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PS3 never costed 1000$
staring price was 63.000 Yen ~ 534 dollar
but they had to drop it bc of nintendo to 50000 yen ~ 424 dollar

yeah still expensive…

but i guess the auctions/street price will rly get to 1000+ ;)

I have a lot of friends who do not care about the latest gaming news, who aren’t even sure what new games are coming out for their PS2s, have never even heard of Revolution or Wii, but they know about the PS3.

For example, if you go to a tech blog and look at some comments on operating systems, how many Windows vs. Linux supporters will you find? My bet is on Linux, but that’s not how it woks in real-life. It’s too early to write PS3 off as a failure just because it has been getting bad press coverage on blogs. Gaming blog readers are the minority.

well, I don’t think turnout on launch day is ever representative of how successful a console will be. No matter how good or bad any of the three major consoles are, people WILL line up for it. It’s pretty much a given that PS3 and Wii will sell out fast (PS3 especially since it’s got such short supply). However, these launch-day sellouts are just a drop in the bucket, and are relatively insignficant in the long run.

on the graphics vs. gameplay debate, graphics are getting to the point where these upgrades are becoming almost undiscernable to the human eye. Yes MGS4 looks like sex but you know what? so does FFXII. Nintendo realized this, and wanted to open up a new dimension of upgrading other than graphics acceleration.

>>It’s pretty obvious that the people on the internet are a vast MINORITY.

what year do you live in, 1999? is there anyone left who doesn’t go on the internet to look up information about videogame consoles? I think the internet at this point is a decently reliable gauge of public opinion. Your brother may be all for PS3, that’s fine, there are people in the internet like him too. They are called “minorities”.

I agree that PSP failed coz it has too little good games but maybe in the future it will be better then nintendo DS?? I previously owned an X box but now i only have a gameboy advance sp and a PSP……however PSP allows u to upload videos but i dun think that nintendo DS has that ability right??

hm………….i think i will stick with my PSP which i have uploaded most of my MOHS’s (melancholy of haruhi suzumiya) episodes =P

And unlike Nintendo, I’m not saying that a fun experience can be generated by a radical and innovative controller or control scheme. Gameplay is also just part of the mixture that makes a game. It’s the same with other production values such as music, sound effects, special effects, story, etc. They all have to come together to make a game fun.

The biggest draw for me, for any of the machines, is if I think any game will bring to the table a fun experience. I don’t mind if the graphics aren’t in 1080p with meticulously rendered textures and intense physics. I don’t really care if the game uses a wild control scheme where I have to do a flip or run around the room. All of these things are merely a plus when I can receive them with a fun game.

Where is the industry going if we can’t just stop to ask ourselves “why do we want this?” and honestly answer “because it’s fun.”

Games would either have both a regular control scheme and a motion-sensing one, which would limit innovation and increase development costs; or they would be limited to those PS3/XBox 360 owners who bought the special controllers. And as we know, optional console peripherals that require significant effort from developers have not fared well hisorically, with the only exceptions I can think of being totally custom controllers like DDR pads and the Guitar Hero controller.

As for the Wii controller being “gimmicky,” we really won’t know that until we play the games for ourselves. Was the analog joystick a gimmick? Nintendo invented that. What about shoulder buttons? I’m sure some people thought they were gimmicks, too. And the DS, for crying out loud– I remember many people calling that system a gimmick, with its dual screens and stylus. On the other hand, the Virtual Boy turned out to be a real turd, so not everything Nintendo touches turns to gold. But my point is that it’s way too early to dismiss the Wiimote as a “gimmick” just yet.

Also, there’s more to the Wii than just the remote: Wii Channels are the other major feature. They seemed like a minor feature to me until I read “Iwata Asks” (http://wii.nintendo.com/iwata_asks_vol1_p1.html), which makes it clear that they are a major part of the Wii’s strategy. Again, it’s too early to judge how successful they will be, since the Wii hasn’t been released yet.

Finally, as for graphics vs. gameplay: of course they are not completely mutually exclusive, or else all games would be like D&D. But each does require a certain investment of resources, and it is certainly not the case that Nintendo could have made the Wii as powerful as the PS3 with no extra effort.

And it’s not only Nintendo that would have to pay the price, either: consumer expectations about graphical quality are making PS3 and XBox 360 games insanely expensive to produce, meaning only the largest publishers can do it. And large game publishers are generally risk-averse: they would rather polish an existing, proven formula than risk millions on something totally new. So better graphics do come with a price– one Nintendo has chosen not to pay. We’ll see in a year or so whether that gamble pays off.

– The Wii’s main weapon is the Wiimote, true. It’s just one feature, true. But, sincerely speaking, it’s THE feature. Not useful for traditional bishoujo games, but put it in Half-Life 2, Unreal Tournament, MS Flight Simulator, guitar-playing games, Star Wars-based games, Silent Hill’s and others and you can think a LOT of things to add to the game that you just couldn’t before (of course, it all depends on how well defined are the Wii’s APIs).
The Wiimote bets for a playing interface that even my 80-yr old grandma and my 6-yr old nephew can get used to almost INMEDIATLY. It all depends on how the game designers think.

So, Nintendo is betting for a new, more natural way to play.

– The PS3’s main weapon is Cell. The almighty 25.6 GFLOPS processor should be able to handle physics, graphics, sound and a lot of other things smoothly. And that translates to (graphical and physics-modeling talk) better Splinter Cell’s, Half-Life 2 (again? :P), Resident Evils, FIFA’s and others. Heck, it even has Havok, PhysX and Unreal Engine inside!

So, Sony is betting for a stunning visual appearance.

I look closely and I think Nintendo’s bet weighs more than Sony’s, but not enough. So, as a programmer, what would you prefer? A system with barely the processing power needed, but a cool natural interface (and that opens a market of new people buying and playing cause the Wiimote makes you forget the “X,X,Y,right,left” tendonitis hell)? Or a boring, traditional playing machine that boasts a HUGE amount of processing power allowing you to simulate real physics even in a programmed ant?

Who knows. PS3 + Wiimote pwnz everything, that’s for sure. But that’s a dream.
BTW, I still can’t decide… bit personally, I’d try to buy both :P (of course, in case they reach Chile someday…)