At this year's E3, Sony displayed their "Play Beyond" ad campaign with several massive banners. After announcing the PS3's price point, we'd like to modify that campaign: Play Beyond $599. In essence, Sony expects gamers to spend $1 more than $599 for their full home console gaming experience. Don't get us wrong, we like the PlayStation franchise just as much as the next guy. Who wouldn't being that both the PSX and PS2 contained arguably the largest gaming library for the masses over the past decade. But we're still not thrilled with idea of paying $600 to continue the trend.
You're out of touch with your customer base, Sony. Your current arrogance could be likened to that of Nintendo's circa 1995, hot off their decade of home console dominance. We, a collective gamer nation some millions strong, got you to rethink your PS3 controller (not sure if your "redesign" is much better, though), and now we'd like you to reconsider your exorbitant $600 PS3 launch price. Get to it!
[update 1: word correction]
(Page 1) Reader Comments
TOGETHER BROTHER AND SISTERS WE SHALL OVERCOME!!
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and out of all those games how many were really that code?
and your not buying a PS3 for $600, your buying a blu-ray player with builtin game support.
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it should read: "and out of all those games how many had solid code and were really that good?"
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Its arrogance is staggering.
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F Sony.
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... Please.
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straight up, man (tell it like it is). I'm getting sick of all these kids accusing joystiq of an anti-Sony bias, especially when you consider that Sony seems to have an anti-consumer bias right now.
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Sounds right; I see a 2 console ruling rule going on here. Nintendo with the NES and SNES, then came in Sony's Playstation and Playstation 2. If my logic is correct, Sony will bow down from next generation's crown and it will be awarded to Microsoft, who will have it for 2 years. It seems that they come in all passionate and enthusiastic about games and when they are in the limelight, their arrogance and cockiness becomes far more prominent.
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There is a BIG difference between what Sony is doing now, and what Nintendo did. Sony have simply made decisions not everyone likes, but their not forcing anyone to purchase the machine or doing anything illegal, they have this direction they want to take the industry and their playstation series, you don’t like it, fine, but do not compare this to the ludicrously that Nintendo did, Nintendo used tactics that even Microsoft would be ashamed of. Their price fixing scheme (which they have been sued for by both USA and Europe) restricting shipments of games to drive up the want for these games, yet forcing developers to withhold shipping the games meaning they lost out on money they were fairly entitled too, all this, while Nintendo franchises were available everywhere, and their shitty Mario franchises where made available in their thousands, making sure they made an unfair amount of money taking sales from other companies. Also taking a HUGE slice of profit from developers and publisher, by using their popularity of the nes and snes, to make sure publishers could not survive without them, telling companies like toys r us that if they don’t agree to there crazy pricing of games and consoles, they would cut their supplies, not listening to developers who wanted better format, because this would cut from Nintendo’s royalties on their shitty cart format, and their over restrictive games or ‘family’ policy, basically stating that we as consumers are unable to make their own choices on what we want.
Basically Nintendo was/is the most evil games company. They did tactics unseen that would make communist countries like china feel appalled. Nintendo fans complain about Sony and their stealing of technology that existed well before Nintendo ever used it, well if that is the biggest criticisms that can be levelled at the champions Sony, and how they are in this game market, I am more than happy, cause if Nintendo ever control the games market again, you best be ready to be ripped off
Funny again because though the ps3 is expensive it’s a deal to what it costs to make. It’s not like Sony is ripping anyone off here, their giving you immense technology at a great cost, even if its high for you, it’s not like Sony is taking some huge insane profit are they? their doing nothing wrong. Whereas Nintendo are goanna charge you 200 dollars to buy an add-on for another gamecube, which costs 30 dollars to make. And have said time and time ago that they even want their current fans.
Joystq just don’t compare Sony to the communist like Nintendo that they were, and still would be if they had a good amount of fans.
Ps. F**k viva la wii!
NEVER underestimate the power of the playstation.
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However i more enjoyed a $3 burger...
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All I hear from you is damage control.
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Anyone who works for a living in the U.K. might have a problem with being confronted with as surprise bill for £425 but we all knew the PS3 was due at some point in 2006 over a year ago and we all knew it would "be expensive", ten pounds a week in your piggy bank would give you more than enough for the system and several games.
I'm glad Sony aren't solely concentrating on making it cheap, there's a huge demand for feature packed, sophisticated technology for the more discerning adult gamer.
People need to get over the fact that games consoles aren't just toys anymore.
If you see more value in the Wii or the 360 then buy those instead.
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When you post fanboy crap like that you lose respect. Whether you like it or not Sony have lost a chunk of mindshare with PSP and PS3 alike. They ARE falling into the N64 trap of an expensive console, less developer support and difficult programming. Add them together and you have a lesser market share. That is the way the PS3 is going. There is a giant poster on the shop of Gamestation in my local town spouting the PS3's price. People are pointing and LAUGHING. Nobody has yet placed a pre-order for one either. This is just my town, not the whole world, but we are not the only place.
Not to criticise the N64 too much, it did have OoT, Mario 64 and Goldeneye to its roster.
Nintendo, communist? A child. What a little child. You have a nice little warped mind. I trust you enjoy it and leave the internet. Thank you.
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Hopefully that's a local thing and not a nationwide thing.
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Wrong. Games are toys. They're things you play. They're not like cars that you experience and drive, they're pushing little trigger switch buttons to make a little pretend person run around on screen.
They are toys. Nothing more. They might play a DVD or BluRay disc but then you're "just watching a film".
Sorry. that was the funniest thing I ever read. Not toys. I'm 20, I've had consoles all my life. They're our version of playing noughts and crosses, only online and with HD graphics. They're our way of playing pretend. "I'm gonna be a swordman today mummy!" "I'm gonna go into Oblivion with a sword mum! Look mum I killed a pretend skeleton man! look! I can ride a horsey mummy too!"
Toys.
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than people will start saying that they lied even more
it's done
theres nothing left sony can do with the price and features
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Funniest thing you've ever read? Crikey! Maybe you should revise your choice of reading material.
You do read ... right?
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Real PS3 = £425 = $800
2 Games = 2 x £50 = $188
Extra Controller = £30 = $56
HDMI Cable = £30 = $56
1 Blu-ray film = £25 = $47
Total = £610 = $1,148!
Oh and don't forget the price of a HDTV which most of us don't have.
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Look, Sony is a great company but it seems that they're expecting a little too much from the consumers right now. The arrogance is there but that's their only sin, but they will pay for it like several gaming companies have...
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That is all
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everyone complains about price at every new system time... people will buy it like crazy and it will sell out with lines at launch... etc...
enough of the sony bashing... the 600 is right on par with 360 pricing iff youcompare the hardware....
we all knew it would be pricy because of all the hardware you get
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nintendo is gimmick factory,
joystiq needs to get with the program,
499 for PS3 Game Machine
599 for PS3 Entertainment System
Sony Forever!
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Games are like toys, games consoles are not "just toys".
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Totally off-topic: What do you think about democratic communism? Hehe, think about it. :P
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And I still wonder if the price point is as bad as everyone says it is. Sony was the company that introduced the $299 price point with the PS2, and that was very successful. While this may be double that, the times have changed and I find that it doesn't really bother me. However, that is strictly a personal opinion.
But for all of you that claim the price is just too much, what do you think Sony can do about it without adding additional losses to each system sold?
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I have to admit that Sony is right when it brags that it has "brand equity." I've overheard fanboys in Walmart commenting that they "can't wait for the PS3," and that they're "starting to save now." They don't care about the Xbox 360 or the quality of its second-generation games. Sony can do no wrong. Microsoft is evil. Nintendo is communist.
These guys have picked their horse and they're sticking with it, comfortably blind to any other options. I can only hope that after months of build-up, the heady climax of purchasing the console will be well worth it. (Although if it isn't, they'll never tell...)
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Although Jay's comment was a bit over the top, he is right - games are still just toys. Complex and entertaining toys, but toys all the same.
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*by launch I mean December of 95, close enough.
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I loved the PSX and PS2 - and I for one wanted the PS3 to exceed. But the price, combined with their relatively poor showing in arguably the biggest event in the gaming calendar: E3, was enough to convince me that Sony don't give a crap about the gamers and just want to push the Blu-Ray format.
Gaming is not an exclusive right. We do not have to be in a position to sacrifice/save up extra more to have the right to own a games system.
We can argue till we are blue in the face, but Sony truly have mucked up the release of the PS3. The huge fanbase, the massive back catalogue - they only need to sell a more powerful machine and leave the Blu-Ray format until maybe the next incarnation when the userbase of HDTVs grew. Given the choice between a PS3 with a DVD drive and a 360, I would have gone with the PS3 anytime.
Joystiq are speaking the word of the gaming community. If people really cared about games, they would boycott the PS3 - to tell Sony that we won't be taken for a ride. The gaming community must prevail...
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PS3 = €600 (living in Belgium)
PS3 offers free online play
Xbox360= €400
Online play €15 a month
To make the equation more simple
Lets say graphics are comparable. and rule out the blu ray player and HDMI-slot, cardreader
Which one would you choose?
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I agree 100% with that, and not to mention, I'm 21.
Maybe I'm a child, I don't care, I'd rather be a child and PLAY games then being this louzy boring man.
We need to get out of reality sometimes, and pretend we're someone else. That's what a child does constantly, that's what we do with games.
Never lose the child in you!
So, to me, gaming is still playing with toys, only another kind of toy.
And toys shouldn't be expensive... it's like getting a nice cart with pedals which goes perfectly fine while the kid next to you gets the same cart, but electric...
I don't know what the electric part is good for, but I do know you can get the same amount of fun out of them both, and even go faster using the 'weaker' kind of technology
Ok, this is a bad example, but I suggest you know what I'm getting at ^^;
Toys need to stay toys, not high-tech stuff 'an adult' needs.
Expensiveness thrives away customers, and the experience of something should be in line with the cost of it. And I think in this case, it's a cost that's too high for what you'll get out of it.
BluRay? Meh, I don't think that's needed. They just shove another (same with HD-DVD) format up your you-know-what so you think you're gonna miss great quality and stuff. They MAKE you believe you have to buy stuff like that. DVD format is perfectly fine. No need to have a 'greater' experience, I know the leap to a 'greater' experience won't be the distance between video and DVD.
It's like saying; 'we can display at a resolution of 100+ Hz!!' when the human eye can only see as high as 60 Hz. No need to go higher, you won't notice a thing.
Just marketing rubbish if you ask me
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I'm happy that you are so rich that $600 (£425 for me) is so little money to you. For the majority of us with rent, student loans, house repairs etc. to pay, it's a lot of money that I would rather spend on many other things.
Apart from anything else, the price of the console is pure overhead, I'd rather spend the money on games.
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Where I live, just outside of NYC on Long Island, where houses *start* at $450,000, regular gas costs $3.30 per gallon, and the median income is something like $76,000 per household, $599 honestly doesn't sound like much. Sure, I know it's more than a Wii or Xbox 360, but honestly, a couple hundred bucks difference over what I expect will be 5 or 6 years of gameplay is really not very meaningful. And I've gotta factor Blu-Ray movie playing ability into that too. Overall, it still sounds like a pretty doable price.
But I do know that in the middle of this country, everything is a lot cheaper and salaries are a lot lower (in some states, less than half what they are here). But that doesn't mean we're all rich where I live and all those other people are poor. Relatively speaking, we probably live about the same - in fact, I'm jealous as hell when I see these freakin' mansions you can buy in places like Oklahoma for under $400,000, while I live in my 2000 square foot colonial that's on the verge of collapsing.
But the point is, when a company has to price a product the same across the country, they can't price it for everybody. I'll bet demand is still high on the east and west coasts, because we're used to overpaying for everything anyway. But it would be interesting to see how it breaks down - if there's a larger concentration of people complaining about the price in middle America, and if demand is still high on the coasts.
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They have nothing but Sony to Talk about....
lol
You know you love it coz it Pulls in those...well I wont say it ;)
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I remember sometime last year Sony saying that the PS3s reign to last ten years, some even dubbed it future proof, but with the lack of an HDMI port in the $500 what will happen when Hollywood or Sony decides to force force downgrading of picture quality,I've read stories that say it won't happen for a couple of years but it still will happen.
People said that xbox360 was a crippled system I wonder what we should call Sonys system.
It really is to bad that the $600 PS3 will not have 2 HDMI ports because it would have been cool to play Grand Tourismo or Unreal 2007 for the PS3 on two seprate screens. I did expect the specs to change, but the lack of HDMI in the $499 PS3 is just plain crazy.
That's why I'm going to camp out the night before PS3 launch, buy one $599 PS3, put it e-bay for double my investment and use the profits to pay for a Wii and all its launch titles (I'll pick up a PS3 when the hype dies down and they actually have good games that use the 'unique' dualshake controller. feb2008).
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Nintendo never tried to install a rootkit in my computer. You can however thank Sony for that.
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At the end of the day, the sale of a games console should be driven by the quality of the games produced for it and not based on who produced it. It may well be expensive but if it has kllier games then I'll be getting it. I won't be out there day one to buy it. I'll be waiting to see what games come out and how well they review. Then armed with as much information as I can get my sweaty hands on I'll be making an informed decsion.
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