Monday, Feb 26, 2007
So here we are, two full months removed from Christmas holiday shopping beginning tax preparation season, and time to buy things you may have missd out in during the holidays due to not being in stock. It has been a common occurance since January to walk into a store and see PS3's on the shelf for purchase in limited numbers, Wii's, being scarce, and 360's being very abundant. Now, I only noticed this this week, PS3's are available for purchase online for the first time withou having to be purchased as a part of a bundle. I thought to myself that this is awesome for me. Then in typical fashion I began looking at the angle and pondered, this may spell trouble for the Sony company. Its a given that American consumers with disposable income will buy one if they see one on a shelf, in regards to electronics buying we tend to be mindless sheep that find shiny new toys irresistable. At the same time, looking at its competition and its continued availability issues and continued lining up of consumers trying to get a Wii, this may spell out a bigger issue for the Playstation company. While it is true that people with disposable income will purchase a PS3, how will the general American consumer, I.S. the holiday shopper and bargain shopper, reactto this abundance? I am guessing that unless PS3 has some super stellar, exclusive, titles in the works for the notoriously slow period of game sales between the yearly holiday spending spree most consumers participate in, their sales will be very soft this spring, summer and early fall. Its a given that when I allign my moneys correctly I will be buying one but not for the reason most of the Playstation faithful will be buying one. I never owned a PS2 so I always played other peples PS2's and I see this as a golden opportunity for me to get the shiny new machine and puchase CHEAP new and used PS2 and Playstation games I never played but always wanted to. I will probably only buy the must have PS3 games when they become available because I am not a big fan of te new game prices, so used games will be a norm for me. Also, I am not gonna purchase any HD DVD or Blue Ray movies as I donot have a HDTV nor will I until prices for the TV's come way down and the prices for the new media formats come down to normal, current DVD prices. And I am sure the average American will be very slow to adopt the new format of DVD also when they can get a perfectly good, very high quallity, super clear clarity, standard and widescreen DVD for 20 dollars or less, new. And I still refuse to purchase a Xbox 360 until the backwards compatibiluy issue has been solved in its entirety. My Xbox was a huge investmentn in my entertainment so I will not be getting rid of any of the games and will never purchase a360 until I can play all my games from my Xbox on it. Then there is the Wii. I am not a huge fan of the soft looking lineup of games from 3rd party developers yet but the 1st party titles look and play amazingly, which is why that will be my system of choice, plus it plays all my Gamecube games, another significant investment in my entertainment, which is a selling point for me. All the unique features of the system, motion sensing, WiiConnect 24, are just added bonuses for me. And this machine seems to be the heir apparent to the Playstation, not PS2, era or popularity as it price point, uniqueness, and general fun to play focus point are gonna be hard to beat. And if anybody quotes the US sales figures of the 360 as gospel or a reference point then obviously they are not real game trend researchers. In its initial two months to market it appears to have sold, not shipped, 2 million units. Which means they are well near their goal of having the 4 millin sold in their own self imposed time frame. Which will also be nearly half the amount of 360 units SOLD, not shipped, worldwide. That means that even with all its fancy gadgetry built in, the 360 has a real chance of being the other console come this holiday season while the PS3 and Wii rule the roost. I say PS3 because come the next holiday season of sales, their manufacturing process will be fully operational and their immense brand popularity and loyalty will once again see them atop of the sales charts when compared to their competitors. Plus, as I am living in Japan, I can see first hand that the 360, is not a very popular machine and will never really take off here no matter how much money they spend on it. So, thats my two cents of the recent abundance of available PS3's, the Wii's eventual beating of the 360, and the 360 needing to kick itself in =to high gear to keep up.
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