Playstation 3 - A look into the past.

The PS3 is the most powerful console of this generation. It's going to cost $600 (USD) for the premium unit. The reason for the development of the console is to showcase the Blu-Ray disc, which Sony helped to develop. It can read Blu-Ray, DVD, CD, SACD, MMC, SD, CompactFlash, and, don't forget, the Sony Memory Stick. Games will cost somewhere between $60-$100.

It seems to me that this marketing strategy has been done before, and been a miserable failure. What about other consoles that have tried this disasterous idea?

The Philips CD-i was more powerful than both the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis / Mega Drive combined. Naturally, Philips (and Sony) helped to pioneer the CD format, and this console was made to showcase the capabilities of the CD format. It had some licenced games such as the CD-i Zelda games and Hotel Mario. It was released in 1991 for $700. After large amounts of marketing efforts, some price drops, and other dilemas, it was quietly discontinued in 1998. It sold about 560,000 units and had 69 games.

The Pioneer Laseractive was released in 1993 for $930. Again, Pioneer was reponsible for pioneering (pun intended) the LaserDisc format, which proved to be a miserable failure, and this console was also made to showcase the capabilities of the LD format. It had $400 addons called "PACs" that allowed for the play of Genesis and NEC games, as well as Karaoke LDs. Each were sold seperately. It had 30 games made for it and was discontinued little more than a year later.

The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer was released in 1993 for $700. It had a 12.5MHz RISC CPU, which is about the same speed as a 25K 68030 CPU. 138 games were produced. Incidentally, the 3DO company didn't produce the CD format, but the console was intentionally designed as a powerful console designed for gamers who wanted FMV and good graphics. A follow-up console was planned and made, but never released. The system sold about 6 million units, and was probably the 4th best console (out of 9 for that generation, 3 being Japan-Only)

The Amiga CD32 was released in England in 1993. It had 48 games released, and was discontinued after Commodore went bankrupt. It lasted one year.

The Apple Pippin (AKA Bandai Pippin) was released in 1996 in the US for $600. It was called a "cheap computer" and was more commonly identified as a Videogame console. Due to this, the price, and the fact that Bandai was the only company making games for the system, it died quickly.

Now, for CD Attachments to existing consoles.

The Turbo-CD was an addon for the Turbografix-16 that retailed for $400 and didn't include a pack-in game. Globally, there were 61 games released for the Turbo CD addon.

The Jaguar CD was an addon for the Atari Jaguar that retailed for $150 and included some demos. There were 13 games released for the addon, and the Jaguar died shortly afterwards, when Atari was bought.

And so, you have it. The PS3 is doomed to fail for following this crap strategy that so many other companies have tried using.

And yes, I'm going to completely ignore the unreleased SNES CD, Ultra64, and Neo-Geo CD.

Ah well. Shit happens.

The Wii will always be my first choice

Nice insight though!

Nice post.

Hmm, I don't think the PS3 will fail miserably. It's too early to tell, imo. The system may probably go the way the PSP is going at the moment I feel, a little stronger than its smaller brother, but not a huge hit.

It would do relatively better than the systems you mentioned in the strategy, imo because:

+ PlayStation is a very established brand and household name.
+ PlayStation has had two successful runs, 3 (sorta) if you do count PSP as a success.
+ The gaming market, imo, is much bigger than a decade ago

I agree to JB's points, the PS3 won't be too much of a flop because of the brand name, but here's another point (counter-point?)

The Tiger Telematics Gizmondo. For those of you that don't know, this was supposed to be a handheld game console that incorporated GPS, MMS, a camera, 2 inch screen, windows media, and a whole lot of features galore. It looked like a taco. I believe it cost 600$, $500 if you agreed to watch ads before every game. It had around 5 games released for it, sold for a bit in the UK, and then promptly died, never touching the US. The company is now gone completely, their owner currently in prison involving the mafia and some stolen rental cars. I'm not making this up.

Secondly, may I present the Tapwave Zodiac. This device was basically a Palm OS powered PSP with a huge screen, 450 MHZ processor, 2 SD slots, and a real analogue stick. It was really thin, very sexy (I own one ^_^). $500. It was supposed to be a gaming palm to take on the PSP and DS. THe company is now bankrupt. Not enough games, too much price.

These stories relate to the PS3 in whatever way you choose them; take as many grains of salt as necessary to feel comfortable.

Very good post, but I don't really agree.

Keep an eye out on the front page either tonight (if I have time today) or next Thursday night for Industrial Gaming, where I'll talk quite frankly about this all.

Oh and welcome to the site, enjoy

There's also the point of Dev costs.

A PS3 Devkit is $25,000. Let's say you've got a team of 1,500 people working for $30 an hour, 40 hours a week for nine months on one game.

The Devkits are already $37,500,000.
One hour of programming is $45,000.
One week of programming is $1,800,000.
Nine months of Four weeks is 36.
36 Weeks x $1,800,800 = $64,000,000.
$64,000,000 + $ $37,500,000 = $101,500,000.

Now, to get a return on that, let's say you decide to sell your game for $60. After the costs for packaging, the Blu-ray media, the instruction manual, and getting it to the location where it needs to be, that's $10 per unit. So, gross profit per unit sold is $50. You would then need to sell 2,030,000 games to recover production costs.

Will there even be that many PS3 units available? There was a shipment bottleneck with PS2, and to a lesser extent, the 360. Chances are that not every person who owns a PS3 is going to buy your game.

A Wii Devkit, on the other hand, is $1,700. There's no way that development would take 9 months...

1500 people working on one game?
Er, no.

Why on earth would a company have 1,500 programmers all needing a development kit each?

I smell ignorance. Most developers will have 1 kit, a second would be a luxery for larger projects by larger companies.

There's no way that development would take 9 months...

( Edited on 10.08.2006 13:22 by Der SegaHund )

That's some great knowledge there of the past generations. Personally, I wouldn't be so sure that the PS3 is doomed. Fair enough the cost is pretty close to astronomical for a games console but there's always the preverbial price drop. Remember the Xbox? Started off at something close to

Nice topic - I like to call consoles that think they're something other than that, a console, and think of themselves as a retarded PC 'Ikea Videogame Machines'.

I believe it cost 600$, $500 if you agreed to watch ads before every game.

That reference was somewhat pieced together, really. Point is, developing for the PS3 will be much more costly than for the Wii.

How much is nintendo's kit? I remember someone saying $1000, but that sounds wrong as there is such a big difference between that and the PS3 devkits.

Z said:
How much is nintendos kit? I remember someone saying $1000, but that sounds wrong as there is such a big difference between that and the PS3 devkits.

It was around $2000 I recall. Dunnow for sure though

What a bloody big difference. You would think that at least would be a HUGE incentive to develop for Wii. I mean it's easy and cheap to develop for, has new ways of playings games while still having old, will probably attract casual gamers. Only thing that would be keeping is competing with nintendos games.

I thought the Neo Geo was about $600 too... That kinda failed...

Yeah. The Wii Devkit was $1,700 USD. At any rate, while the Neo-Geo did fail, it was really an arcade board, SNK said "A few crazy people might buy it".

Incidentally, SNK is going to hold off until 2009-2010 until a PS3 game release, to see if it is going to be worth it.

It'll be long dead by then

Far wrong Sanders. The PS3 carries Sony's name, and with it a strong reputation. $600 is cheap for a blue-ray player. About $1000 cheap.

PlayStation wont be defeated by a console that only sports a "work your a** off to play a game" controller.

PlayStation wont be defeated by a console that only sports a "work your a** off to play a game" controller.

True, but neither will the wii according to all the people who have played it from here.

Considering that the Playstation is an instantly recognisable brand, and that the PS2 and PS1 were consecutivley the highest selling home consoles, the PSP is doing wank.

This means that Sony no longer has the grip that it once did. Had the PSP been released during the PS1 era however....

I am quite certain that the PS3 will not fail. It might be big, bulky and expensive, but it bears the title of 'PlayStation' - which, unfortunately, seems to be the only name on the lips of casual gamers.

Wii has two advantages, however. The whole concept of the console is somewhat 'revolutionary', and the price is low in comparison to both the X360 and PS3.

As such, I am more interested in seeing how Wii will do this forth-coming generation.

Sony, as usual, are being arrogant.

The main issue the PS3 is looking to run into is hardware problems. Incorporationg Blu-Ray was a bad idea. The diodes keep on dying for one, they should have waited until the technology wa more stable.

Another problem is the cell processor, intel commented that the trial runs were horrible, and that the chip kept failing.

PROWLINGTIGER said:
Far wrong Sanders. The PS3 carries Sonys name, and with it a strong reputation. $600 is cheap for a blue-ray player. About $1000 cheap.

I'll remember that the next time I see a $1600 blu-ray player in shops, next to the huge library of blu-ray disks

Lightmare: Thats why they're called "trials." Every console will have its problems. But the processor will last long, just look at the lifespan of the PS1 or PS2.

Mega: Soon, it'll be either hi-def or blueray. And if you havent noticed, blueray is currently being phased in.

It is? I haven't noticed...

And yes, $600 may be cheap for a blu-ray player. BUT IT'S STILL $600.