I'm with Tycho, I'm not buying a PS3 for what they're asking for it.
Yes, Sony. I know that the official line is that five million people would buy your PS3 even if it didn't have games. Right. Whatever. "Gee, it's a real bargain if you are in the market for a Blu-Ray DVD player." Well, there's the issue. You've somehow convinced yourselves that there are five million people who give a rat's patoot about owning a Blu-Ray DVD player. It isn't even a standard format yet. It has to compete, Beta vs. VHS-like, with the HD DVD format. And for this, they want us to pay five or six hundred dollars for a gaming console?
It doesn't shock me that Sony included some crappy "features" to make the PS3 more business-model friendly. And by features, I mean crippleware. We'll get to why it doesn't surprise me in a minute, but here is a blurb from the current Wikipedia article on the PS3:
"Sony has defended its pricing model, noting the PS3's higher performance and inclusion of the Blu-ray drive.[24] However, it is not clear how useful the Blu-ray drive will be on the less expensive model; film studios may choose to turn on Blu-ray's ICT (Image Constraint Token) flag at any point, degrading the non-HDMI output to slightly higher than DVD resolution. A Sony executive responded that it is "too early to speculate at this point" whether movie producers will activate the ICT feature."
Gee, Sony. Now I dunno why you lost the Beta vs. VHS fight. With sterling judgement like you're showing now, you really should have won that one too. (sarcasm off)
Yes, that's right. You're expected to pay through the nose to get a Blu-Ray player because it supposedly blows regular DVDs out of the water from a quality standpoint, but companies who produce Blu-Ray format discs can activate a flag to make the difference nearly negligible, for no reason that I can think of off the top of my head.
"They won't activate the flag," you say. "Why would they make your experience more crappy than it needs to be?"
Yes, they will. Why would Sony press CDs that break your damn computer, install a root kit so anyone can break into your shit, and, in many cases, disable your CD-ROM drive? But they did that too, because they're afraid someone, somewhere, might listen to some music over your shoulder and they wouldn't profit from that. Soon, it will be illegal to open your car windows while you are playing a legally-purchased CD in your car, because people who haven't paid their tithe might hear a few seconds of music.
But I digress. When Sony got caught on this whole copy protection hoo-hah, I should note that their "rootkit removal kit" opened more security holes on your computer, didn't remove the rootkit entirely, and generally screwed you over more than you already are. Not that I know this pain from experience, but it still sucketh mightily that anyone had to do it.
Furthermore, I'd always been brainwashed to think that Sony electronics were superior. I just don't think that's the case anymore. I've compared price/performance ratio for many electronics purchases recently, and Sony really isn't near the top anymore. Their video cameras I tried were fuzzy and had bad UI. We bought a JVC and we love it. My laptop is, sadly, a Vaio, and I've never been less impressed with hardware than I am with this. When we replace it, it will be with something else. Even the original PS2 had that shitty Disk Read Error that plagued nearly every PS2 eventually, including both of the ones I've ever owned.
Face it, guys at Sony. You've convinced yourselves that we are drooling over this thing, and we're not. Some people will buy it for the exclusive titles, like Final Fantasy, but a lot of us just don't have time for your crap anymore.
Me? I might just be buying a Wii and then be done with it. Traditional Nintendo games are cute and the B will probably love them as soon as she gets some motor control. I hardly have time to breathe anymore, let alone play games, so I'm good. The mister will be playing WoW until the cows come home, so we're covered there. And the Wii has wifi built in, which every console should have had five years ago.
All right, rant over. I could have bored you all about how stressful it was to fly on a plane with the B (she did great, though, two little cries before I got the bottle in her mouth for the descent), how much it sucks that I left our digital camera on the plane, and how much I hate Enterprise for screwing us on the car rental. I have chosen to keep that rant to myself, and just be glad that I can see a few people for awhile before I visit my parents for a week and let them meet their grandchild.
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2 comments:
I too thought the price point was laughable. Yeah, I hate being forced to buy a Blu-ray drive before it has been determined whether it or HD-DVD will inherent the undisputed "next format" crown. I also hate being force to pay whatever percentage of the cost went to making it wirelessly compatible with the PSP I don't own either.
But, I wasn't going to buy a PS3 right away anyway. I've never been an early adopter of ANY game system. I bought my PS2 well over a year after they were new. Same for my GameCube. I buy a system when (and only when) there's finally a "critical mass" of desirable games. I make note of the cool looking games that show up for a system, and when enough of them finally pile up, I take the plunge.
For GameCube, the Zelda Windwaker game was finally the last straw that sold me on the system. I backtracked to pick up Eternal Darkness and a few others I'd been watching, and soon picked up Metroid Prime as well.
For PS2, I had to have SSX Tricky, and scooped up a few other titles I'd been watching.
X-Box I NEVER bought, because they have never reached that point of critical mass. Too many of their games are basically First Person Shooters, which hold zero interest for me. And almost every other game on the system is available on one of the other two consoles, or on the PC. Don't need it.
Another advantage of waiting is that the price of all these systems drop over time too. Maybe by the time there are actually PS3 games worth owning, they'll have knocked $100 or so off the price. It'll still be a more-than-vaguely-stupid price point... I guess that just means the tipping point of "number of cool games needed to make me buy" is going to be higher for this system thatn it waas for PS2.
But generally, I agree with your analysis. They're making some grossly erroneous assumptions about what they believe I'll think I have to have.
There are some ups and downs to Sony's approach in my opinion which I'm about to offer...:)
Sony choice to use Blu-Ray isn't necessarily bad. I think BD-ROMs can hold up to 50GB of data. Developers are already complaning about the XBox 360's choice to stick with DVD (9GB) for games. Regardless whether or not Blu-Ray thrives as a movie medium, I think it's a smart choice for games. For the PSP, the UMD format has done horribly for movies, but UMDs are a nice compact disc that can hold 1.8GB. That's great for the PSP games.
The difference in resolution is far from negligible. A standard DVD is 720x480. A standard HD movie is 1920x1080. The image constraint token is a natural extension of digital rights management that's everywhere now. You don't fault iTunes for only allowing you to play music you buy on your iPod. The next iteration of Windows will have DRM built into it. WMV files can require license acquisition. DRM is nothing new and it's only logical that Sony supports it. Unfortunately, the only way to enforce digital rights is through a digital connection. And that happens to be HDMI. On the other hand, these studios want to sell movies as much as people want to buy them. It's my guess the ICT won't be an issue for years until HDMI is more common-place. Did you complain when CDs hit the market? No. You continued to buy music on cassettes until you felt it was time to buy a CD player.
PS3 will also play PS2 and PS1 titles, giving newcomers an immense and cheap library to choose from. 360 again dropped the ball with this one. They emulate select titles and titles aren't necessarily emulated well. The PS3 (like the PS2) will have the actual hardware of the previous consoles. There's also a rumor that the PS3 will scale the PS1/PS2 games. Going from 640x480i to as high as 1920x1080p can make games look a lot smoother on HDTVs.
Since nothing is confirmed, it's easy to overlook the potential DVR capabilities of the PS3. Having a TiVo-like service is a nice piece of functionality. People already do this with their PCs using MythTV or other software. The PS3 is rumored to act as a DVR. In addition, the proposed ability to be a "LocationFree" base allows the PS3 to wirelessly stream TV to "LocationFree" players (like the PSP).
I wouldn't worry too much about interaction with the PSP. Adding an IR transmitter to the PS2 didn't drive up the cost. Neither did network capability.
Having said all that, I'm not sure all this belongs in a console. Do I really want to pay $600 for a DVR/DVD and BD-ROM player/PS1/PS2/PS3? I don't know. Consoles are rapidly starting to bundle a lot of stuff together (like Windows) and the cost only makes sense to someone who will make use of all that functionality. I'm only of the opinion that a lot of arrogance on Sony's part along with a lot of misconception on the end user's part overshadow the good and the potentially good aspects of the proposed console.
The only console I ever bought new was the PS2. In 2000, a PS1 and a DVD player for $300 was a bargain. I didn't have a standalone DVD player (and I never have). The icing on the cake was a new game console, all inclusive.
To get me to pre-order a PS3 or buy one new, the features will have to be solidified and attractive. Release some BD-ROMs of some must-have movies, give me a TiVo, some must-have launch games, and some neat interaction with my PSP and I'm sold. Right now, I'm in a wait-and-see attitude.
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