Ben-DutkaHas anyone felt as if the past few months for the PlayStation 3 has been like a whole new launch? Do you realize that a huge number of people out there think it actually did just launch a few months ago?
There's only one possible translation: the time has finally come for Sony and the PlayStation 3. I think we can all admit that its first year wasn't up to snuff; in fact, if you consider the nigh-on disastrous launch in terms of hardware availability, the initial (yet always expected) lack of software, unattractive price, and the "wait-and-see" situation for Blu-Ray, 2007 was a rough, rough year for the system in question. But 2008 was a lot better and many journalists, analysts and gamers will agree that 2009 is (yes, I'll just say it) has been the year of the PS3. It took immediate Game of the Year contenders that showed the power and potential of the console – Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – plus the long-awaited price drop to make it happen, but it's here. The time is now.
I can't watch TV for more than an hour without seeing one of those "It only does everything" commercials – gotta love that one with the hot girlfriend because the final line is, "yeah…I'm gonna file this under 'not an issue'" – and it's about damn time . We've all been calling for more marketing from Sony and suddenly, it's everywhere! That $299 price tag dropped it into full and direct competition with the Xbox 360, Netflix is here, Blu-Ray is the accepted high-definition format across all video entertainment venues, the PlayStation Network has expanded at a ridiculous rate (and contains easily the best exclusive DLC titles), and oh yeah, the games . I know I forgot inFamous earlier and it's one of my favorites, so I apologize for that, and I also apologize for missing Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time and Demon's Souls . But that's exactly the point.
Everything seems to have come together at exactly the right time. Sony is marketing like mad. The price is at the sweet spot. The games are here. The Network is great. The reliability is more than solid. It's an absolutely awesome Blu-Ray player (check the comparisons against standalone players). And above else, everyone knows about it now. It's effectively in the limelight and suddenly, people are starting to learn more about 2010 and the likes of God of War III , Gran Turismo 5 , Heavy Rain , and even The Last Guardian . Consumers have looked at the PS3 because it was placed in front of them (finally), and in making comparisons to the competition, many are concluding the PS3 is the better value.
The PS3 continues to narrow the gap versus the 360 and I still refuse to compare the same set of statistics, anyway, because I remain convinced that the 360 numbers are massively skewed. If everybody on earth knows someone who has bought at least two or three 360s due to its catastrophic failure rate, that means Microsoft is counting the same consumer's purchase three times. Yeah, not sure that's fair. But anyway, the shift is here and in looking at next year, it seems the PS3 is in prime position to make the final push to the top. But again, marketing is huge. We needed this from Sony and you can bet it's going to continue through the holidays, so gear up, PS3 fans. The ride is only just beginning. 😉
There's multiple PS3 owners as well Ben, but obviously there's a WHOLE LOT MORE multiple 360 owners.
The multiple PS3 buys were mostly to put other systems in other rooms of the house, cuz they all still work, HAH.
Hahahah.
"I have 1 in the living room, 1 in the bedroom, and 1 in the bathroom.
Why? Because I have 3, PS3s."
The funny thing about those multiple PS3 buyers (I should know, I'm one of them), they still have their consoles – all of them. They haven't been buying a new one as a replacement for another dead one.
I bought a 60GB new just after the launch (gotta LOVE the BC). Then I got a 40GB when they first became available because my wife and I were fighting over the PS3 to play Burnout…And finally we got a second 60GB system (refurb'd with an upgraded HDD) about 9 months ago. I'd somehow ended up with the 40GB system on my desk and my wife had the original 60GB one in the living room. Tax rebate time arrived and my son got very lucky when my 40GB system ended up in his hands, and a nice reconditioned 60GB with a 320GB HDD upgrade was put in mine.
All three are still working, all three are quiet, reliable, and in use daily. Every person I know personally who has a 360 has experienced a failure due to RROD and approximately half of those people have purchased a 360 Arcade as a stand-by system (it sit's in it's box ready to be unpacked when needed). I don't know how many of them have had more than one failure, but all of those who've purchased an Arcade system have had more than one failure. I don't care what Microsoft says, their sales numbers are bogus and their reliability is till a problem.
not for me =( i got ylod, but I ended buying a Slim from it so I'm still happy to play my epic ps3 games =)
How'd you get YLOD?
Honestly I think Xbox is a great system, I would've bought one if the failure rate isnt so high. The fanboys would complain that the issue is fixed, but my main concern is buying the items online. How do I know if Amazon has sold out all their potential RROD stocks. How do I know the one selling it on ebay isn't also the older version.
It's this concern that kept me far far away, otherwise I would've purchased one when "Tales of Vesperia" was released. Im glad all the exclusive xbox JRPGs are coming to the PS3. The PS3 DOES do everything, even playing the Xbox "exclusive" games. Haha.
It just happens? I mean it's not like I tried to get it or anything, lol. I can literally tell you what i was doing when it happened, Was playing the FF cyrstal Defenders demo (the tower defense game thing) I exited the game, my ps3 restarted, and then it wouldn't turn back on anymore and it had the yellow light =( Dunno, it was always well ventilated, in an open area. 80GB with b/c Model btw. But oh well, yay for the Slim
If Xbox 360's were cars the company that made them would be sooooooo bankrupt!
The 60gb models are more prone to the yellow light but not as wide as the 360 is with the red ring. I got a yellow light on mine and got a "new" one from sony with a slightly louder fan. I wasnt about to give up my 60gb. But i'll just blame my yellow light on playing to much of the awesome games that i got, almost all at the same time.
I'm on my 3rd PS3, 1 dead, 1 sold!
Sure, the 360 sales numbers are higher, and I think we all assume they are definitely skewed due to same person purchasing multiple 360's due to RROD's, however, lets also not forget that multi platform games still sell more on the 360 by a large margin.
Although, the gap will start to shrink as 360 owners begin to purchase ps3's and stop investing in 360 games. We will know the tide has turned for good once multi plats sell more on the PS3. That is your ultimate gage I believe. I can't wait for that. Once developers see their highest sales are on the PS3, they will start putting in the time to make the PS3 versions shine, instead of getting the inferior version of the game.
Who knows, maybe it will start with ACII or MW2.
Last edited by MyWorstNightmar on 11/7/2009 11:39:13 AM
@MyWorstNightmar
Actually, that's not true, it depends on the game.
at wal-mart our 360 had a split screen thing going on with two identical pictures on the screen. then it did the whole RROD thing.
Highlander, that is the most vague I have ever seen you be! Can you give an example of a high profile multi plat game that has sold more on the PS3 than the 360? I sure can't think of one, however, you seem to think so, so I would like to hear which one?
Perhaps you are referring to the PS3 getting the inferior version of a game, and I am sure you can come up with examples where the ps3 gets the better version, but a few examples does not mitigate my argument that the PS3 versions are usually the poorer of the two, that is not debatable.
Last edited by MyWorstNightmar on 11/8/2009 12:28:55 PM
@Myworst…
I'll have to find the figures, I don't keep the links handy, but I remember several cases this year where games that were expected to sell better on 360 either sold better on PS3 or sold evenly. Generally speaking it's in terms of Global sales and typically with games that sell well in Japan where the PS3 userbase outweighs the 360 userbase considerably. Devil May Cry 4 is an example. Remember, I'm not referring to the US market sales, I am talking over all, globally.
If I can find the time today, I will see if I can find the global sales numbers and get some more examples.
Highlander, you would definately need to look at global numbers. Japan should always sell more on the PS3, just for the brand loyalty alone.
I have a 60G, 80G (non BC), and just bought a 250G slim. I'm also buying a 20G (BC) Japanese PS3. I also picked up a PS3 for my parents (they wanted one for my sister’s kids to play when they visit) and one for my siblings-in-law for X-mas 2008. I'll also buy a Slim for my niece/nephews and download all my PSN games for X-mas 2009.
So, I'm doing my part.
For full disclosure, I also have a 360 pro and just bought an Elite.
My one Wii is lonesome.
The PS2 was the first system I bought multiples of: 1 U.S. fat, 1 Japanese fat, mainly because the PS2 was nonchipable at the beginning.
For all my other consoles, I own just one of each, normally chipped for importing.
Since The Highlander didn't do it, I'll just list a few examples in case anyone reads this article two days late.
FIFA, PES, Burnout Paradise, at least one Need For Speed, Resident Evil 5, Devil May Cry 4, Street Fighter IV (pretty much anything from Capcom that released simultaneously)
I don't have the list with me, but when I counted them a few months ago, 8 of the top 20 multiplatform games (ranked according to the PS3 list) sold better on PS3 and only a few sold much better on 360 (CODs and GHs mostly).
Last edited by Fane1024 on 11/11/2009 4:28:43 PM
And I also have a cake, you dont have any. lmao
Will say it again: The PS3 rules.
Horatio! We found a dead xbox in the storeroom!
Horatio: A storeroom eh? Looks like it was taken…by supplies.
*puts on sunglasses*
YEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH
Hah, taken by supplies.. wait what?
supplies…surprise…
they rhyme.
the highlander tell em about batman arkham asylum.:)
@ Kohoho.
I freaking loved UHF. Ten points for the post.
Playstation 3 is the sh**.
off topic: people in canada need to check the psblog they are giving away uncharted 2 fortue hunter editions.
Last edited by Ben Dutka PSXE on 11/7/2009 12:46:16 AM
hey where do i go. link please?
http://blog.us.playstation.com/
scroll down a little
Last edited by frylock25 on 11/7/2009 11:39:58 AM
This is awesome. I didn't realise I had any loyalty's to this console until today when I was trying to convince my friend who has an xbox that he should get a ps3. I don't have an xbox and never played on it so I can't vouch for how good or bad it is. But we where in the cinema when the MW2 ad came on in the trailers before the movie and it was only advertised for the xbox. For some reason, I don't know why, I actually got a bit pissed off about that.
But it's great to see so many fantastic games both come already and still to come in the start of the new year. I'm esp stoked about checking out Heavy Rain after the new video that was updated to this site.
Multiplats are fine but the real break throughs are definitely in the exclusive titles (U2, Infamous, KZ2, Resistance 1,2 etc…)Bring on 2010, this is exciting stuff!!!
its probably because microsoft made an agreement, bag of money, with activision and/or with infinity ward. Its microsofts usual practice, and now they got a modern warfare 2 edition 360 and ps3 got jack.
"I remain convinced that the 360 numbers are massively skewed. If everybody on earth knows someone who has bought at least two or three 360s due to its catastrophic failure rate, that means Microsoft is counting the same consumer's purchase three times. Yeah, not sure that's fair."
I have been saying this for the longest time. Finally someone agrees. 🙂
I can now be at peace.
yup, when you do the percentage fail rate math it's rather simple.
add that to the fact that microsoft counts units shipped instead of units sold like sony does. I wont be surprised if sony passed microsoft on consoles sold if they didnt count the 360 "back ups". I wonder if they count "repaired" 360s in their sales numbers.
*sigh of relief*
Let the xbots eat cake.
xbots can eat a pile of crap
a little off topic- does ny1 know the xbox fail rate compared to the ps3 fail rate
i would look it up but that requires work and im kinda lazy
Back in the day it was something around 33%, who knows if the fix they said they did for RROD actually helped at all. I can't be certain about the PS3 but it was in the single digits.
Well, Game informer says 54.2% for 360, 10.6% for ps3 and 6.8% for wii, this was in august.
Most of the time the fix was a refurbed unit with a repaired motherboard. The motherboard was the same design, and so in use the refurb heated up just as much as the original and failed in the same way, only because it was a refurb, it suffered an even higher failure rate. The newer revisions of the motherboard and cooler chips have helped gradually reduce the failure rate of new Xbox360s. IIRC all the Xbox360s built in the first 2½ to 3 years of production have the major RROD issue, the Jasper systems were less prone to it, but it's never really gone away. Suspiciously the E76 error condition has started popping up regularly. This is apparently due to a failing Ethernet chip – odd, solid state devices don't fail in this manner unless they are regularly overheating…curious…
sony spends their time trying to make the ps3 smaller, more efficent and more cost effective in production.
M$ spends their time trying to make the 360 less of a piece of crap. funny all they did now was come up with a new way to make it fail. at least xbots get to say they dont have to worry about rrod as much any more.
I was unfortunately in that 10%heres a true story about my YLOD experience , my ps3 was still under warranty. The warranty was through a 3rd party and when they sent it back to me I played it for 3 days and my local gamestop was offering $150 trade in credit towards a ps slim so i figured i'd stick it to them since they make so much off of used games, the guy hooked it up played it for a bit and as soon as he went to take the game out BOOM it YLOD'd again, needless to say my heart sank, but the employees were both xbots so they didn't know what was going on they just knew they couldnt get their game back out so I had to eat a $40 refurb fee, but I still got my slim for $190 and the knowledge that 3rd party warranties SUCK! I didnt expect much out of the warranty company though they had a bunch of shady reviews and negative feedback, plus they were a cellphone repair company I knew they wouldn't be capable of repairing the ultimate gaming console to it's full ability.
Sony's own repair service is about $150 for a dead PS3 repair. Actually they send you back a replacement of the same model (refurb'd) and then repair/refurb your original one and put it back into stock if it passes their refurb test suite. IIRC the refurb units have to go through a battery of tests including a fairly long soak test before they can be passed for use.
what is a soak test?
A soak test is a test, for example with hardware, where the device is switched on and runs a test program continually for several hours at least. Kind of like when you take a piece of laundry that needs a good clean and soak it before washing. The soak will generally get the stains out.
With a piece of new or reconditioned hardware you want to know it will perform OK and not be dead on arrival, so you put it on to 'soak' before issuing it. The 'soak' test will generally ensure the units with an intermittent or hidden flaw are weeded out.
The best thing about the PS3 is that it had a great 2009,but the beginning of 2010 is better than the entire 09 year.With MAG,Heavy Rain,ArTonelico,last Rebellion,Heavy Rain,WKC,GOW3 and the long awaited GT5 the 10 year in the first half is better.I can only imagine what the fall will bring to compete with the Winter/Spring of next year.Also the PS3 has the spotlight all alone since the 360 been on the market for 4 years and the Wii is over saturated.The PS3 is like a newly launched console.Almost 30 million without GOW3 & GT5 is an amazing success.
Is Ar Tonelico going 3D this time or sticking with sprites?
Ar Tonelico is going 3D this time.
Regarding 2010, the first half of the year is terrifyingly good from a release stand point, I just hope that Sony has a good lineup for the later half of 2010 so there is no sense of anti-climax.
I fully agree that everything seems to be coming together. Finally indeed.I don't want to seem like favoritism, but it is good to see, if anything, for the full potential of the PS3 system.
Another reason things are coming together is that while looking around @ Target tonight (simi valley, ca), NUMEROUS Blu-Ray movies were either $20 or less for decent movies.
Amazon regularly has BluRay movies for $20, and often has a large number well below that.