The PlayStation 3 is the slow seller in the United States but Sony still holds belief in their “10 year plan.” Many of us consider this to be the same style of plan Sony used with the PS2, sell your console through multiple generations and own the market share. The PS2‘s launch was much more graceful when compared to its 7th generation counterpart. Perhaps the PS3 has a different destiny… perhaps they want to remove all other media boxes from your living room.
Imagine a life without a cable box or Tivo and you’re probably envisioning Sony’s road map for a media distribution empire. First, remove Tivo from the situation with a DVR style box using their PlayTV technologies, wired up to the PlayStation 3 using a USB connection. The United States hasn’t seen a launch of PlayTV, more than likely because the PS3 isn’t a huge console here yet and Tivo is partnered with many cable and satellite providers already.
Senior director of the PlayStation Network, Susan Panico said Sony “looks aspirationally at HBO, the way they have Sex and the City and other shows” (gamespot) after admitting Sony wants to replace cable boxes in the home. Tivo has already done a great job removing the need for a cable box, allowing you to rent a “cable card” to insert into a Tivo and gain access to all their content for your DVR needs. DirectTV offers (or has in the past) a Tivo or Tivo-like DVR solution. Cable and DirectTV offer the ability to rent their DVR or offer a solution to purchase your own at a retail outlet What if Sony decides to partner with one or more of these providers to offer an all-in-one solution. PS3 owners wouldn’t have to purchase additional equipment and could be up and running immediately with hard disks big enough to handle HD content.
Sony could offer you a graphically appealing gaming experience, a high definition BluRay solution, media distribution for renting movies, an iTunes style online store for purchasing and playing music all wrapped up in a DVR solution. All this content for a $400 price tag is a value when all the offers are combined into one tiny black box.
Looking at today’s Tivo Series3 HD DVR you’ll notice the ability to play music directly from iTunes, browse and play Youtube shows, watch Disney offerings and even high definition NetFlix playback. The Tivo DVR’s can also talk with other DVR’s in the household making it easy to share TV records across systems. The only thing missing in the Tivo solution is a high definition gaming platform and the BluRay hardware.
We’re all sitting here poking fun at the small PS3 game library and telling people that BluRay is going to lose out to HD downloads yet we may be missing the bigger picture: an all-in-one media empire solution. The PS3 may not carry the largest game library compared to the Xbox 360 or the sales records of the Wii but if Sony finds a way to become a reliable and required media set top box they may realize their true “10 year plan.”
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56 responses so far ↓
1 Derrick Schommer
// Jan 5, 2009 at 8:43 am
I can find plenty of articles that also talk about Exclusives not being the main factor in consoles anymore because so many big titles (Final Fantasy and GTA being the first that come to mind) are going non-exclusive.
Sony doesn’t have the power it had last time to lock down some of the big franchise exclusives anymore.
That PSExtreme article doesn’t give me any indicator that the 360 is dead, just like most 360 articles don’t give any indicator the PS3 has no future.
I’ll believe the 360 has no future when I see sales taper off and decline. Perhaps it will be due to Killzone 2, God of War III, Gran Turismo 5, Heavy Rain, Infamous and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – I’ve not seen the evidence of this ‘impact’ as of yet.
Of course, out of all those, God of War III would be the only one I’d probably get. Not everygame is for everyone.
2 A C
// Jan 5, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Seriously? I mean you wouldn’t get Uncharted 2? Uncharted is the game that 7 of my friends traded in there 360 and went PS3 for.
Exclusives definitely don’t mean everything but its been used before to show 360 dominance so lets not totally disregard it.
I don’t think the 360 has no future in the least. I do however think Microsoft is going shorter term with the 360 than Sony is with the PS3.
As for the Wii, its Nintendo and as long as there are little kids, old people, or overly concerned parents the Wii will do well no matter how many crappy games they put out. Its just the way it is. When the Wii hits the 150 mark I’ll pick one up. Its still over-priced for what it has to offer.
I’m not along the naysayers that think either system is going under anytime soon. But to be honest as an owner of both systems its nice to finally hear some decent stuff being said about the PS3. The games and the quality are finally there.
My sons an xbox guy but even he realizes that Resistance has better online then Gears and Halo 3 put together.
You mightn’t like games like Killzone 2 but FPS and multi-player online means a massive amount to most people who game.
The only game of the above PS3 list I wont get is GT5 basically because I prefer the Burnout style of racing games.
Enjoyed the original article but oddly it seems that anyone who doesn’t think the 360 is going to rule for the next 2 years seems like a fanboy to you. What gives?
3 Derrick Schommer
// Jan 5, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I won’t deny games like Killzone are FPS “console movers” the United States is all about the FPS. I’m just so burned out from FPS games that I don’t really look into them.
It’s not that it may not be “the best” game on the market now but I’m not in the market for an FPS. I may fall in love with it if I played it, but the hard part is getting me to play the games. The cost barrier is there, the fact that it is an exclusive means they limit their audience (however Killzone is an SCEE game, so it’s exclusive by nature).
But, I’m not going to say a key FPS isn’t important for your system – it’s a console mover here in the States, you need one or two top-notch FPS games. You just do.
As for Uncharted 2, it comes down to me not having any exposure to the franchise. I’m not nearly saying “it sucks” I’m just giving you my honest opinion to the games I’d get if I went out and got a PS3 today. I would pickup LBP too, so that’s enough games to start on a system.
I’m not saying a person is a fanboy for not believing the Xbox 360 is going to dominate the next two years. That’s totally not what I’m saying, I’m saying those that say stuff like:
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Maybe the 360 does have more games available but since most of them are complete garbage i don’t think that counts for much. Why don’t you go take a look at Metacritic and see how well “Gears Of Bad Graphics 2? or “Fable 1.5? did compared to LittleBigPlanet???
-or-
I bought the PS3 when it was released for 600 and I got a better deal than you
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Fanboys, to me, are those that believe their opinion to be fact. Those that say “mine is better than yours” without knowing how I game, what I play and why I buy one over the other
Give me facts, for any console, and I’ll listen. Give me your opinion with “in my opinion” or “the way I see it” and I’ll listen. Not a big deal.
The other thing I’ve noticed is classic fanboyism is to take an article describing some great value to the PS3 (as I tried to do here) and tell me I’m deluded, cheap and stupid.
I don’t think the Xbox 360 is going to rule for the next two years. The Wii rules this generation, statistics show that. 360 ans PS3 are competitive, although the 360 is winning in statistics and PS3 is gaining ground you are right, Microsoft doesn’t have a 10 year plan at all. They’re a software company trying to make hardware and are used to PC release cycles.
I think Microsoft will build out a new console within two years and start hyping it. Is that bad for Sony? I don’t really know yet as I’ve not seen what Microsoft’s going to do next.
Honestly, Microsoft’s next console should have slow sales up-front due to the massive failure of their current hardware.
While people want to smack me down as a PS3 hater, nobody actually asks me what I think of Microsoft’s console 🙂 I have PLENTY of bad experiences to go along with the good.
4 jonahfalcon
// Jan 5, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Killzone 1 moved nothing, and had just as huge a hype as the sequel does.
5 Jordan Lund
// Jan 15, 2009 at 7:22 pm
A little late for this thread, but since I posted a bunch of sales numbers above here’s the last piece of the puzzle:
December NPD:
PS3 726K
X360 1.44M
Add that to the previous totals:
2008 Total Sales:
PS3 – 9,021,799
Xbox 360 – 8,750,722
and you get:
2008 Total Sales:
PS3 – 9,747,799
Xbox 360 – 10,190,722
A difference of 442,923 in favor of the 360.
Sorry PS3 fanboys…
6 jonahfalcon
// Jan 19, 2009 at 5:20 pm
The PS3 dropped in sales comparing Nov-Dec 2007 to Nov-Dec 2008 as well.
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