The Official PS3 thread!

[Funkmasterr]

That doesn't change the fact that you were wrong in stating that the 360 outsold the PS3 in the month of August in Japan.

It does change the fact that your comment about "if it wasn't for this game" is stupid. Of course it was because of the game... (oh wait, you're the one that refuses to acknowledge that software attachment rates are more important than hardware.)

Oh look.. Funk lecturing others about refusing to acknowledge something. Which happens to be his standard M.O. on a daily basis. Priceless.

As for your geeky little 360 vs PS3 debate... Who cares? Wii kills them both! Have fun squabbling over second place losers!

blah blah blah.

I don't really care all that much, I just like going back and forth with miir, since he seems very vested in posting the sales numbers every month

[Winnow]

In mid-August, a seemingly unbelievable thing happened: The Xbox 360 sold out in Japan. Unbelievable because for years Japan ignored the Microsoft game console. But there we were, mid-August and an Xbox 360 sell out. This came just as Namco Bandai RPG Tales of Vesperia hit the Xbox 360. It got so bad that Microsoft actually had to issue an apology for the sell out. September saw a Microsoft Tokyo press conference that announced a console price cut that would hit when stores were restocked with consoles.

The timing for all this is just too damn good. When asked if this was a moved engineered by Microsoft, company exec Aaron Greenberg said, "Oh, it was totally legit. The demand for the console shot up suddenly. How can you plan for that?" Even now, the situation is so bad that apparently there are only roughly 18 or so consoles in the Japanese warehouse. "Everything we're making, we're selling straight through," Greenberg said. "That's why we're selling out. The only machines we're not selling have dents in them or have been accidentally damaged."

Microsoft's optimistic that this isn't a flash in the proverbial pan. "I see no reason this sales trend won't continue," said Xbox Japan boss Takashi Sensui (pictured). "We have the third party line-up." Sensui doesn't think the sell out was necessarily a plus. "It's not good when customers cannot buy your product," he said. Though, it certainly hasn't hurt Nintendo! The Kyoto-base company has profited from product scarcity.

With the Xbox 360 gaining momentum, are there any Japanese titles or franchises that Microsoft still wants on its console? Greenberg didn't specifically point out any titles in particular, but did add, "We want more." Agreeing, Sensui stated, "I'd like the see Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 in Japan." Square Enix has announced the game for Xbox 360 and the PS3 in the West, but only for the PS3 in Japan.

360 is on a roll!

[Winnow]

Wii, Xbox 360 leave the PS3 behind

Microsoft Nintendo hardware sales benefitted once more from successful game titles in September. The best selling title for the month was Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (610,000 units), which helped lift Xbox 360 sales by more than 75% from 195,200 in August to 347,200 units in September, according to NPD. The Wii climbed from a weak 453,000 units in August to 687,000 units on strong sales of its Wii Fit game and accessory, which sold 518,000 times during the month.

Slowly but surely, Sony may be concerned about its PS3. In comparison to its rivals, sales have been weakening over the past three months. In September, the PS3 saw the smallest sales increase, from 185,400 units in August to 232,400 in September. The most successful game for the PS3 came in at the #5 spot: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed sold 325,000 units. The PS3 had only one top 10 game in September, while the Xbox 360 had five and the Wii had four.

Nintendo has solidified its market share of more than 50% and stood at 54.2% in September. Microsoft increased its share to 27.4%, while Sony dropped to 18.3%.

[Fairweather Pure]

It doesn't help that Little Big Planet has been recalled and delayed another week over some music in the game that has lines from the Koran. Fucking priceless.

[miir]

Slowly but surely, Sony may be concerned about its PS3. In comparison to its rivals, sales have been weakening over the past three months. In September, the PS3 saw the smallest sales increase, from 185,400 units in August to 232,400 in September. The most successful game for the PS3 came in at the #5 spot: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed sold 325,000 units. The PS3 had only one top 10 game in September, while the Xbox 360 had five and the Wii had four.

The PS3's rate of sale (since release) is still stomping the 360.


Little Big Planet is going to be HUGE for the PS3.

[Winnow]

Little Big Planet is going to be HUGE for the PS3.

We'll see. I plan to buy Little Big Planet for the PS3 which will be my second PS3 game purchase (GTA IV being the first)

I want to see a team of VVers make it through some of the group levels! Hopefully there are mangina sacks (that sounds odd). One sack on the skateboard has feathers on their head. Kinda looks like its from the roaring 20's.

What bothers me on the PS3 (among a host of other things) is that on the rare occasion that I do turn it on, I, almost without fail, have a lengthy new system update to install. I don't recall the 360 updates being as frequent or taking as long. It's almost a deterrent for me to show someone the PS3 as you have to sit through these lengthy updates. It's not that their updates are any better than the 360's, they're just more frequent and slower. (I'm updating it again as I type this)

[Chidoro]

We'll get November's more important numbers soon but this was Oct's

Wii - 803,000
Nintendo DS - 491,000
Xbox 360 - 371,000
PSP - 193,000
PlayStation 3 - 190,000
PlayStation 2 - 136,000


Price has got to be the factor. $400 is a hard sell to families these days. Does anyone else think that this gen is going to last a lot longer than normal, like what the PS2 timeline looks like?

[Aslanna]

Wii sure is selling a lot of numbers for a fad. It's been two years now.. How long is a fad supposed to last anyway??

[Fash]

Miir pretends that the 360 isn't really selling 194% what the PS3 is, in 3...2...1...

[miir]

GOW2 = Sales

[Fairweather Pure]

GOW2 = Sales

Who would wait for GoW2 to buy a 360 if they didn't buy it for GoW1? How would they even know what GoW was like? That just doesn't make sense. I would put the cause more in line with Xmas sales and the 360's pricing.

I've bought 2 360's as gifts this year, and I've had 2 friends buy them for themselves for Xmas!

[Animalor]

http://kotaku.com/5106191/home-launches-on-december-11

Home "Open Beta" Launches tomorrow to everyone globally. I hope that Sony has enough bandwidth for this one...

[Winnow]

GOW2 = Sales

So Little Big Planet, the most fabulous game in teh universe, and Motorstorm II doesn't equal sales?

[Fairweather Pure]

GOW2 = Sales

So Little Big Planet, the most fabulous game in teh universe, and Motorstorm II doesn't equal sales?

This is from the wiki for LBP, but I know I read somewhere else that sales for the game have been pretty disappointing (not just in the UK as the quote says). I guess I don't know that much about PS3 exclusives, but was Motorstorm really a bankable title? I know about Resistance and Metal Gear being the big Sony exclusives that should move systems and that's about it.

LittleBigPlanet did not perform as well as anticipated during its first few weeks on sale. In the UK, the game entered the ELSPA videogame charts at number four, then fell to number 19 in its second week on sale. By 29 November, the game was at number 32 and had sold between 100,000 and 200,000 copies in the UK. Sony have defended the game's sales citing the timing of the game's release in the run up to Christmas, with so many other games being released, as being a major factor. A representative from SCEE said "In other times of the year it would be a clear number one, so you have to put the chart in context." Due to the game's last-minute recall and subsequent delay, LittleBigPlanet was released mid-week as as a result, its first week performance indicators are based on four days instead of the usual seven. This has also been suggested as a contributing factor. Many supporters of the game have also suggested that a lack of advertising has let it down although advertising campaigns currently being launched in North America and Europe are expected to boost the game's sales in the run up to Christmas.

[Fairweather Pure]

http://kotaku.com/5106191/home-launches-on-december-11

Home "Open Beta" Launches tomorrow to everyone globally. I hope that Sony has enough bandwidth for this one...

If it's really cool and popular, I look forward to MS copying it and releasing something almost identical next year

[Aslanna]

I played LBP a bit over Thanksgiving at someones house and.. eh.. while it was fun with 4 players it kinda seemed to be the same thing over and over just the environments were different. At least from what I saw, which to be honest wasn't all that much, it seems like it would get old rather quickly. Not sure it's something I would buy if i had a PS3.

[Animalor]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/ ... iis-in-nov

November NDP Numbers

• Wii - 2,040,000
• Nintendo DS - 1,570,000
• Xbox 360 - 836,000
• PSP - 421,000
• PlayStation 3 - 378,000
• PlayStation 2 - 206,000

Highlights -
Nintendo fucking everyone up the ass by a large margin and a half. Seriously, combine the 360, PS2 AND ps3 and it's still not even close.
Microsoft outselling both the PS2 AND PS3 combined by a quarter of a million units.
Sony gets a solid improvement year over year again.

Good news for everyone involved to be sure.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/ ... fares-mark

Software Top 10
01. Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360) - 1.56 million
02. Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360) - 1.41 million
03. Wii Play (Wii) - 796,000
04. Wii Fit (Wii) - 697,000
05. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 637,000
06: Call of Duty: World at War (PS3) - 597,000
07. Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii) - 475,0000
08. Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360) - 410,000
09. Resistance 2 (PS3) - 385,000
10. Wii Music (Wii) - 297,000

Xbox 360 selling over 3 million copies of games from just the top 10 list. Sells 800k more copies of CoD5 than the PS3.

Wii is selling a ton of first party/accessories combos and Activision is still the only other company that can crack the top 10 on the Wii.

Kudos on Valve for selling a ton of copies of L4D. They deserve that.

[Fairweather Pure]

Nintendo's numbers are fucking crazy. If you hang out in the electronics section of any store for longer than 10 minutes, your guaranteed to overhear at least one parent asking the clerk if they have any Wii's in stock. Check and Mate to Nintendo. Those fuckers still can't meet demand 2 years after release because they fly off of shelves. The balance board is a major hit as well.

[Winnow]

Trying out Sony Home on the PS3.

wtf?

Graphics are kinda nice. Wish SL looked like that but the rest of it needs some work. A female av logged on and was practically gang raped. Not much variety. Everyone looks the same for the most part.

Interesting to check out. Not a whole lot to do but a world rendered as well as this on a SL scale would be impressive.

Lotta immature peeps running around. With all of the voice capable people it's annoying/funny in a way. Annoying quickly though. Lotta people fighitng. One dude getting all racial. Telling black guy to leave.

Lots and lots of flamers and trolls getting in way of people.

On the positive side. The world looks pretty nice. Would be great place for an FPS shooter.

[miir]

PS3 Home is a sausage party

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

Trying out Sony Home on the PS3.

wtf?

Graphics are kinda nice. Wish SL looked like that but the rest of it needs some work. A female av logged on and was practically gang raped. Not much variety. Everyone looks the same for the most part.

Interesting to check out. Not a whole lot to do but a world rendered as well as this on a SL scale would be impressive.

Lotta immature peeps running around. With all of the voice capable people it's annoying/funny in a way. Annoying quickly though. Lotta people fighitng. One dude getting all racial. Telling black guy to leave.

Lots and lots of flamers and trolls getting in way of people.

On the positive side. The world looks pretty nice. Would be great place for an FPS shooter.

Sounds like Real Life then!

Just like what you get in a "normal" party:

A female av logged on and was practically gang raped. Not much variety. Everyone looks the same for the most part.

Lotta immature peeps running around. With all of the voice capable people it's annoying/funny in a way. Annoying quickly though. Lotta people fighitng. One dude getting all racial. Telling black guy to leave.

Lots and lots of flamers and trolls getting in way of people.

[Spang]

PS3 Home is a sausage party

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[Sabek]

PS3 Home: Teh Sausage Party

[Winnow]

Waiting for the latest instalment in the Final Fantasy series? Great! You just keep on waiting, because Square Enix boss Yoichi "Imperial Hot" Wada has said it won't be out in the West until 2010.

Speaking with Reuters, Wada confirms that while the Japanese release of Final Fantasy XIII (which is exclusive to the PS3) will take place in 2009, the Western release - which will appear on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 - won't go down until at least April 2010.

I wonder how many less units the PS3 would have sold the past few years if people knew this beforehand.

Gears of War 1/2 have topped 9 million copies sold.

[Avestan]

Microsoft is the happiest company on this list. Games sales are EVERYTHING. Consoles sales are fine, but people just do not buy nearly as many wii games. They get the first couple and call it a day. Really imressive game sales for MS.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/ ... iis-in-nov

November NDP Numbers

• Wii - 2,040,000
• Nintendo DS - 1,570,000
• Xbox 360 - 836,000
• PSP - 421,000
• PlayStation 3 - 378,000
• PlayStation 2 - 206,000

Highlights -
Nintendo fucking everyone up the ass by a large margin and a half. Seriously, combine the 360, PS2 AND ps3 and it's still not even close.
Microsoft outselling both the PS2 AND PS3 combined by a quarter of a million units.
Sony gets a solid improvement year over year again.

Good news for everyone involved to be sure.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/ ... fares-mark

Software Top 10
01. Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360) - 1.56 million
02. Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360) - 1.41 million
03. Wii Play (Wii) - 796,000
04. Wii Fit (Wii) - 697,000
05. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 637,000
06: Call of Duty: World at War (PS3) - 597,000
07. Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii) - 475,0000
08. Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360) - 410,000
09. Resistance 2 (PS3) - 385,000
10. Wii Music (Wii) - 297,000

Xbox 360 selling over 3 million copies of games from just the top 10 list. Sells 800k more copies of CoD5 than the PS3.

Wii is selling a ton of first party/accessories combos and Activision is still the only other company that can crack the top 10 on the Wii.

Kudos on Valve for selling a ton of copies of L4D. They deserve that.

[Chidoro]

Microsoft is the happiest company on this list. Games sales are EVERYTHING. Consoles sales are fine, but people just do not buy nearly as many wii games. They get the first couple and call it a day. Really imressive game sales for MS.

Looks like Nintendo cleaned up in December. Friggen DS sales, jesus christ

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/01/15/decem ... -21-33-bi/

- DS: 3.04m 1.47m (94%)
- Wii: 2.15m 110K (5%)
- Xbox 360: 1.44m 604K (72%)
- PSP: 1.02m 599K (142%)
- PS3: 726K 348K (92%)
- PS2: 410K 204K (99%)

Check out the software sales chart after the break.


Top 10 Games of December 2008
1. Wii Play w/ remote - Wii – Nintendo – 1.46 million
2. Call of Duty: World at War - Xbox 360 – Activision – 1.33 million*
3. Wii Fit w/ balance board – Wii – Nintendo – 999K
4. Mario Kart Wii w/ wheel – Wii – Nintendo – 979K
5. Guitar Hero: World Tour - Wii – Activision – 850K*
6. Gears of War 2 - Xbox 360 – Microsoft – 745K*
7. Left 4 Dead - Xbox 360 – Electronic Arts – 629K
8. Mario Kart - DS – Nintendo – 540K
9. Call of Duty: World at War - PS3 – Activision – 533K
10. Animal Crossing: City Folk - Wii – Nintendo – 497K*




* Includes Collector's, Limited, Legendary, and Bundled Editions




Top 10 Games of Calendar Year 2008

1. Wii Play w/ remote - Wii – Nintendo – 5.28 million
2. Mario Kart Wii w/ wheel – Wii – Nintendo – 5.00 million
3. Wii Fit w/ balance board – Wii – Nintendo – 4.53 million
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Wii – Nintendo – 4.17 million
5. Grand Theft Auto IV - Xbox 360 – Take-Two – 3.29 million*
6. Call of Duty: World at War - Xbox 360 – Activision – 2.75 million*
7. Gears of War 2 - Xbox 360 – Microsoft – 2.31 million*
8. Grand Theft Auto IV - PS3 – Take-Two – 1.89 million*
9. Madden NFL '09 - Xbox 360 – Electronic Arts – 1.87 million*
10. Mario Kart - DS – Nintendo – 1.65 million

[Aslanna]

Obviously I'm pulling this out of thin air based on nothing but I personally believe Nintendo is happier than Microsoft in regards to the present sales of their respective consoles and associated games/peripherals.

Game sales are everything for maybe MS and Sony who are, as far as I know, still losing money on every console sold. Obviously game sales pick up that slack but is it enough to beat Nintendo who in addition to whatever games sales they have are also making $3 (last figure I remember reading) on every Wii sold? Not to mention downloadable content. And throwing in the DS side of things? I dont think it is. Maybe in a year or two things will be different.

As I said that's just my own personal opinion. I welcome facts and figures proving me wrong if they exist. I dont care either way who wins the 'console wars.'

---

(Oh.. Edit.. I think sometime last year MS started making a profit on their console sales.. I had forgotten about that. I still think Nintendo is beating them though.)

[Animalor]

They all posted good numbers respectively on the hardware. Title sales for the year are interesting too.

All the top selling Wii games are Nintendo first party whereas all the MS and Sony titles are 2nd or 3rd party. You have to wonder what EA, Activision and Take 2 are thinking about figures like this..

[Avestan]

Does anyone know what the "long tail" looks like in console gaming sales? We have been looking at the top ten, but I would be curious of what percentage of ttal console software sales are represented by the top 10. If that number is high, Nintendo is loving it, but if Microsoft does 80% of its software sales from games not in the top ten, I would guess they are the ones raking it in.

It has always been my impression that the Wii only has the three or four games that anyone ever buys, whereas MS and Sony have a much, much longer tail going on.

[Aslanna]

Hmm guess my Wii profit figures were off by 50%. They actually make $6 profit on every Wii.

According to Macquarie Securities analyst David Gibson, Nintendo makes $6 USD operating profit on each Wii unit sold, making it the only "next-gen" console to make a profit on the actual unit.

The analyst also noted that Sony makes a decent sized loss on each PlayStation 3 sold and that Microsoft has the potential to break even on each Xbox 360 console sold, but still may not.

Besides making profit on each console, the Wii sells the most software of the new consoles, selling an estimated 220 million units for 2008. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are estimated to sell under 130 million units each.

Nintendo also capitalizes on its position in the market by selling 60 percent of the Wii games itself compared to only 15 percent for Sony and 30 percent for Microsoft. The Wii's top selling games are all developed by Nintendo.

Hiroshi Kamide, director of research at KBC Securities, Japan, added, "The key thing about Nintendo is they want their things to be at price points that anyone can respond to."

[Fairweather Pure]

Didn't Xbox make a hundred million or so from downloadable content last year? Don't they make a shitload of money with Xbox Live subscriptions every year (50$)? They have over 13 million subscribers or some shit.

I never see any of that thrown into the mix, but I would think those numbers are hard to ignore when talking about combined console success.

[Chidoro]

Didn't Xbox make a hundred million or so from downloadable content last year? Don't they make a shitload of money with Xbox Live subscriptions every year (50$)? They have over 13 million subscribers or some shit.

I never see any of that thrown into the mix, but I would think those numbers are hard to ignore when talking about combined console success.

The only thing I can think of is that if there are 13 million subs, how many are silver and how many are gold. I don't think there are 13 million that pay the $50 but I could be mistaken.

[Avestan]

what do you get for gold?

[Aardor]

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/memberships101.htm

Pretty much the ability to play the game online. No clue if the 13 million is for gold + silver or just gold though.

[Sueven]

So, my impression, without knowing shit about this, is that, in this generation of consoles:

Nintendo has surpassed all expectations (after the failure of the gamecube) to have a wildly successful generation. They sell products that are sharply differentiated and more popular than those offered by their competitors.

Microsoft has seen generation two go as well as could be expected, selling fairly well and making further and deeper inroads into the marketplace.

Sony has to be disappointed by a lackluster showing. While the PS3 is not a bomb, they've fairly quickly gone from the top of the pile to the bottom. They maintain influence but have to be viewed as the clear loser from this generation. If it wasn't for blu-ray, they'd probably be doing even worse.

Is this generally accurate?

[Funkmasterr]

I know I heard in a conversation with someone at MS recently that xbox live users have spent over 1 billion dollars on downloaded content to date.

Really for me what sets the three consoles (I now own all three) apart is the online service. I will never buy a cross platform game on the Wii or PS3 because Xbox live is much better than the PSN and is better than Nintendo could ever even dream of doing.

The one advantage I would say that the PSN has over Xbox live is the ability to share accounts. My cousin and and a few of his friends and I have a shared account that we all put money in every month and buy games that everyone wants. I already have a fair amount of games from the PSN for this reason. If Xbox live had this feature, it would be bad ass beyond description, but I don't see it ever happening, MS likes money too much.

But there are a few things about the PSN that annoy me that are a big part of the reason why Live is so much better. You can't (at least that I've seen) private chat anyone if they (or you) are playing a game. This sucks major ass, and is tied to my number two annoyance, which is how each game has it's separate online system, no party system, etc like Live.

I'm sure a lot of the reason for this is keeping the service free, but I wouldn't mind paying a couple dollars a month if they made improvements to the service. One other thing I have noticed is that the PS3 will play more video files over Windows Media Connect than the 360 will (and they just added better DIVX support with the recent update I think), but it still won't play all file types either.

By the way, we have one space left in our group account on the PSN, so if anyone is interested I might be able to get you the spot. To be considered though I would probably like to see a $10-$20 contribution to the account every month.

One thing I know I read recently too, and I would be curious if this is taken into account when saying Nintendo is selling more software, is Wii Sports. It has recently become the highest selling game of all time, obviously due to the fact that it comes free with the console. I think it would be corny to count this in their software sales total, but I'm guessing somehow it probably is.

As far as the PS3 goes, I have got a good handful of games, and a few really stick out.

List so far:
Metal Gear Solid 4
Little Big Planet
Resistance 2
Uncharted:Drakes Fortune
PAIN
Mega Man 9
Crash Commando
PixelJunk Eden
PixelJunk Monsters
Mahjong Ancient Wisdom
Lumines
Suikoden


If you have a PS3 and haven't played PixelJunk Eden, I recommend that you play it ASAP. The best way I could describe it, is that it's kinda like roping in the Worms games, and you have to gather pollen to open up flowers and get further into the level. It's a really cool game.

I also like Little Big Planet quite a bit, it ended up being more of a challenge than I initially expected, and some of the user created content is amazing. I am actually planning on trying to make a series of levels myself to go through the Dark Tower books, so I guess we'll see how that turns out.

[Funkmasterr]

So, my impression, without knowing shit about this, is that, in this generation of consoles:

Nintendo has surpassed all expectations (after the failure of the gamecube) to have a wildly successful generation. They sell products that are sharply differentiated and more popular than those offered by their competitors.

Microsoft has seen generation two go as well as could be expected, selling fairly well and making further and deeper inroads into the marketplace.

Sony has to be disappointed by a lackluster showing. While the PS3 is not a bomb, they've fairly quickly gone from the top of the pile to the bottom. They maintain influence but have to be viewed as the clear loser from this generation. If it wasn't for blu-ray, they'd probably be doing even worse.

Is this generally accurate?

Kind of. Honestly, I think a lot of the difference between how the companies are performing and how the market is reacting to their product is who they are really targeting with their consoles.

In my opinion:

Microsoft is targeting players in the united states who like a total online experience and are willing to pay for it. The are targeting people who over everything else, like to play games online with their friends/other people. They have also focused mainly on shooters.

Sony I think has had trouble largely due to the fact that they are not real clear on the identity/focal points of their console. I think once they realized this they fell back on it being "the cheapest BLU-RAY player".

In my opinion they started out closer to the model Nintendo seems to fit in. They didn't focus on online/multiplayer capabilities, media, or other available services on their console. They are both companies based out of Japan and a large number of their sales come from Japan, and Japanese folk are no where near as interested in that kind of content/functionality as consumers in the US (and maybe Europe?) are.

However, after realizing that they were getting stomped by Nintendo and Microsoft was passing them up, I think they decided to try and head a little bit more in the direction of Microsoft's model. Problem is, they only made it half way. They have some multiplayer/chat/multimedia content available online but it is nowhere near as polished and abundant as on the 360.

So they are lost somewhere in the middle, with no clear identity as to where they fit in this generation, and I think that is their main problem.

That brings me to Nintendo. They have focused on party games mainly, stuff that people want to play with friends, and their also on their solid first party software that never fails to sell well (even on the Gamecube.)

They have shown no interest in creating much of any kind solid online functionality, but the Nintendo store and the recent addition to allow DLC for games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero tells me that they realize that next generation they will probably have to finally change that, and are starting to make the steps now to make the transition smoother.

I could be totally off base, but that's my take.

EDIT: I think if Nintendo makes a solid online service that is something like Xbox Live next gen, they will stomp the other two so hard it will make their victory this generation look like nothing.

[Fairweather Pure]

I know I heard in a conversation with someone at MS recently that xbox live users have spent over 1 billion dollars on downloaded content to date.

As of August 2008, 360 DLs had made 250 million since launch. I doubt they've made another 750 million in 4-5 months!

It's still an impressive amount and neither the Wii or PS3 have come close to the online sales figures of MS.

I do find it interesting that the #1 thing I thought was pointless about the PS3 (Blu Ray) ended up being the primary thing that has saved them during this round of console wars.

[Aardor]

Oh man, the same guy who's been hacking Kanye must have gotten to Funk too!

I think that the DLC Nintendo has now with classic games is pretty good, but it is not the matchmaking/community of Xbox Live. Granted, Microsoft did have a jump start on Sony and Nintendo regarding online services, since Xbox Live was on the original Xbox.

[Funkmasterr]

I know I heard in a conversation with someone at MS recently that xbox live users have spent over 1 billion dollars on downloaded content to date.

As of August 2008, 360 DLs had made 250 million since launch. I doubt they've made another 750 million in 4-5 months!

It's still an impressive amount and neither the Wii or PS3 have come close to the online sales figures of MS.

I do find it interesting that the #1 thing I thought was pointless about the PS3 (Blu Ray) ended up being the primary thing that has saved them during this round of console wars.

Now that I think about it, the wording may have tricked me. I think it was said that Xbox Live (subscriptions and DLC purchased) has made over 1 billion. That makes a bit more sense.

Like you said, either way they have dominated that corner of the market, and I think the other two will have to seriously consider doing something about it next round or it might be their downfall.

[Aslanna]

Actually my impression of the PS3 is that they would be doing better without Blu-Ray and not worse. That's because the cost of the console, I'm guessing, could have been cheaper which probably wold have appealed to more people. Not many people wanted to plunk down $600 on a console. Oh.. Sorry.. 599 US Dollars. Sure that includes BLU-RAY but not everyone wanted Blu-Ray. They just wanted to play games. Of course then you have those on the other side who bought a PS3 just because it was a 'cheap' Blu-Ray player and really had no desire to play games with it. Sony took the gamble that the PS3 would sell like gangbusters and Blu-Ray would win them the HD format battle. While they have won the format battle, and really that's thanks more towards which movie studios Sony was able to get on their side over HD-DVD than anything else, the console war is a whole other ballgame with Sony presently in third place.

Perhaps in a year or two the ship will be righted but at the moment Sony is in trouble to the tune of $3 billion in losses for 2008. Obviously that's the whole company and not just the console/games division but when you're losing money on every console you put out there it's not helping the big picture.

Honestly this is all speculation on my part since I'm no industry analyst and not sure how much cheaper the PS3 would have been without Blu-Ray. I think I read that the drives were initially costing Sony $100 each. And if the consoles were costing them $800 to make they'd still be losing money pricing the PS3 at $600.

[Funkmasterr]

I wouldn't necessarily argue that point either. I don't have a hdtv yet and even if I did I most likely wouldn't buy blu ray discs, so that wasn't a selling point for me.

Like you said, I just want to play games, and until recently there were not enough games exclusive to the ps3 for me to buy one.

I finally broke down and bought the 160gb bundle that came with uncharted and PAIN for $499. I figure when you consider that it is wireless out of the box (costs 100 dollars for the 360) and comes with two games worth a total of like $85 that's not a half bad price.

[Animalor]

The PS3 is a hard purchase to justify for a lot of people.

I have a strong impression that most people who own a 360 would also buy a PS3 as well if it was priced lower. Even through I would buy most multi-player games on the 360. There are a few PS3 exclusives that I would love to try out.

If BluRay penetration were stronger and rental media was abundant, then the 399$ might be paletable and I would actually run to my video store and rent blu. As it stands, I don't even buy movies on DVD, I would definately not pay the Blu Premium for purchasing movies either.

[Sueven]

I feel like both Microsoft and Sony became a bit obsessed with the idea of building the biggest, baddest, technologically marvelous machine that they could possibly create. Nintendo obviously did not. This seems like a wise reading of the market on Nintendo's part. Microsoft, however, made the strategy work for them by throwing serious muscle behind the online aspect of the experience, utilizing the power of the machine and providing features that other customers really want. Sony was behind the curve on this effort, so, like Funk said, they kind of got stuck in the middle.

[Winnow]

Fir me it comes down to the fn factor and online game play.

Microsoft and the 360 simply have the best selection of games (by far) and also, hands down, the best online gaming experience. It's UI has always been good and is even better with the recent upgrades. The 360 also has the best controller (for me) with the PS3's feeling cheap and uncomfortable with lousy small triggers that are curved the wrong way on top of them being small for easy finger slippage.

PS3 has felt clunky from the start for me with so few quality games that aren't available elsewhere with either better online game play, higher frame rates, or additional content downloads. While I applaud Sony for trying out a new cell processor, it backfired horribly, with developers having a have of a time trying to code games for it. Their online strategy (continued from their bad PS2 online support) has been disappointing.

The Wii takes an unforgivable major hit in it's lack of high definition resolution gaming. I know the general public doesn't seem to care and I understand that most people aren't wise to the world when it comes to tech stuff but the HD era is here and Nintendo cheaped out. I also understand the motion control being a little fun for awhile but the Wii also has a sea of poorly rated games. When you go to Metacritic, all you see are crap game rating. Their online play is also bad with the long friends codes required to enter and otherwise ho hum online experience.

Wii won the financial battle this round but Microsoft won the important, long lasting, variety and online, fun part.

[Aslanna]

Microsoft and the 360 simply have the best selection of games (by far) and also, hands down, the best online gaming experience. It's UI has always been good and is even better with the recent upgrades. The 360 also has the best controller (for me) with the PS3's feeling cheap and uncomfortable with lousy small triggers that are curved the wrong way on top of them being small for easy finger slippage.

I was actually thinking about buying a 360 recently (since they are now all hackable) and looked at the top rated games (via metacritic) and nothing really stood out. Shooters and games that also have a PC version. I didn't really see any incentive there to make me want to choose a 360. I'm not a big online player so that's not a consideration.

And if you sort Wii and 360 reviews by score you see a large 'sea of poorly rated games' of red and yellow scores for the 360 as well so don't pretend every game on the 360 is super-duper awesomeo because it's not. Although yeah there is probably more shovelware on the Wii. Which is why reviews were invented so people can avoid those.

[Funkmasterr]

I like all different kinds of games, and if you look at my library of games for the three consoles I would argue it's a fair indicator of the pool of games available for each. I have 41 games for the 360, 4 (with 3 more I want to buy yet) for the PS3, and 7 (with two more I want to buy yet) for the Wii. Keep in mind that like I said before, if it's cross platform I don't see any reason that you would buy it on anything other than the 360, assuming you own one.

One thing that has really been getting me lately is people complaining about availability of DLC on the Wii for Rock Band/GH. What the hell are you doing using the Wii as your primary console if you are into games enough to want to dump a bunch of money into DLC for a game? Makes no sense to me at all.

All of the consoles have bad games, but I think there is a difference between why PS3/360 games and Wii games get bad reviews. There are just a bunch of PS3/360 games that pretty much suck (like on any console), but the problem with a big portion of the Wii games is that they are just a collection of mini games or a poorly ported and renamed game from a different console. There are plenty of mini-game type games out for the wii already that we can all play when we have people over, we don't need 500 more..

[Aslanna]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6203859.html

This morning, the company that spent the last hardware generation bringing up the rear with the GameCube reported its current console had sold 44.96 million units worldwide as of December 31--a 10 million unit increase from just two months prior. Of those 10 million, over 4 million were sold in the US, with the NPD Group reporting 2.04 million in November and 2.15 million in December.

The Wii's older--but smaller--sibling is also faring well. The DS--itself the subject of widespread derision as it went on sale in November 2004--sold 96.22 million units as of the end of last year, pulling further ahead of its predecessor, the Game Boy Advance. The monumental figure is comprised sales of all models of the handheld, including 1.66 million units of the DSi, the camera-enabled third hardware revision currently available in Japan.

Though Nintendo makes a profit on hardware, its first-party publishing operation is also reaping riches from software sales. During the last nine months of 2008, Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit both sold over 10 million units worldwide, with 9.4 million copies of Wii Play also passing over store counters. The platform's software total now stands at 312 million as of December 31.

The Wii's huge tally was still behind that of the DS, though. Boosted by the popularity of Kirby Super Star Ultra and the Japan-only release of Pokemon Platinum, some 163.78 million DS games were sold last year, pushing its software sales to the 533 million-unit mark as the New Year's Eve champagne corks popped.

[miir]

Just a fad...

[Funkmasterr]

Just a fad...

Obviously.