Carno

Yeah, exactly. I don't give a shit about blu ray, so that is worth nothing to me.

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Lasereth

A Blu Ray DVD player is worth a lot whether it's useful to you or not. Just like having a $10,000 dishwasher in your 1-room apartment may not be useful to you but it's still worth a lot. Sony may have made a bad (very bad) decision by putting in a technology so new to the world that it jacks the price up that far, but you are getting your money's worth with it, especially considering the competition's main focuses.

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MSD

$840

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Smooth23

How much does it cost to manufacture a game sold for $50 though? Yeah, thats where they make the killing, regardless of how much they sell the stupid system for.

thingstodo

Nicely put. So much of what students learn in the classroom doesn't work in the real world any more. I spend a great deal of time helping new employees unlearn things and face reality with a new learning curve. Imagine teaching a journalism or an English major how to write a business letter!!

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hobo

the only thing stopping them from selling it at $1500 in the first 3 months is the bad press it would get them.

Paq

yeah, i find it funny how sony LOSES $240 or so on every ps3 it sells while nintendo makes $13.

i know sony is going for the game sales, etc, but still, so LOSE about 30% of what it costs to make...

that's just funny to me. they have to sell at least 6 games per console to break even...mind you, i KNOW they will sell more than that and so do they, but it just seems like a funny business model

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Lasereth

I don't consider it that funny, I just consider it brave. Sony loses money on the PS3 to bring next-gen hardware to consumers. Nintendo makes money on the Wii in order to rehash last-gen hardware into a new white box with a motion controller and pretend it's next-gen. Someone has to bring in the new technology, losing money or not. I do believe that it was a bad idea to include BluRay in the PS3 though, even if it is a technology that the world will have to embrace, if not much later than Sony realizes.

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Paq

well, sony banked on blu ray, microsoft banked on hd-dvd, nintendo banked on making games fun for nongamers.

i just find it an odd business model to sell things below cost, although i can totally understand why. I know they'll make a fortune on it and their costs will drop to a point where they are making money on each ps3 sold, but it just seems funny to me right now.

the other thing i find funny is the laughably low stock before the christmas season. 400K units...i think they could have sold that many in 2 states alone, not a nationwide campaign.

but the funniest thing: i can't understand their commercials...at all.

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Tamerlain

I've only seen one, but I totally get it. It's the one where the PS3 logo forms in some clouds while people are on their rooftops looking at it. The point is that you're more likely to see a PS3 logo form in some clouds while you're on your rooftop than you are to find one to purchase.

Comedy aside, I think it makes sense for Sony to make their profits through games at first. Get the systems out there first (like, 3 of them: see above) and then make your profits from games. It's not an ideal model, but it has worked for Sony in the past.

Trying to make a profit off the system itself will make it too far out of the reach of their core demographic (I believe). People can more easily afford to buy a new game every month than they can to buy a $1500 system, I would argue.

-Tamerlain

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stevie667

What do you think nintendo are doing? I'll bet you good money that either by the end of this generation, or the beginning of the next, all the consoles will have motion controllers.

IIRC its the gillette (as in razors) business model as i learnt it. make peanuts/lose money on the initial product, but make your money on the little things that people always need to buy to make it go (i.e. games and accessories).

As for making few consoles, how much time do you think they had before they finished the final specification before they sent it to be built? Not as long as the whole world seems to think, it takes time to build up stock levels.


The way i see it this generation is merely a technology test-bed for the next one. Sony and Microsoft are seeing if their new players will work, and how much power they can fit in, whilst nintendo are going for a different approach. Sony's days are coming to a close, microsoft will take the limelight next, then it'll be back to nintendo.

My view anyway.

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Lasereth

When I say "new technology," I mean better technology, not innovative tech. It is a great move by Nintendo to freshen up gaming with their controller, but the primary reason next-gen systems are released is hardware limitations and simply more raw computing power for better graphics. Sony brought this to the market. Nintendo didn't. That's why there's a huge price difference.

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Cynthetiq

Nintendo is very conservative with it's technology and always has been.

DS isn't anything different than the dual screen Game and Watch multiscreens from 20 years ago.

http://www.gameandwatch.com/screen/m...een/index.html

What Nintendo has always been good at is creating fun simple gameplay without resorting to fancy graphics.

Same goes for the Wii. The only motion controllers aren't really that innovative, since the NES Power Glove (not made by Nintendo BTW) had the same idea 20 years ago.

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sapiens

And the consumer who wants to play Blu Ray DVDs, and owns the setup to properly appreciate them, probably doesn't want to play their DVDs via a game system.

We will likely purchase a Wii eventually.