Monthly Archives: August 2011

When Sony was widely criticized for their arrogance and cavalier attitude during the PS3 launch, they learned a valuable lesson. Double down.

The company believes that there remains untapped potential in the PS3 and is essentially issuing a “finish your dinner before you get dessert” ultimatum to developers.

Shuhei Yoshida of SCEA told Eurogamer:
“Looking at the platform cycle, when the platform becomes something game developers are not able to improve their creations with, that’s the time we have to really seriously consider shifting to the next generation,”

While the current crop of games continues to impress, we are slowly coming up on a hardware limitation. Networking has always been an issue for consoles, and we know that games like Battlefield 3 will be unable to have 64-player maps unlike their PC counterpart.

Rumors of the next XBOX are slowly leaking out, but news of any PS4 development has been kept secret, and it remains to be seen what Sony is planning for their next generation console.

So, the only immediate question for now is whether Sony is just posturing to keep things mum, or if they really think the PS3 has yet to hit its stride.

If you are a big fan of the NFL football season is here already with pre-season games already being played. I would wager that means some of you super fans out there are already feeling slighted by the fact that you can’t see very game that is available on your TV thanks to blackouts and such. DirecTV fans have been able to get the NFL Sunday Ticket for a while now so they can see every game that is on during the weekend.

DirecTV and Sony have announced that NFL Season Ticket is now available on the PS3 game console for subscribers and non-subscribers. I’m having a hard time figuring out if you are a subscriber why exactly you would need access on your PS3. I guess that would allow you to watch the game in a room that might not have a satellite receiver available.

The price for the package for subscribers is $50. If you are a non-subscriber, the price might give you more than a little sticker shock. You will need to shell out $339.95 to access the NFL Sunday Ticket on your PS3. That means a single season of the NFL will cost you more than you can get a new PS3 for.

Sony Computer Entertainment made a surprising announcement on Tuesday at the Gamescom conference in Germany that the company will be lowering the worldwide price of its PlayStation 3 by an additional $50.

The price on the 160 GB version will fall to $249 from $299. In Europe and Japan, the basic console’s price has been slashed to 249 euros and 24,980 yen, from 299 euros and 29,980 yen, respectively. For the 320 GB version, the price will drop to $299 from $349.

At $249, the 160 GB version of the PS3 will now cost $351 less than its original retail price of $600. That original price tag — when PS3 came out in 2006 — is one of the reasons why the gaming system has perennially been stuck in the third place in terms of sales, behind Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii, according to NPD Group sales.

The five-year-old video game console has already gone through a handful of iterations and price reductions, as well as one major structural redesign. The last time Sony cut the price of the PS3 was in 2009 when it launched a slimmer model.

The first PS3 price reduction took place in July 2007, reducing the price of the 60 GB model to $499 from $599. Subsequent models introduced higher storage limits and lower prices.

“This is a proactive strike from Sony. It has been rapidly gaining share and it has made strides since the original $600 price tag. Its pricing aggressively as it senses inroads in the console market. It can expand the install base with this move,” said Scott Steinberg, a video game analyst at http://www.toptechexpert.com.

Sony is cutting the price of its PS3 gaming console in a bid to drum up more demand for the console as competitors such as Nintendo also cut their prices.

Nintendo said a month ago that it would cut the price of its flagship Nintendo 3 DS player. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has generated interest with the addition of the Kinect controller, which allows users to play games without the need for a game controller.

Microsoft has sold 55 million Xbox 360 units worldwide; Sony has sold 52 million units of the PS3 while Nintendo remains ahead with 86 million units sold of its gaming console.

“It is no secret that the PlayStation 3 has been struggling for some time against the Microsoft Xbox 360 in North America, though it did slightly better in Europe,” said Jesse Divnich, an analyst at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research.

Divnich believes Microsoft won’t immediately follow with a price cut of its own.

“Sony is cutting the price in August to target the back-to-school shoppers,” aid Jack Tretton, CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment America. “The reduced price will give the Sony PlayStation 3 a boost and will help the company meet its goal of selling 15 million consoles this year.”

Despite the price cut, Sony will still be able to sell the console for a profit because of manufacturing efficiencies.