schild]

Can't speak for CD, but they sure as hell made DVD the juggernaut it is with the PS2.

[Yegolev]

Ah, I was unclear on DVD, apparently it was a by-committee design.  CD, since I was assed to look, was a joint development between Sony and Philips.

I remember that I had a laserdisc player when I got that PS2.  I think I am sad that I don't have that The Good, The Bad and The Ugly laserdisc anymore, but the DVD version makes the hurt go away.

[Azazel]

Can't speak for CD, but they sure as hell made DVD the juggernaut it is with the PS2.

It helped, particularly in parts of Europe, but I don't think the PS2 can "take credit" for the massive uptake of DVD.


Not sure how successful either of these formats are going to be in the near-term, to be quite honest. I'm not sure the world at large is ready to upgrade from DVD for quite some time.

[Trippy]

Can't speak for CD, but they sure as hell made DVD the juggernaut it is with the PS2.

It helped, particularly in parts of Europe, but I don't think the PS2 can "take credit" for the massive uptake of DVD.

It can in Japan.

[Roac]

It helped, particularly in parts of Europe, but I don't think the PS2 can "take credit" for the massive uptake of DVD.


Not sure how successful either of these formats are going to be in the near-term, to be quite honest. I'm not sure the world at large is ready to upgrade from DVD for quite some time.

DVD: Launched in (late) '96.  Around 46 million drives sold by 2000, when the PS2 was launched.

Blu-Ray: Launched in '03.  Around 3 million PS3s sold by now ('07), when the PS3 was launched.  Most sites are saying the majority of Blu-Ray players are tied up in PS3s, but even trippling the number shows the uptake isn't as quick as it was with DVD.

Given roughly the same period to mature, Blu-Ray is lagging well behind where DVD was at.  I think a lot of that is cost; you really need to upgrade your TV to make any use of it with many people finding it difficult to do one let alone both.  They are and they want to, it's just taking more time.  Another is that there's a format war this time, whereas with DVDs, Sony gave up their format very early on meaning there was only one standard.  The third is that there isn't as noticable a jump in features to the general public when going from VHS -> DVD as DVD -> Blu-Ray. 

Blu-Ray also hasn't matured quite in the same fashion as DVD, so it's not all apples to apples; DVDs had been circulated in the US much longer than Blu-Rays have.  The PS2 didn't introduce DVD in either Japan or the US; the PS3 effectively introduced it to the US and somewhat so for Japan (from low Blu-Ray sales more than anything). 

[Trippy]

It helped, particularly in parts of Europe, but I don't think the PS2 can "take credit" for the massive uptake of DVD.


Not sure how successful either of these formats are going to be in the near-term, to be quite honest. I'm not sure the world at large is ready to upgrade from DVD for quite some time.

DVD: Launched in (late) '96.  Around 46 million drives sold by 2000, when the PS2 was launched.

Blu-Ray: Launched in '03.  Around 3 million PS3s sold by now ('07), when the PS3 was launched.  Most sites are saying the majority of Blu-Ray players are tied up in PS3s, but even trippling the number shows the uptake isn't as quick as it was with DVD.

Given roughly the same period to mature, Blu-Ray is lagging well behind where DVD was at.  I think a lot of that is cost; you really need to upgrade your TV to make any use of it with many people finding it difficult to do one let alone both.  They are and they want to, it's just taking more time.  Another is that there's a format war this time, whereas with DVDs, Sony gave up their format very early on meaning there was only one standard.  The third is that there isn't as noticable a jump in features to the general public when going from VHS -> DVD as DVD -> Blu-Ray. 

Blu-Ray also hasn't matured quite in the same fashion as DVD, so it's not all apples to apples; DVDs had been circulated in the US much longer than Blu-Rays have.  The PS2 didn't introduce DVD in either Japan or the US; the PS3 effectively introduced it to the US and somewhat so for Japan (from low Blu-Ray sales more than anything). 

Blu-Ray did not "launch" in 2003. The first consumer Blu-Ray player was released in June 2006 and movies weren't released until September 2006. Also while the PS2 didn't introduce the DVD to Japan, it *is* the reason why DVDs took off there. Before that time the Japanese (and most of the rest of Asia) were happy with their VCDs. The PS2 undercut the price of DVD players in Japan at that time by around $100 and there were people who bought the PS2 just to play DVDs since it was the cheapest player at that time. This is the same situation now where the PS3 is the cheapest Blu-Ray player available (ignoring special discounts).

To use the site you quote above there were 349,000 DVD players sold in the US in 1997, a year after it's release. Sony has sold over 1.35 million PS3s in the US alone so far. That's almost 4x the number of DVD players in its first full year in the US and the PS3 isn't even a year old yet.

[stray]

If we're going to play the numbers game, it's also worth mentioning that DVD didn't get it's first 100k sale of a movie disc until a year into it's release (Air Force One). Blu-Ray did it in less time with Casino Royale.

[Azazel]

..though those numbers may be skewed by the Blu-Ray movie redemption coupons that people have mentioned in these threads, along with of course a limited selection of films to choose from, and let's face it - James Bond appeals pretty decently to the young male-PS3-buying demographic, so with all these factors in place, you have a nice selection of circumstances that help to focus sales on a few particular titles, Bond being a big one.

As in, my Pioneer DVD player didn't come with any kind of "get one of these for free" or "get one of these for cheap" coupons. Different time, different place, different circumstances. Just as Trippy said that Asia was quite happy with their VCDs, I'm sure they're now pretty happy with their DVDs, and so it'll take a big force to change that. Obviously the PS3 wants to try and do it, but we'll see what happens. As most of Asia very much likes their movie and game software pirated, I can't see Blu-Ray taking off there until BR-R discs are cheap, plentiful, and nearly as trivial to copy as DVDs are.

One thing I can tell you pretty safely is that the PS3's not going to be undercutting cheap DVD players anytime soon...

[stray]

It hit 100,000 sales in the first week (ending March 18th). Euro PS3 owners (i.e. the first 500k who had those coupons) didn't even have PS3's when Casino Royale was released (PS3 launched on the 23rd). In fact, they should just be getting their copies now or soon (assuming they sent out for them right after the PS3 launch).


As for the stuff about demographics, sure that may true.. I just don't understand why that makes it invalid.

[Azazel]

Not saying it's invalid so much as an attempt at direct comparison is flawed (regardless of whether you're trying to talk up the PS3 and Blu-Ray or downplay it compared to the PS2 and DVD).

I mean, People tended to own some movies on VHS, but people didn't commonly own large collections in the same way that they (and we) do with DVD today. Now we're used to buying new release movies on DVD, which has both positives and negatives for any new format. Different world and all that.

[HaemishM]

DVD didn't have a real competing format when it was launched. VCD was nonexistent in the US, and VHS was there, but like Azazel said, it didn't have the same sales gumption that DVD has had.

Blu-Ray technically has 2 competing formats, HD-DVD and DVD itself, because the DVD market is huge compared to what the VHS PURCHASE market was when DVD was introduced.

[stray]

Ok, wait. That actually makes what I said more impressive than it is (which I didn't want to do). I thought it was interesting that it hit a sales milestone like that faster than DVD did. What the future holds is none of my business though.

.. But when you admit that it did it with stronger competition than DVD had, then I'm not sure how that helps your argument.


...

Anyhow, sales are sales. It could mean nothing in the longterm, but there's no point in downplaying it.

[HaemishM]

I didn't say it helped or hurt my argument, it's just a fact.

DVD competes with both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, which will likely mean it'll take LONGER for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to become the de facto standard, because it'll take longer for the prices on players to drop to Six-Pack level.

[stray]

Fair enough (though I meant Azazel's argument . I know you were just stating a fact).

[Roac]

The first consumer Blu-Ray player was released in June 2006

Bullshit.  With DVDs, players came long before recorders; with Blu-Ray, the reverse was true.  Recorders have been out a good while now, and it's taken this long to get any interest.  And what interest there is, is almost entirely because of the PS3.  Which, good for Sony.  It certainly is responsible for pushing Blu-Ray out to people who wouldn't otherwise buy it, but that's not what happened with DVDs because they were already shipped in huge numbers.  I don't doubt that the PS2 helped (especially in Japan) but the DVD market was in much better shape several years after being introduced to market than Blu-Ray is. 

[schild]

Consumer, retard.

$3,800 recorder != Consumer.

Edit: This is coming from someone who thinks $600 is a good deal for the PS3. IMO, Blu-Ray PC/IDE recorders aren't even consumer yet. $800 with $15 per disc is just too much.

[stray]

And besides that, it had little in common with Blu-Ray as we know it now since it didn't play bd-rom (the disc format which all current BD movies are produced on). At that point, it was just an alternative storage option.

It didn't ship outside of Japan either.

[Roac]

Consumer, retard.

$3,800 recorder != Consumer.

Again, I'm talking about product maturity.  I don't care who that product was marketed for, other than Blu-Ray has been around, and hasn't been in demand.  It has crept up to this point very slowly relative to the turnaround time for DVD; it has taken them this long to do something with it.  But if you'd rather use late '06 as the starting point, that's fine with me too; that just means that DVD has been out much longer than Blu-Ray when the PS2 / PS3 were each introduced relative to their players.  Either they've been out roughly equivalent periods with Blu-Ray having far less market penetration, or Blu-Ray is far younger relative to DVD.  Meaning, it's a less mature product.

[stray]

"Less mature" entails that something is missing from it.

It's fine. It is what it is. The last step was BD-J, and that's here now too.


And if you're now conceding that mid 06 is actually it's starting point, then it has had plenty more market penetration than DVD. We already went over this.

[NiX]

I wish every 5-7 years my income would increase 50%.

Oh it does, just that taxes go up with it. Enjoy life!

[Yegolev]

I hate to be a re-railing wet blanket, but my game-buying gland is swelling again.

Seems like Super Paper Mario will show up on April 9... Monday?  What the hell is that?  Nintendo is not Keeping the Tuesday.

I'm ready for Odin Sphere, or I would like to think I am.  Looks.  Nice.

I am hoping Atelier Iris 3 is more like Atelier Iris 1 than Atelier Iris 2.  But I still need to get Disgaea 2 and perhaps Ar Tonelico, depends on if I get bad word-of-mouth.

I might be more excited about Persona 3 if I knew a damn thing about it.

Ratchet & Clank!  Wooo!  GTA!  Wooo!  But, I need something closer than damn October.

What else I need is some New Shiny^tm along the lines of Metal Saga, freeform and shit.  It also needs to have better controls than Steambot.  Needs a good combat system, too.  I'm thinking Shin Megami Tensei combat with the FFXII no-random-encounter thing, and good/meaningful equipment although an example escapes me just now.  Item creation from Atelier Iris or maybe Vagrant Story would be nice, too.  And it better have some funny-ass dialogue!

[stray]

Pretty slow month for gaming besides Paper Mario.


Fine with me though, I have too much on my plate already. I can barely play the ones I have :)

[Yegolev]

Plate-shmate, I must aggregate everything into my collection.

[schild]

From now through 5/13 is uhmmm, questionable.

AI3 looks freaking amazing. NISA has the summer completely locked in as far as I can tell.

There's some shmups coming out over the next few weeks I'm stoked about though.