Navigation
Who's online
Featured on
|
Slashdot, Slate, The Discovery Channel, The Escapist, GameSetWatch, Good Deal Games, AtariAge, ClassicGaming.com, Las Vegas Review Journal, GAMERadio, The Mercury News, Maxim and many more popular media outlets!
|
Sponsored Links
Syndication
PS3 gets a bigger hard drive / Price cuts for the Xbox 360
Both Microsoft and Sony have made press announcements regarding their latest generation of consoles. The PS3 will get a bigger hard-drive and the Xbox 360 will get a price-cut - read more.
The 80Gb PS3 model will be available as of now and will cost 599 USD, the game Motorstorm is included in the price. What is lacking is the Emotion Engine chip - which was responsible for PS2 hardware compatibility in the previous models - thus PS2 software emulation will be the norm on NTSC machines in the future. PAL PS3 machines were lacking the Emotion chip from the first batch of machines. At first PS2 software emulation had a fair share of problems, but things have improved drastically. The 80Gb machine will only have one controller thrown in the package and will phase out the 60Gb model that recently got a price reduction to 499 USD. It seems that the new console owners are paying 100 USD for 20Gb extra space and a switch to software PS2 emulation, which already was the norm on PAL machines.
Microsoft has announced that the retail-price of all Xbox 360 packages will be lowered by 50 USD on August 14th. The core system will cost 280 USD, the premium will be 350 USD and the Elite will cost you 450 USD. The latter seems to be quite a bit cheaper than the Sony offer. Both machines have their advantages - Blu Ray vs well outfitted on-line services. In August, Europeans will be able to enjoy a well outfitted media library on the Xbox 360, something that is virtually non-existent at this moment.
Which company will be able to reap most consumers with these new strategies? Only time will tell.
- Mark Vergeer's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
PS2, PS3
I agree with that in regards to the PS2 to a degree, Diego, but not fully. To me, the PS2's success was built off of the momentum of the PS1, the fact that it acted as a DVD player in Japan until the software library started to build, and then said software library became THE place for the widest and deepest game library. It was never really a function of price until later on in the system's life when it became one of the cheaper options from both a hardware and software standpoint.
Personally I don't think the PS3 has to do much more at this point. Incremental price cuts slowly over time are a given and will help, but it really needs killer games to help drive it. Like with the 360, the loss of GTA IV until 2008 is painful. Unlike the 360 though, it doesn't have a Halo 3 waiting in the wings anytime soon to help give it a kick in the ass...
======================================
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
======================================
Sony strategy
I'm still very surprised how sony doesn't seem to realize that these minor changes in their strategy are bound to fail, it seems as if they haven't fully understood that the enormous success of the PS2 was the product of many different factors (reasonable price, vast library of games, etc) and even in that case it still took them years to position themselves as the leader of the past generation. Adding 20 gigs to their system while keeping the same price point will do nothing for them in the long term, unless they make a more aggresive price cut ( lowering the price at least to the elite price point) these generation will be lost for sony. They can't expect to truly stretch the console generation to a true 10-year cycle, cause I'm sure that in no less than 4 or 5 years max will be seeing new consoles from both MS and nintendo that could render the PS3 obsolete well before they see a penny of profit.
More price talk
Until Nintendo's stockpile of Wii's starts to normalize in stores, there's no reason for them to adjust their prices. All indications are that in most territories, product has not kept up with demand. The 360 would have received a big boost if both Halo 3 and GTA IV hit around the same time, but with the latter delayed, the boost will still be significant, but not as big as it could have been. It will be interesting to see if the combination of price cuts and Halo 3 will help the 360 keep its approximately 2 million system lead worldwide or Nintendo will continue to close the gap once stock piles start to creep up. The PS3 still has a long, long way to go and the fact that EA can't exceed 30 FPS on their sports games while they're at 60 FPS on the 360 can't bode well for the "tech buzz" that that system needs...
======================================
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
======================================
Price cuts
The price cuts might seem rather small for most people waiting for a reasonable price point for the 360, yet it could be enough to steal some of the ps3 sales surge seen since the "$ 100 price cut", it'll be interesting to see if nintendo plans to answer that, although i highly doubt it, but maybe they throw in an extra controller in their $ 250 pack.