What will be more interesting will be to see how the Killzone 2 bundle does, both before and after the price cut that is likely to follow later in the year. That is an exclusive game with a strong online component, glowing reviews and a big marketing push behind it. I don’t think it’s sales are going to be dented by the (subjective) perception that the 360 has a better catalogue or a better online service. The Call of Duty games have sold millions on the PS3 already, refuting the idea that these considerations matter to real world consumers.

BC: Isn’t it lucky everyone in the world has the exact same priorities and willingness to paying over the odds for peripherals as you do?

£300 for a machine that does everything it could be reasonably expected to do, and plays Blu-Ray movies, without the need for any additional hardware purchases down the road beyond maybe a video cable and extra controllers seems like good value to me.

Of course Bruce will (and has, over and over again…) compare this as like-for-like with the £129.99 Xbox 360 Arcade, even though you’d need to spend at least the price of the machine again to be able to make decent use of the online functionality.

Come to think of it, how do third party publishers benefit from their customers’ disposable income being constantly sapped by the hardware vendor? Not having to buy a wifi adaptor, or a Live subscription, or to wait around for weeks for faulty machines to be replaced, surely means more money-per-time-period going on actual games?

Although expensive for Sony, the adoption of Blu-Ray for the Playstation 3 has proven successful for the Playstation 3 in terms of hardware sales and of course from a games development perspective. YES, some people do actually buy a Playstation 3 simply to use the Blu-Ray component. It’s FAR cheaper than buying a dedicated Blu-Ray player. Check your catalogue.

Quite simply, the XBox should have had Wifi built into it. I’m assuming as the Wii and Playstation 3 have this as standard that it is cheap to manufacture/include etc.

LIVE certainly provides a better service than PSN, but then it should considering users pay for it. Even then, the line between both online services and functionalities are beginning to blur.

The Wii is a “casual gamers” machine so I generally ignore comparisons. I own one with about 10 titles in my collection…. every game “plays” exactly the same to me, but then my “casual gaming” wife and kids love it. It is of course a MASSIVELY successful machine, far more so than the XBox and PS3.

There are many more exclusive titles released on the Playstation 3 this year than the XBox. This, plus if rumours are true of a price reduction in the Playstation 3 should not prove “disastrous” for the Playstation 3.

I suppose I’m writing all this because I’m a little fed up with your “Doomed to failure” etc posts regarding everything Playstation 3. Other than that, superb blog Bruce.

This argument keeps cropping up.

What if I don’t want blu-ray? I have a bunch of DVDs still to watch and 90% of them wouldn’t be improved by anything more than scaling. If I was going to shell out for blu-ray I’d shell out for a dedicated blu-ray player.

What if I don’t need wifi? I have a cable. It works.

360 does have hi-def now. It also has a hardware scaler which is pretty nifty and it doesn’t cause a black screen that is a bitch to get back from when the tv can’t handle the resolution.

Why does a hard drive need to be standard? So I can do mini-installs throughout like in MGS4? The Wii doesn’t need or have a hard drive (could do with an optional one tho).

It’s also already been noted that an expensive hard drive was a massive albatross around the previous xbox’s neck. Same thing is happening to PS3 http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/sony-ps3-will-remain-most-expensive-console-on-the-market

And I’m not a fan-boy. I have a 360, Wii, DS and I actually play my PC more. I still have my PS2 set up. I just don’t have money to burn on something I wouldn’t get my moneys worth from.

And as for Sony in 2009, last year and the year before everyone was saying “next year”.

Just go to Metacritic and compare the catalogues of the three machines. The 360 has more games than the PS3 and the Wii put together. And Xbox Live is the best gaming portal by some margin.

Source: http://www.videogaming247.com/2009/01/30/reeves-the-plan-wasnt-to-hit-sales-it-was-to-hit-a-profit-target/

While I wont argue that Sony have not made mistakes, I believe they have, I would argue a few points you raise above.

I’d like to know how can you be so sure the Playstation 3 is in the middle of it’s console cycle? I’ve read from many, many sources that Sony plan the Playstation 3 to have a 10 year lifecycle. I personally think 10 years is a little unrealistic although I certainly wouldn’t agree the PS3 is “mid-cycle”.

Why would the Playstation 3 be a far less good ownership proposition? Yes, the Playstation 3 is expensive, that I agree, but then how much money would you need to spend on your XBox 360 to achieve similar specifications? No Wifi? Hard Disk standard? High Def? plus having to pay to play online.

For Sony’s Playstation 3, 2009 looks to be the strongest ever year for game titles (most exclusives). I suspect Sony’s Playstation 3 will do fine (given the recession). It’s Microsoft’s XBox 360 you should possibly investigate.