http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1982&Itemid=2 Wonder how much this affects MS's advantage of being first on the market. This global launch doesn't look like it has gone very well (especially in Japan, even after DOA4). Additionally, as we get more info on the PS3/Revolution, I wonder if more people will be willing to hold off on getting a 360 (or not even get one). Heck, with the HD DVD announcement, they may cause people to wait anyway. edit:THIS ARTICLE IS NOT ACCURATE! SEE THE GAMESPOT ARTICLE THAT I POSTED LATER IN THE THREAD! SORRY ABOUT THIS.
According to the article, the low launch number is because of lack of supply, NOT demand. They sold 100% of the stock on the market, I don't see how that is dsiappointing. As for the Japan launch, unless there are homoerotic games that has you flying around shooting at the Yatta Yatta guys, the system will never be popular. The PS3 will have the same problems with its own launch in terms of supply, i'd like to see the spin on that one when they find out that not every factory can handle making a 4 processor system.
Funny. Given all the criticism Sony is taking across the 'net today for not showing ANYTHING of substance relating to the PS3 during the biggest consumer electronics show of the year, I was waiting for a post from you on that...
The supply is the problem I have with MS. As for the system itself, it is obvious that the system is awesome, unless you live in Japan maybe. From a demand perspective, MS has done a great job (although the global launch and holiday season may have helped a bit). However, the problem is that MS can't them into homes. If MS only shipped 10 consoles worldwide, they would have sold out, but that doesn't mean it was a successful launch, at least not IMO. It seems evident now that a global launch shouldn't have been done, especially when it is hurting sales of the system in potentially the biggest territory for MS (NA); for example, an extra 150-200K systems would have been available in NA around launch had MS just not bothered with Japan yet (a lot more would be available if MS just stuck with NA). With these manufacturing problems, I wonder if MS may have also needed to delay the launch by a few months, which may have even allowed MS to go with HD DVD at launch as opposed to offering a separate version later in the year. Basically, MS had the advantage of releasing early and building a large userbase before any of the other consoles were released. So far, MS isn't getting that done very well, and I think Sony is getting pretty close to going full steam ahead with the PS3 hype train. As for Japan's taste in games, it is true that they tend to like slightly different games to the tastes of us in America, but it isn't too hard to cater to their tastes. Yet, MS basically pushed games like COD2 and PDZ on them. No wonder sales have been terrible. I think there is some hope in the future with games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, but MS needs to at least do decently in Japan. Until that happens, it is likely that Japanese developers like Square-Enix, Konami, Namco, Capcom, and others will stick to strongly supporting the PS3. Given how big games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken, Soul Calibur, etc., are around the world, it is important to get support from these developers. Probably, especially if most gamers still prefer the Playstation, thus a higher initial demand. Although unlike MS, I'm assuming Sony won't try a worldwide launch, and, assuming it launches in the Spring, they'll have some time before the holiday season. Plus, I'm a little more critical of the shipping problems with MS since they were playing the "early advantage" card, something that Sony won't have to face with the PS3. FWIW, the 360 seems to be having more problems than usual for a console at launch (manufacturing-wise). Depending on the price and exact release for the PS3, I wouldn't doubt it if both Cell and RSX had better yields than Xenon and Xenos; it also doesn't hurt than any Cell processors that don't meet up to the PS3 standard (7SPEs), Sony could still use them for something else...perhaps they could sell them to Toshiba to use in all their 2006 TVs. I think I read somehwere that the BR aspect of the system might be what restricts the supply of the system.
Anyone who was expecting something big about the PS3 at CES from Sony was just setting themselves up for disappointment. Given how big (or small I should say) CES is for the video game industry, and the Playstation brand in particular, I wasn't expecting much to begin with. And that was before a statement shortly prior to CES that came out from Sony, which basically said there would be no new info about the PS3 at CES (although it would be there). For Sony, this show was for their other products, including Blu-ray, which was basically the talk of the show I believe. Why would Sony try to mess that up by releasing new info on the PS3? Actually, this is still following a similar timeline as the PS2, which Sony also didn't show much of (if anything) at CES 2000 (think it was 2000). Yet, a month or two later, they had a PS meeting where they showed off EVERYTHING, and shortly after that, they released the console in Japan. Hmm...strangely enough, there is a PS meeting scheduled for February. Considering all that, I don't see why anyone should be criticizing Sony for CES. Of course, people were saying that Sony was redesigning the PS3 controller since it wasn't at CES, which was strange to me since I saw it sitting next to a PS3 during Howard Stringer's keynote. And people wonder how all these rumors/misinformation gets started.
Nice homoerotic comments there hotballa. Like RC Cola said, it is true that the Japanese gaming market has different tastes (i.e., the big first person shooter games are not as popular as in the US), mainly RPGs are the big thing like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. You can see that MS is trying hard in the Japanese market by having quite a bit of advertisements for its new system including I believe a new RPG with characters based by the man behind Dragonball and the Dragon Quest characters. Should be interesting to see if that helps Xbox at all. My feeling is that most gamers are waiting for the PS3 here in Japan. Unless that is a complete dud then Xbox will still have a long ways to go in the Japanese market. Just my thoughts.
Yeah, that's Blue Dragon, which is a joint project by Mistwalker (headed by the FF creator) and Artoon (I think...the Blinx guys I believe). Akira Toriyama is doing the character art, which is pretty obvious when you look at it due to his work on Dragonball and Dragon Quest like you mentioned. It actually looked pretty good the last time I saw it, which I believe was from one of the videos on this page: http://www.xboxyde.com/game_748_en.html (realtime video IIRC) It had some beautiful water, that's for sure. Only problem I could see is that both this and Lost Odyssey (also by Mistwalker) won't be out in Japan until probably long after the PS3 is out. I think BD is supposed to be out late this year, while LO is a 2007 title IIRC. I think it should still help out a lot though, barring some unforeseen events occurring.
The problem is far from lack of demand, they have now partnered with a 3rd manufacturing company and have 3 plants pumping them out. Sony on the other hand won't have as much of a shortage because they WILL NOT have a world wide launch. XBox 360's are currently sold out as soon as they hit shelves in America and Europe, Sony on the other hand won't release the PS3 in America or Europe anywhere near the same timeframe as Japan.
I guess it depends on your definition of "anywhere near the same timeframe." I could see something like a June-esque launch in Japan at the latest (end of Spring), followed up by a launch around September/October in NA; IIRC, EA, Ubisoft, and I think Take-Two mentioned expecting the PS3 in NA around this time. In fact, I think that would be about the same difference in time between the PSP launch in Japan and the launch in NA as well. Europe would probably have to wait until 07...oh well. Maybe they'll just be the ones that won't get it anywhere near the same timeframe as Japan. Then again, I just read something about a JP/US semi-simultaneous launch still not being ruled out, although still being really unlikely. I can still hope though.
Yikes. If it comes out after PS3, then I really can't see that helping the Japanese market too much unless the PS3 has only crappy launch titles. Thanks for all the info RC Cola as always. I am not a hard core gamer, but it is nice to get this info and read about it here instead of searching through other forums. Oh and I am looking forward to an early Japanese PS3 launch. I might have to buy one just so I can brag to my friends in the US about it Of course this is assuming that I can even buy one when it first comes out...I can only imagine what the lines and demand will be like for this one.
Yeah, it doesn't help MS much that most of their "big hitters" in Japan probably won't be out until at or after the PS3 is released there. One of the other big games that I think might have helped them would have been Ninety-Nine Nights (Dynasty Warriors-esque game), but that got pushed back to Spring, probably putting it at around the same time as the PS3. To be fair, I don't think anyone expects MS to actually compete with Sony in Japan, but at least improve on what they did with the Xbox there. While they haven't started out well, I think they still have a great shot at finishing ahead of the ~500K they sold in Japan with the Xbox. No problem. In return, I expect to see early impression this Spring for the PS3, even if you have to fight the hardcore Japanese gamers that are willing to pay a large amount of money for the PS3 and its only launch title, Fantavision 2.
They sold out all the systems that they were able to produce in America. That sounds like a successful launch to me. Japanese fanboys need to get over this "Japan is the motherland" thinking and realize the USA is the place for gamers now. Just because you're unsuccessful in Japan doesn't mean u wont be successful here. It's much more of a niche market with different tastes. If I'm MS, I worked my butt off to get as many consoles out to USA and all of them sold out, my system is a MUST have, and everyone wants one. I don't see how it couldnt be labeleed anything but a success. Again refer to my post from above. Japan is a falling star in the wolrd economics market, they ave been on a downturn for the last decade. MS is playing it smart by pandering to the American crowd, instead of Ken Yamamoto who likes to play shooting games where middle aged men fly around in their underwear. Final Fantasy is just the same old sameold every year, the only difference is the delay gets longer every year. The well is dry at Square, they are now going back to retreads like FF7 and FFX to keep the company profitable while it struggles to do something new with their latest FF Redux. How many Draqon Quest games have come out in the last 5 years? Please, they are not even a factor on the videogame scene at this point. I think most gamers will agree that Splinter Cell Chaos Theory destroyed MGS in all aspects. and does anyone actually even care about Tekken anymore? Why dont we wait till they announce their price before w edetermine demand? If it really pushes past $499 as some RUMORS suggest, heh, then i guess we will have to see just how robust that 10 year economical decline in Japan really is What problems? The product was high demand, why is this a bad thing? would a company rather be oversaturating the market with supply? thats just speculation, pure and simple yes because MS doesn't have any partners it can share its technology with btw your last paragraph is the reason why those of us who own both sony and ms systems consider you a Sony fanboy
It's simple. Japanes people refuse to purchase American cars, because they like their Japanese made ones. They refuse to buy American made XBox because Sony is Japan company. It's a racist, closed society that will never allow a foreign product to compete if there are Japanese alternatives out there. Worked for them for a while, but the last decade or so have shown just what happens when you get stagnant and ruthlessly discourage foreign competiton. You wind up making pet robot dogs while your economy goes to the dogs.
Isn't Apple fairly successful in Japan? Not to mention the most American of all 'products', baseball? I think your argument is a little off, hotballa.
Read my argument again, I said a few times if there are JAPANESE alternatives. The baseball league is all Japanese, you cant sue that argument here. And does anyone make a decent alternative to IPod? Go read up on the ridiculous tariffs they put on foreign imports, especially American cars.
But the game of baseball itself is American to it's core. If they were that racist they would not embrace it, Japanese league or not. And I'm sure there are plenty of Ipod alternatives out there. We've got a few threads on it. Hell, Sony is trying it's damndest to corner that market. I'm not saying there is no bias there, just like there is here. (The foreign cars debate comes to mind). I'm just not sure it's quite that easy to explain, or fitting to paint that excuse with such a broad stroke.
If you are Asian and move to Japan, they will make you change ur name to a Japanese name and give you a Japanese family history. Their bias against foreign products, especially American is real. As for the baseball thing, I'm talking about products which have alternatives. We created the TV and they embraced that too.
Again, they could have shipped 10 consoles in America and sold out. Is that "successful?" Although to be fair, if MS actually went with just a NA launch as opposed to a worldwide launch, I imagine they still would have sold pretty much all they could produce (close to 1.3 million I guess). That's partly my point though; MS screwed up by missing out on meeting the demand here in the US/NA. I'm not sure if the demand can stay that high now that the holidays are over, not to mention details on the other consoles might start leaking out. Haha...I guess the executive vice-president for the Xbox division is a Japanese fanboy for thinking that Japan is important: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3146236&did=1 And FWIW, I never said that MS needed Japan to do well here. I do think that MS needs to do better there in order to compete at a similar level with Sony worldwide though. This "niche market" still controls about 30% of the market, not to mention the developers located there. On your last point, I agree with you there. I think MS should have stuck to their strongest territory and worked on getting the games ready for Japan later on. But MS didn't do that; I think at least 50K systems are sitting on store shelves in Japan right now, all from the initial shipment. In that regard, the launch wasn't as good as it could have been, and I'm not even referring to their manufacturing issues. Again, they cut out at least 150K units that could have been available to the American crowd in order to try and sell them to the Japanese with games like Call of Duty 2. Yeah, great idea. As for your opinions on those various games, those are all debatable points. There may have only been 1 DQ, but IIRC it broke the record that Halo 2 had a short time later in Japan (highest $$$ in one day). I don't see FF and DQ really becoming much less important (if at all), but even then, I feel as though the Kingdom Hearts series might turn out to be a great franchise for SE; IIRC, it sold 1M copies in like 3 days in Japan, and with the Disney/FF influences, I'm sure it will sell well here as well. And for such an unimportant company, MS seemed thrilled to have a port of a ~5 year old game that has already been out on the PS2 and PC. I think they even paid around $30 million just to get Mistwalker on board, who is nowhere near the powerhouse that SE is. For the rest, even if none of those games are as huge as say Halo or GTA, they're better than pretty much anything MS has besides Halo. I'm sure MS would love to have any of them as exclusives; they're thrilled just having DOA. Just a FYI, but I think the MGS series has been selling better outside of Japan, at least the most recent games anyway. While I agree that the price would have an impact on the demand (duh!), this is still the Playstation brand we're talking about. I'm sure they'll naturally have a much higher demand for the PS3 given that they've sold more than 200 million PS consoles in ~10 years. Even at that price, the console will include WiFi and BR, something that makes it seems like a good deal at $500. Given the response to these types of prices for the 360 launch, I wouldn't doubt it if it still sold out very quickly (with a decent supply as well). Still love to see the craziness that would happen if they could somehow keep it at $299 though...absolute madness I'd say. I doubt MS could even come close to over saturating the market while they released the first next-gen system during the holidays worldwide. Assuming they could have produced this many, I could have seen them selling as many as 1.5-2 million at launch (~1 million for NA, 500-750K in EU, rest in JP...although that now seems like a bad idea if they still had the poor lineup). But because of some yield issues with Xenon, and assembling issues as well IIRC, MS manufactured far less than that. As I posted earlier, I believe MS sold like 300-350K systems here in the US, a number lower than what the PS2 sold during its insane shortages, which were mostly due to a manufacturing facility not coming online in time. As I said earlier, MS is trying take advantage of being the first system out, and thus far, they've done a less-than-stellar job at taking advantage of that. What could have been a 6-10 million (or even more) advantage for them by the time the PS3 launches may turn out to be far less than that, rendering their "early advantage" useless. True, but I'm basing that on what I know about these different processors. For example, the 3 cores for Xenon take up a large part of the chip, so if some random spot is picked to be defective, chances are that not all 3 cores will be up to the task of being used in a Xbox 360 system...or really anything actually. Since the SPEs take up a large part of Cell, one of them would be the likely part of the chip that goes bad. Since the PS3 allows for one of them to be defective, that helps, not to mention that even if 2 or more are bad, it wouldn't be a total lost for Sony. Again, it sounded like part of the reason MS had such a problem for supply was due to poor Xenon yields; it would be quite a sight if Cell had even worse. As for Xenos and RSX, that is mostly a guess based on little, if any, info...mostly since nothing is really known about the RSX. If it is just a G70 modified for the PS3, then I imagine yields won't be too bad since that's been in production since last summer. Plus, it will also be on the 90nm process, which will surely help yields a lot. Anything more complex than the G70 obviously changes that though. However, assuming that the PS3 and Xbox 360 are comparable in power, and since Cell really stomps all over Xenon in processing power, then I'd at least assume that Xenos and RSX are equal in power, or even that Xenos is more powerful. Considering that RSX would have about ~6 months on Xenos, not to mention not having to deal with any extra problems that could arise from including a sizeable amount of EDRAM, I just imagine that RSX would have at least slightly better yields than Xenos. Is it wrong to speculate this? Partners that could use a defected Xenon chip, which is basically a customized processor meant only for a gaming machine? Not any that I can think of. Even if there were any, I doubt it could compare to the uses for Cell. IBM is already using them in workstations/servers, Mercury Computer Systems will use it in their various fields (think medical scanning-type stuff), Toshiba will reportedly be using Cell in all their 2006 TVs, and I'm sure Sony will find some other uses for it as well. That's also a conservative guess since that's all the supporters for Cell so far. I also don't agree with your comments about Japan in general (actual saw an article the other day disputing it), but I won't get into that. Sounds too much like D&D stuff to me, something I'd rather not turn this thread into.
I like that... I read the title, expecting to find out when the next shipment is so I can get one but NOPE... another thread by RC Cola about how Xbox 360 is disappointing. I mean... why you gotta be such a hater?
