80Gb PS3 gets UK release date – according to GAME

Shatner: As I said, you’ll need to ask them again… clearly. Your posts tend to be overly long and lacking direction so I’d rather not have to trawl through them again.

As for PS2 sales, there’s really not a lot to talk about. Taking from Sony’s own figures (Jan – Jun 07 vs Jan – Jun 08):

PS2 HW 07: 2.66m units
PS2 HW 08: 1.51m units (43% decrease)

PS2 SW 07: 31.1m units
PS2 SW 08: 19.3m units (38% decrease)

…so I’d say that holding onto that to the detriment of your new flagship product might not be the best plan. I’m sure you’ll disagree though.

And as I said, I’ve already presented them twice. You’ve ignored them twice. I already stated I won’t ask them a third time because I don’t see why I should repeat myself AGAIN for you to ignore me AGAIN. As you repeatedly ignore me I’m not sure I particularly care for what you’re rather or not do. Besides, the more lame excuses you provide for not answering questions the deeper a hole you dig for yourself.

PS2 sales don’t have to be much to talk about, it’s the profit margin that counts. Duh. You still choose to ignore profitability (probably because you can’t copy-and-paste it into a post to make your comments look more meaningful). Kinda silly thing to overlook really. Especially when you’re in the business of making money. Oh well.

I’d say that one week of PS2 sales amount to more profit that any PS3s that would ONLY have been sold due to the presence of BC (assuming the PS3 was profitable, duh). Of course, you’ll never be able to disprove that because you’ll never be able to prove WHY something sold (which is why your earlier comment about a new PS3 bundle and comparing sales stats is tragically misjudged but promises to be very entertaining when someone asks you for the MEANING in your copy-and-pasted numbers). Which is why quoting context-free stats is hilariously pointless. Any fool can make numbers mean whatever they like. Pulling stats out this late in the conversation is quite comical.

@Shatner
“DrDamn: Sony have said very clearly that BC is gone, for good. If you’re waiting for them to spend millions developing a full software solution you may be waiting a very long time indeed.”

I don’t need to wait I’ve got a 60G UK machine. It’s clearly an obvious and logical step though and even goes some way to explaining the current situation.

Obvious because it allows them to sell a load of PS2 titles as downloads. Logical as they already do this for PSOne titles.

Is it really going to cost them millions? They are ready have some of the required software in place it just needs extension. The emulation software should be easier for them to write than it has been for MS in emulating the XBox.

There have even been a couple of bits of evidence that this is in the offing too. Screenshots of PS2 titles on the PSN store (possible fake) but also I’ve seen shots of FFXII emulation which look a hell of a lot better than it does running on a BC PS3 as it clearly rendered the stuff at 720p rather than upscaled it.

Ahhh… yes, the profit margin on the PS2 is everything. Well, if that’s the case they probably should have never released the PS3 because of how much money it lost them.

Stupid Sony, should have paid more attention to Shatner. (See beancounter decision, noted near the start of this topic)

DrDamn: From a technical standpoint it’s a difficult nut to crack. The PS2 GPU had a ludicrously high fillrate that they’ve somehow got to match using the PS3 CPU / GPU.

You can do it on the PC (that’s where you’ve seen the FFXII emulation shots from), but only if you’ve got a GPU that can overpower it.

No Psychotext, it’s not everything but allow me to boil it down to you:

You’re a business.

Do you go for

a) profit
b) no profit

?

According to your anecdotal ranting, Sony should be choosing option B as it makes the most sense.

Your insistence on comparing launches of two SEPARATE products 8 years apart whilst selectively ignoring every single other factor that occurs over those 8 years is tragically flawed. You even suggest they should have stuck with the PS2.

GUESS WHAT? They’re still sticking with the PS2! Weclome to the debate, I’m so glad you could make it.

As ever, you’re still not answering questions and you’re still flip-flopping from one failed excuse to another. You’re currently-rehashing your earlier failed excuses.

Software-only PS2 emulation is very difficult to actually achieve because of the bizarre hardware used in the PS2′s graphics chip. In some ways it’s actually more powerful than the PS3′s RSX, iirc.

A software solution on a ‘game by game’ basis might be possible, but I’m not convinced we’ll ever see ‘one emulator runs all’ BC on the PS3. With next-gen costs rising and Sony profits faltering, you can certainly see why they’d want to put all of their efforts into PS3 software instead.

You’re a business.

Do you go for:

a) Long term profit
b) Short term profit

Not everything is as black and white as you make it. I could sell my buildings right now and make a tidy profit indeed… but then I’d do major damage to my future profits because I’d have to rent the space.

Do you make Office 2003 incompatible with Office 2000 documents because you make more profit on Office 2000 sales?

Do you make a blu-ray player that can’t play DVDs because you make more profit on your DVD hardware?

Anyway… as entertaining as this has been, I should probably go and do something productive or I’ll be sacrificing my profits too. \o/

You’re a business.

a) Long term profit
b) Short term profit

The beauty of having more than one product on the market is that you can go with

c) Both

So long as you don’t purposefully design one product to cripple the profitability of the other product.

Office: no, you give incentive of sales of your old product by SHOCK HORROR lowering the price of the old product!!!!

BRD: Does anyone make a BR player that doesn’t play DVDs or are you just fabricating another scenario that has no relevance in the real world???

Thanks for still avoiding my questions and validating my point about the worth of BC.

THANKS FOR PLAYING – SEE YOU NEXT GAME!

As I said, put them down and I’ll answer them. You can’t blame me for not wanting to read all that you’ve written again but it would take you two seconds to re-ask the questions as they’re clearly in your head.

I fully agree with Shatner. Sony has a product pipeline still in place for the PS2, it’s running great (given it’s age), and it’s profitable.

But surely, no one would spend 400€ for a PS3 just to get it for playing PS2 games, right? Perfectly right. It’s not about selling more PS3 units for PS2 units, but selling the ultra-cheap PS2s alongside the PS3.

Maybe only a fraction of the people who’d use the BC feature of the PS3 would also spend another 130€ on the PS2, but those are the people for which BC was a USP, an important feature. The others are the crowd that did not care much about the BC in the first place.

BC aside, ive seen HMV advertising the 80GB for GAME at a release price that is the same as the 40GB. Does anyone know if they plan to lower the price for the 40GB and if so by how much and when?

Any information would be appreciated.

Funny:

Today I had a conversation with some bloke at work: Casual gamer, not into his games or anything, likes his GTA and PS2.

He told me he was playing San Andreas last night and thought it was great and that he had to get a PS3 soon so he could play GTA4. We chatted a bit about 360/PS3: price, games etc. when I mentioned that unfortunately the ‘new’ (compared to my 60Gb PS3) 40Gb model doesn’t play PS2 games.

“Wow, that’s fucking terrible,” he said.

Isn’t anecdotal evidence great?

If Sony had this brilliant masterplan about not cannibalising their PS2 sales, why did they put BC in the PS3 to begin with? Why was it a major component of the PS2?

PS2 and PS3 appeal to entirely different audiences. There is no careful consideration amongst Joe Public between Machine A and Machine B – one costs over three times as much as the other! One is bought by enthusiast gamers, the other bought by parents for young children.

BC was there because originally, as Uncle Phil said, being able to carry over your games to the next platform was all part of the PlayStation brand. This very good reasoning disappeared down the toilet when it became apparent how much of a financial blackhole PS3 was becoming – it was nothing to do with share-stealing from PS2.

I like BC because there’s still a few PS2 I need to play, like God War 2 and I don’t need to buy a new console in order to do so.

I’ll be getting an 80GB, but I will definitely still be annoyed that they took BC out of it – yes, I can keep my PS2 so it’s not the end of the world but having one box that plays all my Playstation games would’ve been nice.

That said, I can see why Sony did it – promote PS3 games to PS3 owners; let the PS2 carry on being profitable at the bottom end of the market. Don’t let one cannibalise sales of the other.

I’m sure they’re right that most consumers won’t give a toss about PS2 BC within a year or two. They just axed it way too early. Not all hardcore gamers are early adopters – if they axed BC when launching the PSThree Slim&Lite (or whatever) then fair enough, but the 60GB was only available for about 8-9 months. Plus they managed to piss off the hardcore by messing around with a load of different SKUs in different territories – and, of course, by shafting Europe the worst of anyone.

Still, no change there then.

Game now say August 22nd. Is that old news?