My last console (PS2) I never bought the software, I just rented it. Even three rentals at $4/pop was about 1/4 the cost of buying the game new. I could also just borrow my friend's old games, I guess I was a cheap bas****.

After a year the disc reader stopped reading the DVD's I was renting, so I tossed it on my curb, it was gone within an hour.

The wii has me excited not for myself, but my kids, who I think would get a kick out of it. I also like the idea of less violence in games for them, even though I'm a diehard FPS fan. Hypocritical, I'm aware...

I can't wait to see the flames and cries of outrage on blogs abroad of the horrific bugs that will emerge from this console. Whether it be overheating issue, hardware issue, software issue, or firmware issue, there is going to be bugs. You HAVE to be a fanboy to dole out 600 clams for a video game console. I personally would much rather buy a Core 2 Duo laptop for the price it would cost me to buy a 60GB PS3, 1 extra controller, a memory card, and 1 game.

I put my family jewels on the line when I say that the PS3 will be Sony's "nail-in-the-coffin"

Yea let me go check under the sofa to see if $600 in quarters in under there yet. Then Ill take a run around the neighborhood looking for pop cans. On second thought maybe I wont. When that $600 toy overheats and your out all that money lets see you exchange it, people are getting gunned down at local retailers for them.

Let's see....400,000 times 300 equals.......120 million dollars. I think there are about 500,000 units floating around so that brings the numbers to 150 million. That means they have to sell roughly 6.5 million Blu-Ray movies to break even. Hopefully everybody grabs 13 BD titles when they are leaving the store and the problem will be solved.

Then they can start to make some money, I'm sure they're glad they decided to add that BD drive to the PS3.

If you add up the 50-100 thousand bad batteries and all those UMD movies, Memory Sticks, SACD Players and MD Players that are still laying around, I'd say there's a problem.

What I think would be cool is if everybody bought a PS3 then never bought any games for it. I wonder what Sony would do.

They'd think to themselves... "Gee how could this be? we even crippled the backward compatibility with PS2 games and all!"

Heres what Sony should do. Sell it for $1200 to $1500. If anyone on Ebay right now can sell them for over $2000 with no problems what so ever, why not sell them high for the first couple of months, make a profit, and then lower it when xmas is over. With all the brains in that company, why ain't any of them working right.

Actually one just sold for $3400 on ebay.

I've thought they should do this too. Hell, all new console releases should do this. If someone is going to make $1000-1500 profit on it, shouldn't it be the company that made it?

Sony could essentiall have a 1-3 month window at $1500 per console. Then at the end of that window it could go down to $600.

Then how are the people on eBay going to feed there kids?

Mark... was that you?

All I know is that I think the internet will be an interesting place to browse tomorrow. We'll start to see how everyone here is finding their PS3 (for those that keep it) and we'll see if they run into issues or not.

Kiosk in my local store failed after just 1 day.

Units in Japan have been out a week, no real issues to report.

You can bet there will be failures, as with ANY new product from any manufacturer, but I think Sony won't come anywhere near the |Xbox360 figures of 7% DOA's and 16% failure within the 1st month (4 flasing lights of death)

You had data for isuppli, and for that I was impressed. Can you tell us where you got the data for 7 & 16% here?

That's funny. My store was waiting for a demo unit but apperantly the one we were going to recieve was defective, so head office didn't bother shipping it to us. Supposed to get another kiosk in 2 weeks though.

Added note: I visited the closest EB outlet tonight, similarly they didn't have one, and said there was a problem with theirs too... This is almost scary, heh! I really don't want to get yelled at for selling defective PS3's... But seriously. It's unfair for us to get yelled at for the manufacturer's faults just because we sell it. Ugh.

I'm sure he can't. And what he'll discover is that regardless of how few people have issues with the PS3, it will all be extremely exagerated thanks to the internet.

1 person with an issue is going to make more noise than 10 people without. This is why so many think 360's have more issues then they do. And also why any PS3 issues will not be as bad as they'll seem.

Just from what I have seen so far though, I think there are more likely to be issues with the PS3 over heating.

Yeah, so far from what I've heard in here it's been 100% failure.

LOL, it's going to be a fun week. I pick up mine tomorrow (today). I should have put a disclaimer on the auction.

"1 person with an issue is going to make more noise than 10 people without."

agreed.

it's funny though, i don't remember ANY failures of the super nintendo, or the nintendo 64, or even the PSX. maybe the labours getting cheaper. or maybe like everyone else in the world, they're rushing products out the door before they're completely finished, just to keep investors happy.
:-p

ANY, huh? No, most other industry is regulated to prevent such defects. Just look at the automobile or medical industries.

Shoot, for that matter look at the PC industry. When is the last time you heard of a recall there?

'nuff said

If I recall, early versions of the PSX had a disc reading issue.

Sony batteries anyone? =p

hrmph, got me there. :-(

Woohooo... I win.

LOL!

Even though it's just one example, I'll give it to you. ;-)

On the upside - how much money can you lose when you've only got a 'handful' of consoles available? ;)

handful != 450,000

Jeez some people really have learning difficulties here..

Perhaps I have accidently logged onto a special school...

Perhaps you didn't realize that when the guy is "winking" with a ;) you should take that as a sarcastic remark.

Who helped you log on, Mark?

What is it with this guy anyway?

Sony made him his b@#$%...

This is a complete joke... The retail outlet I work at is getting just 10 consoles on Friday, and we're getting more than anywhere else in the city. Of course we can't tell customers that, but on here who cares. I was shocked yesterday how many people came into the store and bashed the PS3. In no way this was provolked... People just came in all day to look at the displays. A lot of people seem to know there's going to be a big shortage and I guess they heard about the Japanese launch incident. I've actually had quite a few of them tell me this is nothing but a big cash out for Sony, and it's hard to argue with. If this otherwise isn't a big holiday cash out, this is either the most pathetic launch ever, or the most rushed console since... Well as far as I can remember. My co-workers expect at least 4 or 5 out of those 10 to be returned, defective or otherwise. On the other hand, there was a lot of people that came in and seemed pretty excited about the Wii. I had no idea how many Wii fans were really out there. We're getting 40 of those on launch and we expect them all to be bagged, sold, and out of the store within 5 min. tops.

At the same time, right this second there's about 15 people camped outside of our store, waiting for the PS3 launch. A couple of my co-workers on break asked them what they were doing with their PS3's... Almost everyone said they plan on eBaying them except for a couple who said they were getting it for their kids for christmas, until they found out from our conversations how much $$ you can make. Now they said they're going to eBay it too and get a 360 and Wii combo... Ahh, I love my job. These perks can be so entertaining.

It's just too bad about the ones who aren't getting a ps3, since they're basically waiting for nothing. Last I heard there was 15 or so people, so that's 5 potentially pissed off customers since we're getting a whooping 10 units. I feel so bad, I wish I could tell them. Oh well, maybe one of their friends will read this post lol.

To any of you planning on waiting outside Bestbuy, Walmart (if they didn't do preorders), Futureshop, Blockbuster, wherever... Yes, I realise you can easily ebay it back for double the value, even tripple to some very rich kid, but if there's already 15-20 people waiting there, chances are half of them aren't even getting one. Please, take my advice. Don't bother.

Oh, and by the way... The rumor about selling bonus packages for the 360 on launch day are true. We're doing that at Futureshop as a special store deal because of Sony's shortcomings. Buy the 360 premium (which comes with 2 free games) and get Gears of War as a bonus for free.

The rumor about Bestbuy is also most likely true, as Bestbuy and Futureshop are both owned by the same corporation.

I will tell you one thing, most of these console will be on eBay.

Most is really a safe bare minimum in theory. I honestly don't think I've met one customer yet who was serious about actually keeping one.

I did meet one fellow who said he would open the box and try it before selling it though, if that's any consolation to that.

All of the weekly fliers for the stores in our town specifically stated how many PS3's they were getting. Anyone who is waiting in line beyond that number is an idiot.

Yes, actually, I went back to the store to pick something up tonight and one of the staff members was giving everyone camping outside our store a big speech about how we're only getting 10 units, nothing more, nothing less. People kept asking "What if you get more???" She kept saying "We won't!" And this went on for 10 minutes or so until she gave up and told them they can wait, but expect to be disappointed. We had already gave out tickets to the first 10 people in line even! So what don't they get??? And last I checked as I left the store there was, my guess of 30 people still camped out there.

You know... I used to feel sorry for these people, but it's like they're purposely attempting to be stupid by CHOICE! Like wtf. Maybe there's a moral to this, who knows.

I feel sorry now for the staff opening the store tomorrow. They're going to have to put up with so much bulls***. It's not right.

I Like this part:

"ISuppli analyst Andrew Rassweiler credited Sony's beyond-state-of-the-art design and manufacturing for the PS3's high costs. "To give an example of how cutting-edge the design is," Rassweiler stated this morning, "in the entire history of the iSuppli Teardown Analysis team, we have seen only three semiconductors with 1,200 or more pins. The PlayStation 3 has three such semiconductors all by itself. There is nothing cheap about the PlayStation 3 design. This is not an adapted PC design. Even beyond the major chips in the PlayStation 3, the other components seem to also be expensive and somewhat exotic."

"Despite this, iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis shows that with the PlayStation 3, Sony has delivered an amazing level of performance for the cost.

“The reason why the PlayStation 3 is so costly to produce is because it has incredible processing power,” Rassweiler said.

Full report here: http://www.isupply.com/news/default.asp?id=6919

isuppli and isupply for the link? you sure this isn't a spoof?

http://www.isuppli.com/news/default.asp?id=6919

Same site, takes into account numpties like myself mis-typing.

Yeah, it's nice that Sony can pay people to say nice things about them. It doesn't mean **** but it's nice for them.

Give it up, your starting to look desperate...

LMAO, look who's talking about being desperate. The biggest fanboy joke on Betanews. Running around evangelizing Sony in every thread you possibly can. Running away crying and not responding when people prove you're full of BS. Then coming back and trying again.

I Like this part:

"data supplied by Amazon, shows the one-year-old Xbox 360 with about 140 game titles currently available from Amazon.com, versus 33 for the PS3. For Sony to sell enough software alone to make up for what iSuppli projects it loses per 20 GB PS3 sold here, its software attach rate would have to be a nearly-impossible 6."

"This means Sony must rely on sales of accessories and other gear in the hopes of breaking even, for a release that has already been constrained by supply shortages of critical equipment, such as -- ironically -- the blue-laser diodes Sony itself manufactures for PS3's built-in Blu-ray Disc player."

Translation; Get ready to be raped by Sony yet again. Anyone recall the PS2 having only 2 controller ports when all other consoles at the time had 4, and Sony happily selling you a 4-player adapter for $50?

didn't stop me from buying one, and it's still the best selling console on the market.

It seems your desperation factor is reaching an all-time low, perhaps it's related to the PS3 launch, and impending Blu-Ray domination?

Is this jerk a typical Xbox360 owner, or do they get better?

I liked this one

"Why does Sony lose less on the more expensive PS3? Because it only costs Sony an additional $35.50 per unit to produce the 60 GB unit, though it sells for $100 more."

You lost me :'(

hey! I thought you froze yourself!

Again, you should look in the mirror before trying to insult people. Zealots who live in glass houses and all...I'm not the one who pops up in EVERY single thread about the PS3 or 360 or movie formats spouting the same tired stuff over and over about how great Sony is doing or how MS is ripping people off with their "bolt-ons" or how Betanews is biased. You're a lot like Bevets, only you're a Sony Fundie.

I don't even own a 360 or any other console. I just get a kick out of watching you spazz out in every console related thread. "Sony is going to be teh winnars! You MS losers will be sorry!" Why don't you grow up and quit jerking off to the PS3 every five minutes (impending blu-ray domination, lol) and maybe you'd look less like a Sony clownshoe.

"Sony is going to be teh winnars! You MS losers will be sorry!"

You seem to be "quoting" me, however I have never said such a thing, can you provide a link to that quote? Or will you use a lame excuse like you can't be bothered to twawl the past posts....

I thought your desperation could not stoop any lower, but you have proved me wrong..

Hahah, the pot....

No, that's just how you sound. Oh and in case you haven't figured it out I'm making fun of you. I don't care about Sony one way or the other. LOL, please do keep on coming back for more though. Tell me how desperate I am again, I particularly enjoyed that one. The irony is absolutely hilarious.

Desperate, in that you need to make claims of quotes I have said, which by your own admission in your followup are false...

What are you, a Vulcan? Haven't heard of a joke, Mark? Or perhaps this is your 'desperately' inadequate way of responding to the harsh truth?

LMAO

Just because it's the best selling doesn't mean it's the best system. Kind of like the iPod. I don't go by best selling, I go by the games I like best.

Bevets, ha. Maybe we should get somebody to make a summon Mark G. card?

"Just because it's the best selling doesn't mean it's the best system."

ummmm...why not?

wouldn't the best system be the one that most people buy?
people buy what they like best, whether you agree with them or not.

you could call the ipod "the best mp3 player", because it's what the majority of people have bought compared to other mp3 players.

Lots of people buy Fords, but Aston Martin is the best car company (or select your favourite companies) yet they sell fewer cars.

"wouldn't the best system be the one that most people buy?"

No, not really. Some sheep... I mean people buy what everyone else is buying... just because that's what everyone is buying. They don't actually know the difference so they just buy what everyone else is.

For example my iAudio X5 60gb kicks the iPods a** in every way (more features, better sound quality, cheaper price, metal casing), but it doesn't sell as well because people don't know what it is, they just know everyone has an iPod so that's what they buy instead.

Maybe that is why Sony cut its initial luanch numbers. They will only lose half as much on the initial release if they release half the original amount. Wow, and all this time I just thought they were having manufacturing problems.

You need to work on your sarcasm...

Is that a joke?

oh I just love this cripe!!! same cripe that M$ touted about losing so much per unit..

you know if you base everything on MSRP, (that Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) I imagine you could say every g** d*** electronic toy is being sold for far less then what it's worth...

I find it funny that Sony is paying $43 for a 20gb SATA harddrive... I wonder what M$ is paying for it's 20gb?? They sell the fuggin thing for $100... Seems they are making quite a profit just for a HD..

In a time when most everything electronic is stamped out and put together by an automated process, how the hell can these companies even suggest that they are losing money on each unit sold..

It's like in the world of cellphones.. Cellular providers claim its costing them $200 a phone of which they give to you free when you signup for the most part..

I've worked in a manfacturing facility for Nokia. 90% of the manufacturing process is totally automated.. They put a PCB on a track and it gets all the components mounted and soldered and even cutout by a robotic machine.. The end of the line they have low wage workers that assemble the phones of which takes about a minute a phone... and that was 10 years ago when I worked for Nokia.. Today I'm sure 98% of the creation of a phone, game console, etc is totally automated.

So when you get right down to it. every company that makes components that end up in finished products can claim they all are losing money in making what they make if they are going to base everything on a MSRP....

I don't care about these monster companies and their costs.. They aren't hurting that bad.. They still reel in their billions each quarter.. The CEOs and Board of Directors and Stock Holders all make way more than I do and most of them are fuggin morons when it comes to technology... Soooo fug them!!

Soooo fug them!!

The letter "g" kidnapped your "ck", man.

Whoa, I think you are misunderstanding what they mean by loss and MSRP here. If a company's MSRP for a product is less than what it costs them to make it, they are losing money. Why? Because they sell that product to retailers and distributors for less than the MSRP. When retailers start selling products for more than their MSRP, and manufacturers sell to retailers for more than the MSRP, then you can rant about some MSRP conspiracy.

90% of the manufacturing process is totally automated.
You seem to think that less people means less cost. This is not necessarily the case. Someone has to pay for all those machines before they have even made a single item with them. After production begins, raw materials must be purchased and the machines must be maintained. If a company knows what it is doing, eventually the revenue from selling their product will actually be more than the cost of: production materials, the construction of the manufacturing machinery, the maintenance and power costs of running the facility, and the wages of the manufacturing personnel. After that point in time, if the ongoing costs are less than their revenue, they will actually have made a profit. Before that, possible tax benefits aside, they can be said to have lost money. (Oh, don't forget the money to pay the staff of engineers and researchers who developed the product, the advertising to get people to buy the product, the human resources people to hire the others, insurance and other employee benefits, office space for the researchers, engineers, marketing guys, and execs).

no I know what MSRP is.. it's a number any company can just stick on their product and claim it's worth that much and that the consumer should pay that much..

Less people generally means less cost... You don't have to pay the machines to churn out product 24/7.

yes I understand that you need engineers to work on the machines, and design the product, but they generally get paid for their services way before the product hits the shelves..

Inflation plays a big part too... I remember buying a brandnew Camaro in the 70's was under $10,000. Now you have to pay $35,000 for a car that gets the same s***ty gas mileage and power for the most part, but looks a bit more stylish..

The PS3 is equal in power to the X360. It has a Blu-ray drive and a 60gb drive. Not much of an upgrade IMHO... Most of all the movies being released on Blu-Ray are crap and I doubt Sony will have any games that will fill a 50GB disc.. Oh well.. I'm sure there are thousands out there shelling $1600+ for a PS3 on Ebay.. I guess these are the same people that like to take it up the a** without lube...

"I've worked in a manfacturing facility for Nokia. 90% of the manufacturing process is totally automated.. They put a PCB on a track and it gets all the components mounted and soldered and even cutout by a robotic machine.. The end of the line they have low wage workers that assemble the phones of which takes about a minute a phone... and that was 10 years ago when I worked for Nokia.. Today I'm sure 98% of the creation of a phone, game console, etc is totally automated. "

You do realize that the design specs for the phone don't just fall out of the sky, don't you?

There's a lot more to this than just putting it together. R&D plays a big factor. Look at the PS3 for example - do any of their price comparison's include R&D? Marketing? No - its plain and simple parts. Which also probably doesn't take into account assembling those parts, QA..etc.

Sony is probably losing even more than they state per console.

"Less people generally means less cost... You don't have to pay the machines to churn out product 24/7"

You know the machines aren't free, right? They often cost a lot more than it would cost to have people do it, but in the long run, it ends up costing less and you get better reliability.

Machines are not always used for cost savings - At least not on the surface - they are often used because they are more reliable. This in turn leads to cost savings because you wouldn't be dealing with warranty issues.

"[MSRP is] a number any company can just stick on their product and claim it's worth that much and that the consumer should pay that much."
Well, I would say it is more of a "this product will sell at a reasonable pace at this price" number. It really has nothing to do with how much it costs to make it. In the case of most consoles, that price, and the price the manufacturer actually charges is usually less than the company's cost to make it.

yes I understand that you need engineers to work on the machines, and design the product, but they generally get paid for their services way before the product hits the shelves.
Yeah, they get paid before the product even hits productions, but the company has to make back that cost somehow. Perhaps they took out a loan to afford those costs. (I know its Sony we're talking about here, but either way it is a cost). And the cost of the machines don't stop when production begins. They have to be maintained. Parts replaced, machinery lubed, all that.

The PS3 is equal in power to the X360. It has a Blu-ray drive and a 60gb drive. Not much of an upgrade IMHO
And according to the above article, the Bluray drive and hard drives actually amount to the price difference between the two. So, in that respect, it could be said the PS3 is fairly priced for people that want the Bluray and hard disk drives anyway.

"And according to the above article, the Bluray drive and hard drives actually amount to the price difference between the two. So, in that respect, it could be said the PS3 is fairly priced for people that want the Bluray and hard disk drives anyway. "

I think thats kind of a no brainer. When you compare the 2 higher end versions of each console and add the HD-DVD drive to the 360, they are nearly identical.

PS3 has a few extras (wifi, 60GB HDD) and it should considering its had an extra year. As it is, I'd feel like I waited for nothing if I had waited for a PS3. If they didn't have these small extras, then it would be even worse.

Think about for a secong Sony is offering you a top notch gaming system for $600 and a Blueray dvd player which would cost you $1000 dollars right now just for the dvd player alone. Plus who wants to play Halo anyways when you can play Killzone.

lol

ok, first off, who cares if the company is making or breaking on a console, if that console sells games i want to play, then ill consiter getting it.

seccond off get the hell outa these fourms if all your gonna do is act like a very bitter married couple you two, u know who im talkin about.

third off, dont you think it could be a marketing ploy, saying they are loosing alot of money on each sale?
i belive microsift was correct in the xbox original release, yes they lost money to get shares in the market, very good ploy, and they did a fabulos job.

now about the ps3, ps has always carried very decent games for what i like, i would consiter getting one, if all those money grabbers would get out of the market and stop reselling for massive prices when ultamitely all your doing is screwing over the actual gamers, if you dont plan on playing golf, why are you standing in the way on the green. get the hell off, and leave us true gamers alone.

just my two cents.

the biggest thing to me is why is a blu-ray dvd player going for anywhere from "$750 (subject to change) " straight from http://www.blu-ray.com/players/
and upwards of 1600 dollers, and how can soney include this amazing feature for only 125 american extra? theres gotta be sometihng missing here, and to me i dont see this as sometihng id buy a game console for, id buy the console on what games it plays, i have a dvd playe,r and thats how i kept my ps2 for soo long with no disc errors, dvds are more prone to scratching by removing and using soo much on various players, therefore, why kill a game console on this.

i wont buy the ps3 for the blu-ray, if i want a blu-ray ill buy one seperate, i hate combo fuction devices, they break to easy, because marketing says more ppl will buy, mass produce, cheaper parts, etc.