PS3: pricier because it's better

Stan Beer
Monday, 13 November 2006 18:49

Opinion and Analysis

There's an old adage - you get what you pay for. For the past two generations of games consoles, Sony has lived by that principle and succeeded wildly. Once again, Sony has stuck to its guns and produced the most expensive console on the market. Once again it will succeed. Why? Because it's better.

It appears that the people most worried about the price of PS3 are media commentators because, from early reactions of consumers, gamers certainly aren't. PS3 consoles are rarer than hen's teeth and gamers are prepared to sell their souls to get their hands on the most advanced gaming device money can buy.

Yes, yes we've all heard the arguments that the graphics on the Xbox 360 are good enough and who needs a Blu-ray player and US$500 for a 20GB PS3 is too much to pay compared to US$400 for the 20GB Xbox 360. Rubbish to all of that.

For 100 million plus PlayStation devotees, the graphics are never good enough, many of them want a Blu-ray player (as do many non-gamers) and most will be prepared to pay US$100 or US$200 extra for the 60GB Wi-Fi model. So what are they getting for their money?

For a start PS3 owners will get an incredibly powerful 9-core Cell processor which absolutely wipes the floor with the 3-core Xenon processor in the Xbox 360, admittedly a pretty powerful processor in its own right, but no match for the Cell. Right now, there aren't the games that can really take advantage of that extra processing power the cell provides but there soon will be.

Oh yes, that's right, nobody wants a Blu-ray player because there aren't many movies and nobody has a HDTV. Just watch what happens over the next 12 months.

I keep saying this but it apparently falls on deaf ears for some: the PS2 was just as expensive when it was first released in 2001! Yet everybody wanted this amazing new console with a DVD player.

Some people say that the PS3 will be at a disadvantage because it Europe and the rest of the world will have to wait until March and supply will be scarce in the US and Japan. It may be a blessing in disguise for Sony. By then, the market will have had a good dose of Xbox 360 and Wii and will be looking for something new - especially PlayStation fans.

Yes, you only get what you pay for, whether that's a house, a car or a games console.