The Xbox 360 price drop rumors flow like water and it’s all but officially been announced at this point. What about PlayStation 3 and their price? No.
Nobuyuki Oneda, the Sony’s chief financial officer said, “our plan is not to reduce the price. Our strategy is not to sell more quantity for PS3 but to concentrate on profitability.” (gamespot) This makes complete sense coming from their chief financial officer, as their motivation is to make money, not lose it.
The question remains, how will they actually make money if they’re no longer in the race for competitive market prices? Considering game licensing must Net them some amount of profit Sony’s idea seems to be the exact opposite of their original PlayStation method: saturate the market and sell them all games.
So far we’ve seen very few “need to have” games for the PlayStation 3 console while Xbox 360 continues to build a substantial library and Wii continues to break sales records for apparently no reason. When a game publisher has to decide on a platform to launch a new game, why would they choose the one that doesn’t care to be competitively priced in the market? The one that doesn’t care about quantity of sales?
Sony intends to reverse the entire razor blade philosophy where one sells a cheap razor and charges users for the blades over and over again. Their take on this concept is to sell really expensive razors and put out small half-quality blades. Is that a good market strategy at this point?
@QuestionOfTheWeek: I wanted to play Phantasy Star Universe (yes, the single player) on a PC but couldn’t because it required an always-on Internet connection for nProtect anti-cheat software. I lived at home at the time in rural Oregon with a poor connection. My mom still only gets a 28.6 kbps modem Internet connection there. Sad.
Yeah, finally finished with my exams, I am overall satisfied with how I did. Now I just have to wait until July for the results.
The 265 hours in Team Fortress 2 are actually spread out mostly over last summer, and the 96 hours in Super Monday Night Combat are from the day it went live, so in the last 37 days. A huge factor in these numbers is that I listen to podcasts such as yours while playing them, getting double the enjoyment. Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel these exams as very heavy, even though they are a huge stepping stone to the future.
As for where I’m getting all this time from, I have plenty of free time between homework and studying because I am quite content in getting 1st place in the subjects that matter to me the most (Maths, Physics, Computer Studies etc…). So yeah, you could say I’m enjoying my teenage life.
@QOTW: To this day, I haven’t had any problems with DRM (except a small one with Mass Effect 3, damn you Origin), so this doesn’t have any effect on my purchase. I still understand the problems and agree that DRM sucks.
@DICE has Frostbite-powered titles for 2013 that “will require a 64-bit OS”
Thing is, I remember hearing that a 64 bit processor can add two sets of two 32 bit integers using the same amount of registers needed by the 32 bit processor adding one set of two 32 bit integer.
Still, I think that the main call for the 64bit os will be the amount of RAM needed to run the game. Think of textures: although the video RAM is the better place to store them, you can still page them from the system RAM.
@Actors confirm return to recording booth for Mass Effect 3
I’m with Dan, it’ll be like moving from “Here’s a crappy ending” to “Here’s an epic crap ending”.
@The truth is DRM does not work
What’s funny is that game companies that want to publish their games on Steam they must remove any form of DRM; sometimes those said companies will simply use a cracked executable when publishing on Steam 😉
Publishing later on a platform actually kicks down the sales. But I agree, pirates are not going to pay for the game anyway.
@QOTW:
Starcraft II.
When they announced full time internet connection required, they lost me. I don’t care about Assasin’s Creed, but the Starcraft universe was interesting.
I’m not interesting in buying the game anymore. First, I hate that type of DRM. And even if I’d accept it, I still run on a 3G modem, so I would then have to deal with technical difficulties.
So, Blizzard can keep the game for itself.
I don’t have much time this week so I’ll go straight for QOTW:
Diablo 3. Tried the free pass, liked it, but I can’t understand that DRM policy. Torchlight2 ftw!