PS3 Launch imminent – But, will anybody purchase one?

by Mike Bantick

Friday, 10 November 2006

This weekend sees the Japanese release of Sony’s flagship gaming box the Playstation 3. Promising unsurpassed power, to dazzle gamers and technical evangelists alike. Sony executives will, even now, be wading through mounds of chewed fingernail shavings in the board room, wondering whether they have the buying public to justify their design decisions.

Even though the Xbox 360 is coming up on its first birthday, the “Next-gen” race for gamers’ thumbs and wallets begins in earnest this week. Japanese enthusiasts may already be lining up outside stores to be the first to own a Playstation 3.

But, what will be the PS3 buyers’ motivation for adopting Sony’s offering straight away?

Sure the 30 odd release games are a satisfying mix of action, sport, racing and shooting. If you have a HD TV to fire up, they will look fantastic.

However, only marginally better than the slimily HD enabled Xbox 360. With a year of gaming behind it, boasts a wider selection choice for your gaming buck. Furthermore, if gaming is your thing, and game play is more important than graphical superiority, then maybe save your cash for a Wii – Hell, you will have more to spend on games anyway.

So that is the gamers out of the way. What about that cheap Blu-ray drive? A bargain at $830 here in Australia, compared to the dedicated players currently on the market. Will the early PS3 purchases be lured by that?

I will be surprised. In my opinion, this HD DVD versus Blu-ray war is not like the VHS versus Betamax one of the early eighties. Consumers are wary of these types of conflicts, and the more informed technophiles that are the target of Microsoft and Sony are going to go one of two ways during this period.

Either they will look for a manufacture to develop a player capable of both formats. Or bypass the technology completely and adopt a process of getting their High Def content another way. Most likely online download to hard drives, in some form.

So where will that leave Sony and their new box? We will have to wait and see. Wait until developers get more of a handle on dealing with the complexities and power of the device, to produce compelling content.
Wait to see what happens to pricing of HD TV’s and dedicated optical players. In this country at least, wait for direction on broadband internet services.
And, not to mention, a wait until March for PS3 to arrive here, three months after release of the Nintendo Wii.

It is all in the hands of you, the buying public. You have some decision making to do in the next short period. Interesting times ahead for electronic gaming entertainment. Finally we can call Next-Gen, Current-Gen.
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