The guys discuss RoboCop: Rogue City, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and F-ZERO 99, among other things.
The news items include:
Let us know what you think.
Does the console market need any more competitors? We’ve seen record sales in the game industry for titles like Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV along with huge expectations for Resistance 2 and some new Sony PlayStation 3 projects. Yet, the tiny little Wii product holds best sales records around the world as the heavy hitter, Microsoft and Sony, compete for the most awesome spectacle show of graphics.
Competition is a great way to drive down costs, drive up expectations and give consumers new innovative products with better quality. Imagine if Apple got into console development and produced a new highly sexy product with the hype and consumer desire of the iPhone or iPod.
“Apple has the infrastructure in place through iTunes to create a real value proposition for those that want to extend the capability of their console beyond gaming and has the cash — about $20 billion — to not only invest in the best components on the market, but in an online gaming experience that could rival Xbox Live.” (kotaku)
Apple’s showing a huge surge in recognition and sales thanks to the iPod and growing desire for Apple hardware competing against Microsoft’s Vista operating system. As more consumers turn to Apple for their music and mobile gaming needs, Apple must see windows of exploiting the gaming market further.
More importantly, nobody can pull off digital rights management (DRM) and locking consumers into a product line like Apple all while they beg for more. Consoles are little boxes of DRM waiting for happy consumers to buy into the concept all while avoiding the hacking and bittorrenting like you’ve been seeing on Spore in the last few weeks. Had Spore been released on a console this DRM fiasco would have been avoided because gamers don’t even realize (or care) that a console locks them into playing and, more importantly, buying the game for the hardware.
So there you have it, the PlayStation 3‘s 80GB console is now the price of the PlayStation 3’s 40GB console, running in at $399.99. This is, in effect, a price drop to compete well with the Xbox 360 which is now going to be $349.99.
The new price of the PlayStation 3 with the talk of their new Resistance 2 game, their hopes for Sony Home, Little Big Planet and the rest of their game lineup (including Greatest Hits game lineup) and the hype for God of War 3 it’s almost a done deal. Perhaps the PlayStation 3 has a chance this holiday season after all!
Would you invest $399.99 for an 80GB model with the potential for great future games?
There is a bit of confusion regarding the release dates of both M.A.G and God of War 3 for the PlayStation 3. Initially people believed 2009 was the target drop for both titles after a Sony press release mentioned great games being “ushered in” this year following Killzone 2.
The “year” Sony may be talking about is fiscal year 2009… which rolls into March 2010. Although Sony hasn’t tagged either title with an ETA, it’s being assumed that we’re talking 2009 until spring 2010. Given most games launch in the September and October time for the holiday season that leads us to believe it will either arrive for the holiday or slide to 2010. If the title isn’t ready for prime time by the holiday season, can you wait a full year for these games?
More importantly, can Sony?
The best way to build up momentum for the console is to release some hot long awaited titles, M.A.G and God of War 3 seem to be just that product. We now have LittleBigPlanet, KillZone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 which were three big hopefuls for the console it would be a huge smash in the face of Microsoft to follow that up with two more one-two punches.
A year seems a bit too far to deliver the blow to their competition. What game are you waiting for on the PS3 and believe will kick unit sales into high gear?
(Thanks, 1up)
