A Wii bonanza but PS3 is still all systems go

Stan Beer
Thursday, 05 July 2007 21:10

Opinion and Analysis

OK I admit it. I was wrong about the Wii. We now have a Wii in our home (a present from a colleague) and it's a very cool console. However, even though Wii is slaughtering PS3 at the checkout counters and, despite all of its problems, including the high price and a lack of games, nearly 4 million PS3 consoles have still sold worldwide and its secret weapon is about to come into its own.

Admittedly 4 million is just one third of Xbox 360 sales which had a year's head start and less than half of Wii sales, which will probably soon take leadership from Xbox 360. However, aside from the fact that a plethora of PS3 games are in the offing, a price drop is imminent and rumble will return to its remote controllers, PS3 has one major thing going for it - Blu-ray.

Before all of you gamer scoffers out there yawn and roll your eyes, consider this. I walked into one of our better known consumer electronics chain stores recently looking for a large screen plasma or LCD TV. I'm talking 50 inch and high definition. The store was full of them - wall to wall - and packed with shoppers talking to sales staff about 42 inch and 50 inch HD flat screens. I don't know what the score is in the US but here in Australia big plasmas and LCD TVs are fast becoming mainstream.

Likewise, shoppers were talking to sales staff about home theatre systems to go with their new HD big screen TVs. Naturally as part of those conversations they were talking about HD video players. There was only one HD player the sales staff were recommending - the PS3. Maybe it's because I'm in Australia and we're a bit behind the US in getting the latest consumer electronics, but HD DVD players simply weren't mentioned and the PS3 was being touted as simply the best value HD player for the money. Heck this thing isn't just an HD player they were saying; it's a home entertainment device and a perfect partner for your new HD TV.

While all of that is happening at consumer electronics stores, all the major movie studios except Universal are churning out Blue-ray titles. As a result, an increasing number of consumers are starting to buy PS3 consoles as Blu-ray players, while hard core gamers continue to buy them as consoles.

As a games console, PS3 is still expensive but the price will drop by US$100 at least in the not too distant future. Games are scarce but hundreds of new games have been promised and as more PS3 games go onto shelves more buyers will move into stores eager to trade in their PS2s.

So putting that together, PS3 consoles are on an upward ramp in the HD video space plus they're slowly but surely gaining traction in the games console space. Thus, the multifunction entertainment value of the PS3 appears to be already tarting to give it an advantage over the Xbox 360 and the Wii despite its high price. The one caveat to this is that the Australian market, although it has in the past pretty much mirrored the US and Western European markets in games and home entertainment systems, may not be typical in this instance.

The chances are, however, that an upward trend for PS3 is being established and a smile may soon to return to the faces of the Sony hierarchy.