Just bought a PS3 slim

Well, I was going to say that it's closer than it has been, but 'approximately the same' isn't exactly true. But RC beat me to it.

It wasn't really just that earlier release that hurt. The PS3's first year and a half or so was absolutely brutal.

 

Yea Bluetooth...that's what I meant, must've been tired...

The headset thing is just a nice thing to have, like I said people don't go out of their way to buy them because it's not needed, which makes the XBL community seem more robust and immature at the same time compared to PSN, since the availability of the mics there tend to leave people with a stronger impression.

Most laptops these days have build in mics anyway and if you were buying PCs instead of building one, you're likely to get a mic too if you bought from a big name like Dell.

Getting organized takes time and can make people feel responsible having to keep up with internet friends...and I confess I lol'ed at the mention of that dump Neogaf

 

True, but I hope most PC gamers aren't playing on laptops...unless they're playing WoW or something like that.

Really? I didn't know that.

Hmm...I just checked a few Gaming PCs at Dell and HP though, and they didn't seem to include a mic/headset, unless I missed it. Is it more of an in-store thing, or maybe a particular line of PCs I didn't look at? Not a big deal, just curious since I'm looking to get a new PC at some point in the near future. Not really concerned with a headset/mic, but if most PCs now include them, it would be good to know.

No doubt about it. Certainly nothing I personally would feel like doing.

However, I always do see people complaining about a lack of headset, immature players online, not enough people playing certain games, etc. I think if they were to put more effort into doing this kind of stuff, it would probably solve most of those problems.

 

It happens at least once a night when I play. I'm on the West Coast, and I don't normally get to play until 11 or so at night. It's a lot better when I get on earlier, but at night it's pretty sparse pickings.

 

Maybe I'm doing my math wrong (and I don't know how accurate this "VGChartz " website is), but according to them the Xbox 360 has sold 32.26 million thus far compared to the PS3's 24.79 million.

The Xbox 360 has been on retail shelves for about 46 and 1/3 months, giving it a total of ~696,259 units sold per month.

The PS3 has been out about 34 and 2/3 months, giving it a total of ~715,234 units sold per month.

This is worldwide sales though. I'm guessing you are talking about only U.S. sales?

 

Actually, after thinking about it, my above math is slightly flawed because I based the time on shelves on the U.S. dates, but there wasn't a simultaneous worldwide release. However, even if you find the monthly average sales for each region and then average those figures together, I believe the average monthly sales are about the same (with the PS3 still being slightly ahead).

 

I don't know...look at the Wii. The Wii was released a year after the xbox and it sold like crazy. Judging by VGchartz, the Wii has sold almost as many PS3 + xbox combined.

Btw, this thread has gotten very off topic, lol.

 

Yup. I've read on that neogaf site RC refers to often that it doesn't use VGChartz because of some problem with their numbers. I'm sure RC has better info but I think this is because it's hard to pin down real numbers overseas. Europe, IIRC, is especially difficult.

The US, I know, has the NPD group that gives out official numbers so it's easy to find, though even that doesn't include some data (like Walmart I believe).

 

Yeah, VGChartz is trash. Pretty much one guy throwing darts at a board. They seem to gather together all known data at least, so for some numbers, they might not be far off. But for others, they can be off by a substantial amount (not surprising since they are basically just guessing after all). I guess I will admit that they're console numbers might be a bit closer to the truth, but that's because they don't have to do as much guessing on them. Still, I wouldn't use them.

For worldwide sales, I've gotten to the point where I just use their shipment totals (which is pretty close to what Franchise3 noted, 31M to 24.6M as of August). It is possible to come up with some rough sell-through numbers for the world, but as Rokkit pointed out, it can be pretty hard to get numbers from Europe (along with a few other smaller regions, like Korea and Australia).

I don't know monthly numbers or anything like that, but Franchise3 probably is right that the monthly worldwide sell-through numbers are about the same. IIRC, they either sold about the same for the last 2 years, or the PS3 might have even sold a bit more (going by rough sales totals from US, Japan and Europe).

They include all data, including Walmart. Walmart does not cooperate with the NPD group, but NPD does factor them in.

Of course, as with any sales-tracker, they're estimates based on mathematical formulas for the most part (AFAIK), so there is some margin of error, especially if they make some bad assumptions. NPD does revise some figures from time to time, or delay the release of the numbers due to some errors.

 

I will never understand why people can't just say they like both.

 

Good to know. I was basically just trying to show that sales for the PS3 aren't as bad as popular opinion might lead one to believe. It's actually somewhat impressive how well it has done worldwide compared to the 360 especially with the ridiculously high initial price and poor launch software lineup. People seem to forget that the 360 had year head start on the PS3 in sales, so total sales are obviously going to favor the 360.

I like to judge my console purchases first and foremost on what games I want to play. I simply buy the system that has more of the games that I'm interested in. Some of the PS3 exclusives this gen were "must play" games for me, so I went with a PS3 (plus I wanted to get a backwards compatible unit before they went off the shelves). I'd like to get a 360 sometime down the road because some of it's exclusives are very appealing to me, but right now I'm poor and have a decent backlog of games to play (I'm probably more of a casual gamer - I still have some PS2 games I'm going through).

360 vs. PS3 is like arguing Sega Genesis vs. SNES to me. I owned a Genesis, but you better believe I let my friend borrow my Sega in exchange for his SNES more than a handful of times. Why choose between Sonic and Mario when I want to play both?

 

True, but it isn't like things went easily for the 360 either. It had arguably just as bad of a launch IIRC (although being the only next-gen console helped), little BC early on, RRoD, crazy shortages, going against the "PlayStation" brand, etc. The PS3 certainly didn't have a great first year (or so), but it isn't like things went perfectly for the 360. Swap positions, and we'd be talking about how good the 360 is doing when you look at the circumstances (i.e., Dreamcast #2).

I guess I'm not a good example of when it comes to expectations though. I expected the PS3 to do much better outside of the US, so the fact that it is selling roughly on par as the 360 (or better) is no surprise to me. In fact, it is a bit of a disappointment that it isn't doing better. After all, the 360 isn't doing much in Japan, so the PS3 could have really taken advantage of that situaton. It has to some degree, but far from what it should be doing IMO. Europe is maybe about expected, although I guess that is tough to say for sure since numbers are tough to obtain. I call it more or less a draw, although that's a region the PS3 should really be pulling away in as well IMO.

 

So I've got a useless 80 gb PS3 now since my blue ray disc drive is not working. I've got about $90 in Best Buy Gift cards. Should i pay Sony $150 to fix the drive which by the way is backwards compatible (not sure if i'd get the BC back once i send it in) or just pay $200+ for a brand new 120 gb PS3 with a longer manufacturers warranty?

 

Unless backwards compatibility is important to you, this is what I'd do:

Sell your console on ebay or craigslist "as is". You can probably get around $100 for it. Use that + gift card for a PS3 slim.