I have strongly considered buying a PS3 many times to date, walking into various stores and seeing what offers they have. Always however when I come to the brink of buying one, two things hold me back.
The first is game selection. Most package deals in the UK promiise 2 free games with the PS3 and as I browse the shelves looking for what I would choose the stark reality of the PS3s library (at least for anyone who already owns a 360) comes to light. Warhawk and um........,maybe I'll look again next month.
The second is knowing that I am buying an inferior model of the console. This has always been the case in the UK, where the PS3 launched without full backwards compatibility. Now I don't know about anyone else but it seriously urks me to have to pay £425 for a console I know isn't fully featured. Now a new 40gb model is replacing the 60gb and is a much more attractive price point but has even more is taken away. With backwards compatibility now all but gone and media functionality getting more and more reduced look how far Sony has turned from its original stance back at E306. "PS3 is not a games machine it's a machine with supercomputer calculation capabilities for home entertainment" and "backwards compatibility, as you know from PlayStation One and PlayStation 2, is a core value of what we believe we should offer".
Who the hell are they marketting this thing at anymore? Your more casual gamer isn't likely to spend £300 on a system than they were £425 and most with a more involved interest will likely share my stance on wanting full features. Far from convincing me to purchase a system the 40gb model has put my interest on hold untill SCEE release another sku re-adding all the bells and whistles. And even then with the rate new models and price changes are coming out I might still be tempted to wait just to see what Sony will do next to try to shift more PS3s.
Bottom line, until enough compelling software exists to warrant a purchase it doesn't matter what Sony do with the PS3. All this sku changing is achieving is putting them in a bigger mess for when they get there.
Comments
Marketing to the high-end A/V market, I can't help but question whether that was their intention, if they were forced to by high system costs, or if someone along the line just failed business 101. I'm not certain, but right now as they try to manage their product line while going down the price curve, they're winding up in the trickiest part of the curve.
Things will get better when they're in the $300 and below range, and can afford to stop trying to differentiate their line for the high-end, but both Sony and Microsoft have placed themselves in a strange place with their SKUs.
Inferior version - product line differentiation, by-the-books, unfortunately they took out a feature that would have sold PS3s in the $400 range, can't help but see a price-starved Sony
Further Price-Cuts - that's the downside of going down this road so soon after launch, people want to know the price is going to be steady before they buy.
Unfortunately, these are both psychological factors that Sony is just going to have to take in the shorts for the time being.
My thoughts on the issue: I think the 40GB PS3 is simply out there for all those people complaining that the PS3 price point is too high. It's for those who want a PS3 to play PS3 games. For example, I'm buying the 40GB PS3 next year when MGSIV released. I don't care about PS2 BC cause I still have a PS2, and I personally don't buy next gen consoles for last gen games.
But I can understand that many people do. I think PAL regions will get the 80GB PS3 soon. I'm guessing before Christmas. And anyway Cake, you already have a Wii and 360, so it's not that surprising that you aren't that interested in the game library yet.
What about those who don't have any next gen consoles yet and want to buy the one that has the most games they're interested in? I think Sony is just dropping the price in time for major system sellers like GT5, MGSIV, Little Big Planet (wait and see), and Killzone (you know I'm right about this cake) next year.
Even the big hitters that are "supposedly" coming don't really appeal, GT5... meh, to much simulation and I've just bought PGR4... MGS4... meh, played the first, waited for the action to start, never did... Killzone 2.... don't make me laugh, I bought the first one, not fooling me twice.
So far on Little Big Planet appeals and I'm not sure how long I'd play that for, and Echochrome looks interesting but is only a PSN game... not really enough to justify a console purchase.
macacd