Sales of the Blu-ray equipped Playstation 3 down in the US

Another reason why the ps3 never should have included a blu-ray player to begin with. Had the ps3 been a focused game machine from day 1 the 360 may have never even survived its first year.

And then there's this... (FYI)

- Sony sees PlayStation 3 sales skyrocket 56%, Blu-ray a factor?

Despite the weakening economy, video game sales across the board have remained impressively high. Now that each of the big three have reported their Q3 figures, we found Sony's report in particular worthy of critique. Sure, Nintendo moved more Wiis last quarter than Sony did PS3s, and Microsoft sold about twice as many Xbox 360s, but that's beside the point. The most expensive console on the market (by far) still managed to see a 56% sales increase year-over-year, which is pretty remarkable in and of itself. We've no hard evidence suggesting that Blu-ray's victory in the format war helped escalate its sales, but would you be willing to bet that it did? C'mon, the PS3 was widely regarded as the best Blu-ray player in its price range for a solid while there, surely that helped out Sony somewhat -- no?

-JOE- (Love Hendrix!)

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Another reason why the ps3 never should have included a blu-ray player to begin with.

Your statement doesn't make sense, the PS3 did exactly what it was supposed to do for Blu-ray. KILL HD-DVD. Because of the PS3 there is no HD-DVD. Now it remains to be seen if it was a peric victory. With the new exclusives and a rumored price cut in early 09 coupled with KZ2 don't count out the PS3 just yet. Microsoft had no choice but to shoot their load before the holiday season, after GOW2 they have NOTHING substantial to look for as far as exclusives.

You should be happy the PS3 is no longer the economic minded player of choice. Because of the PS3 you can now choose between a whole variety of players less expensive. But the funny thing is NONE of them can still match the total features of the PS3.

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Had the ps3 been a focused game machine from day 1 the 360 may have never even survived its first year.

I do agree with you on that, but your resources can only go but so far.

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[Post edited by tony1569 on Nov 15, 2008]

Im w/ tony on this. If the ps3 didn't have blu ray I wouldn't have bought one. I have enough gaming w/ a wii and 360. The ps3 offers something others don't, fricken sweet movies.

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"If the ps3 didn't have blu ray I wouldn't have bought one."

^Exactly. Blu-ray is the sole reason I bought a PS3. I wanted to view BD high-def movies, to go along with my HD-DVD hi-def movies (Toshiba player), and the PS3 was the lowest-priced, and best quality Blu-ray player at the time. Had another stand-alone equaled it with price/quality, I would have purchased it instead. But the PS3 was the best quality (and lowest-priced), and it featured BLU-RAY, so that's the reason I bought it (60GB model - still works great now almost 20 months later).

-JOE- (Love Hendrix!)

Is this a good time for Eddie to post an ad for a Funai clone?

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Microsoft had no choice but to shoot their load before the holiday season, after GOW2 they have NOTHING substantial to look for as far as exclusives.

Well, to name a few:

Halo 3: Recon (Full Halo Game!)
Halo Wars
Forza Motorsport 3 (Not announced but hinted many times)

What is it PS3 have? Full game of Gran Turismo?

The problem is that many of us have a PS3 but we don't buy any games for it. Believe it or not but that actually is the main attraction of the PS3 and if Sony doesn't start movie consoles a lot of third party developers will drop the platform and move to one where they can sell games.

Look at this top 10 list for October (From NPD):

1) Fable II (Xbox 360) / Microsoft / 790,000
2) Wii Fit w/ Balance Board (WII) / Nintendo / 487,000
3) Fallout 3 (Xbox 360) / Bethesda Softworks / 375,000
4) Mario Kart Wii w/ Wheel (WII) / Nintendo / 290,000
5) Wii Play w/ Remote (WII) / Nintendo / 282,000
6) Saints Row 2 (Xbox 360) / THQ / 270,000
7) SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Confrontation (PS3) / Sony / 231,000
8) Little Big Planet (PS3) / Sony / 215,000
9) NBA 2K9 (360) / Take-Two Interactive / 202,000
10) Dead Space (360) / Electronic Arts / 193,000

PS3 has two titles on the list. Both exclusives and two of their big title this year. "Little Big Planet" and "SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Confrontation" together could not even beat "Fable II." Top that with the fact that multi platform releases like Dead Space and Fallout 3 are only represented on the list on XBOX 360. Meaning that a title like Fallout 3 most have sold close to twice as many copies on the XBOX 360.

If you were in the game selling business - which platform would you choose? If Sony doesn't start to sell more consoles than XBOX they will have lost this generation of the gaming consoles.

sony is in a terrible bind. the PS3 is losing the console war but is helping blu-ray. it looks bad for sony to lose to microsoft and nintendo, and since blu-ray has the high-def market to itself, all the news that's being written will be about how the PS3 is losing to the xbox 360 and the wii.

it's all about perceptions...hm...

If you told Sony they had to loose one technology - either Playstation or Blu-ray. They would not hesitate for a second to let Blu-ray go.

Note that the main reason that the PS3 got delayed and lost head start to XBOX 360 was the inclusion of the Blu-ray drive. So they pushed to get Blu-ray done and you could also speculate that Blu-ray was released "un-finished" because they had to get the PS3 out to compete with XBOX. They clearly underestimated both Microsoft and Nintendo.

The good thing of it all is that Blu-ray no longer need PS3 to succeed but Sony might have paid the ultimate price to win the HD war. The dominance of the Playstation brand.

Lastly...

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The most expensive console on the market (by far) still managed to see a 56% sales increase year-over-year, which is pretty remarkable in and of itself.

What good is growth if your competition sells almost twice as many as you do? That only tells you did not sell that many units last year. I know Sony likes to trow these numbers out and bend them to their benefit but it does not steer away from the fact that they need to sell more consoles and do it soon to catch up with XBOX and Nintendo.

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[Post edited by Henning on Nov 16, 2008]

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Your statement doesn't make sense, the PS3 did exactly what it was supposed to do for Blu-ray. KILL HD-DVD. Because of the PS3 there is no HD-DVD. Now it remains to be seen if it was a peric victory. With the new exclusives and a rumored price cut in early 09 coupled with KZ2 don't count out the PS3 just yet. Microsoft had no choice but to shoot their load before the holiday season, after GOW2 they have NOTHING substantial to look for as far as exclusives.

I thought it was proven that gamers weren't doing much of anything for Sony in the format war.

I mean really, couldn't Sony have cut out the blu-ray player from the PS3, sold a cheaper gaming machine and stand alone blu-ray player and possibly be in a better position than they are now? For the most part gamers were just gaming, and the people really interested in watching blu-rays on their PS3 were the people who bought the PS3 strictly as a blu-ray player.

About KZ2, I've NEVER seen so much hype about a sequel to a game that was met with such mediocre reviews.

For some reason Sony just can't get a shooting game that creates that tremendous brand association/recognition the way Gears and Halo have with the 360. Resistance? Killzone? They simply don't have that X-factor. I'm not talking about game quality either, I'm a fan of the Resistance franchise (great games), but no Sony shooter has ever grabbed the teenage demographic by the balls the way Gears and Halo have. When these franchises drop new releases it's an actual event. The anticipation created is staggering.