Gavin

He does explain why the software begin localized costs more, and if
I wasn't annoyed at the price I might buy that excuse.

But what he doesn't explain is why the instruments by themselves cost
more in the EU than the instruments PLUS the game does in the US. Now
he says that the instruments don't need localizing so no added cost
there, and yet they still cost £129.99 ($260) where is this extra
£90 cost for just the instruments in the EU coming from?

If they don't want to bundle the game and instruments for localization reason then fine, but drop the price of the instruments
to reflect this. Because at the moment Europe is gonna be paying $90
more for just the instruments than the US does for the whole goddamn
package. And thats just fuckin stupid.

@19, just wondering if you have anything other than blind Sony fanboy love to back up that pointless and inane comment?

Anyway, I am not sure of the reflection that this study actually has on the possible fate of the PS3. Mainly because the study was about the Playstation Brand not just the PS3. And the PS2 is still selling an extremely large amount of consoles and software.

So far for most consumers the PS3 is yet to prove itself. It's an expensive machine that doesn't have the ability to target the same markets that the Wii can, so it's main competition is a console that can have very similar levels of graphical quality and the PS2.

If this study proves anything I think it could be that the majority of people with a PS2 are more than happy to stick with that console until Sony figure out what everyone else already knows and thats that the PS3 needs a price drop to be competitive with the Wii and the 360.

@14 I won't be depriving myself of anything that I won't be able to get elsewhere. All I'll be doing (by not getting a PS3 on launch here in the UK) is saving my self nearly £500! I may well decide to get a PS3 but it sure as shit won't be till the price has gone way way way down. The 360 on the other hand I've wanted to buy for a while no matter the price and thats because of the games that are out and are coming out on the system, Sony can't justify their price with the software lineup they have.

For a new console there should be a sense of Wanting created for the consumer. A notion that if I lay down my cash for that machine I will get something I can't get anywhere else. Now I can lay down £280 and get the 360, or I can wait a couple of months (maybe more) and pay nearly twice as much for something that can only do about as much as the 360. I don't care about Blu-ray as I am waiting to see what happens before investing in the hd film format war, so that leaves the games, and in that respect sony have me paying almost twice as much for something that doesn't (and probably will never) justify that kind of cost hike over the cost of a 360.

@15 How can you say that the same won't happen with the Wii? It's easy to program for by all accounts so games could, and quite possibly will, fly out for the system. If the PS3 is as developer unfriendly as certain people have mentioned (john carmack comes to mind). Whos to say that it won't have a fairly thin software library? In that respect won't the advantage fall with the Wii? And also if a developer wants to try something innovative are they going to look for the the system that handles games differently than any other or the one that was designed with the "yeah what we had last time just FASTER" mindset?

@12 - "the most important thing that Wii has is extremely outdated graphics which is going to cripple them in the end."

having the lowest level of graphical ability certainly didn't hurt the PS2 did it? And if the PS3 has now SOLD(to retailers) 2 million machines, that backs up Microsofts stated numbers of 10.5 million 360's SOLD right?

I'd just want some Sony fanboy's who would probably have arguing against Microsofts numbers when they released them last week.

And before I get accused of being a rabid MS or Nintendo fanboy it's worth noting that I own a PS2, as well as all the other consoles from that generation. I currently own a Wii and am getting 360 in a month or so, but The price of the PS3 in my region (Europe, UK specifically) means it is the only machine I am thinking about not buying at ALL. The only price mentioned for the PS3 so far in the UK has been £450, thats $833. Sony are ripping their customer off! Thats why I'm pissed off with Sony, saying that europeans are "happy to wait for the PS3" and the charging us £200 more for the fuckin pleasure of waiting for a console that has been getting a luke warm reception from everyone I know that has played it?

@82 If the program can run independantly wouldn't it have to have a seperate installer. Also if it is running seperate to BF2142 then you should be able to uninstall it without removing BF. But the wording of the leaflet seems to indicate that the only way round the info gathering is to play offline meaning that it is IN the game not seperate to it, therefore extremly unlikely to be capabel of running independantly.


Considering the fact that we have a link to member of the battlefield dev team saying that data will only be gathered in game, what info do you think they will gather from INSIDE the game that is so precious you don't want DICE/EA to know?

There is a possible upside to this that I don't think has been mentioned. Imagine if EA get all this ad info back showing that people spend almost no time at all in the game looking at these ingame ads, if they serve no purpose is it possible that they might be removed? They would only be an extra thing to constantly be updating that if they serve no purpose would be easier to remove than to keep up to date.

"If that is all they do or plan to do, then why don't they spell that out?"

They do say what anonymous data they want "Advertising Data". Is it just me or can you not see that this means "Data on the advertising in the game".

If this were able to read data off your browsing history on your PC then it would have to be a seperate program right? It would have to look at different places than where BF2142 will be installed. So if it was a seperate progrma it would install independantly amd would have it's own t's and c's page during it's install. If that was the case EA wouldn't have had to include this leaflet in the box would they?

So it installs in the BF2142 folder as part of the game it can only run while the game is running and can only look at relevant ad data INSIDE the game. So why the whining? Just because the t's and c's are written in legalese doesn't mean that all the porn you keep on your PC's is being looked at by some perv at EA HQ.

The notice itself say exactly what it is going to be looking at "Advertising Data" that means to see exactly how long people spend looking at the billboards in game to judge how effective they are and change them accordingly.

If it does send any browsing information to the ad servers it is about as intrusive as Google is with its linked ad content when you search.

Would you rather EA didn't tell you about this and pulled a SonyBMG thing and never told about the shit they installed on your PC?