PS3 Fanboy

If you're a UK gamer ready to get your Eye of Judgment on, then you know that you're probably due for a lot of card collecting. This can generally be quite a bother, especially with the packs selling anywhere between £3 and £8, depending if you're getting a booster or starter pack, respectively. Well, perhaps we can help quell the notion you'll dole out a lot of cash -- UK retailer GAME is offering a special deal on their cards if you buy more when you pick up the game. The price will get sliced almost in half, rendering the fee for added card excellence down to £1.50 and £5. It's a pretty good deal, so if you plan on getting into the game, might as well score a few extra card packs while the gettin' is good.

The UK high street store GAME has today said that the PS3 is responsible for over half of its like-for-like sales boosts since the beginning of the year. GAME have seen a 74.1% increase in total group sales for the first 22 weeks of the year, with a 46.6% like-for-like sales boost in the same period. Of this 46.6%, 22.5% is attributed to PlayStation 3 hardware, software and peripherals.

This is great news and shows that the PS3 is still going strong here in Europe. When the really huge games start getting released, no doubt we'll be seeing an even larger increases in sales, particularly hardware. Peter Lewis comments on this, saying that "higher volumes of new generation platforms will increase hardware participation in the sales mix for the year to January 2008." Which is flowery-speak for "hardware will make up a larger part of overall sales in the next six months," which makes sense. As the end-of-year games splurge occurs, more people will be persuaded into buying consoles.

High Street retailer GAME has decided to hamper the sales of PS3 title, Oblivion. Why do we make such an outrageous claim? Because they're not going to stock the title for the PS3. It won't be available in any of their UK or Ireland stores.

Oblivion has sold very well on both 360 and PC, counting upward 3 million units sold and receiving various awards for being totally radical. The PS3 version is to see release in Europe today, but it won't be around in the biggest videogame retailer. That's very, very lame. What does GAME have to say for themselves? Nothing. They weren't available to comment.

[update: the problem lies in distribution troubles, not a denial to stock the game itself. A new report with actual information from GAME is now available!]

Different reports are rolling in from every side of things -- the launch is a failure, the launch is a success, the lunch is scheduled for 12:30PM, the dinner is undetermined, the dryer is too loud, the launch is a nail on Sony's coffin, it's too hot in here... you get the idea. Don't you? Well, here's the launch from UK retailer GAME's point of view.

A good supply of consoles leads to less dissatisfied consumers. Says Anna Macario of GAME: "It's very unusual that we're going to be in a situation where we've got enough stock to fulfil demand in the short term – that's never happened before." She says that there won't (read: shouldn't) be any negativity against Sony for not supplying enough units.

She goes on to talk about this and that, but we've got to step back. Our subject line claims the PS3 launch is stronger than the others -- but there's nothing about sales numbers of people in line mentioned! The launch is stronger because Sony came well-prepared with a plethora of units to fulfill everyone's wish who wants a PlayStation 3. If everyone can get the console right away, that can be called a great launch, right? Selling out is good, but when you've ample supply, selling out is harder and almost an impossible goal, especially for a pricey machine like the PS3. It's worth it, though.

This is in reference to the European demand, mind you. We know there are some PS3's on shelves in the US of A and Japan. GAME marketing director Anna Marcario said that "The customer reaction to the arrival of the Sony PlayStation 3 really has been nothing short of phenomenal. With a huge range of titles available for launch and having so much more functionality than any other game console, our customers can't wait to get their hands on this incredible machine."

Oh, we should mention that although seven titles have been delayed, there are still close to 30 titles available upon launch.

Keep in mind also that GAME is no longer having a midnight launch party, out of safety concerns brought about by the local policing forces. The store will open up at 7AM, but only for the first 150 people who pre-ordered the system. Apparently. They get a yummy breakfast and Sony goodie bags. Everyone else can get in around 9AM.

It's always a bold move when guerrila marketers post up a flyer comparing two rival goods in a store without the store's consent. It's even more bold of a move if the retailer posts the flyers, claims they didn't authorize it, then take it down when they receive a good ol' fashioned back-hand to the face by angered consumers. Whichever the case, European store GAME recently had posters in their store comparing the PS3 and XBox 360 -- comparisons that were biased towards the PS3.

The contents of the poster have been debated here in our comments section on more than enough posts -- price. Simply put, comparing the price of all that you get with the 60GB PS3 model compared to everything you'd have to buy to get an equivalent... um... media center (not sure how to word it) out of Microsoft's system. In the end, it comes down to what you want out of your console. If you want games and games only, yeah, the 360 is a far better deal. Especially if you don't need to worry about running an ethernet cable from your roommate's room, down the stairs, and into your system. Otherwise, wireless is so, so helpful.

Posting stuff like this is clearly a no-no in retail stores. But we should discuss the points raised in the poster once again, just to see if we can get any new notions plopped on the comment board. Is it a better deal to get everything you'd need all at once at a "higher" price, or get a cheaper base unit and build from it as you deem it necessary? It's an interesting dynamic Sony and Microsoft have worked out with those two options, don't you think? Pretty good stuff, this business thing.

We're not entirely sure how to spin this one, since we don't actually know how many PS3's the European chain of gaming stores, dubbed GAME, are getting. So, we'll hand it to you in just as vague and either/or stylings as we've been given it. Doubtless, GAME will be making a lot of money on March 23rd, when the PS3 is released across Europe. But will there be a shortage? Not so, according to the bigwigs at GAME.

The head offices at GAME have stated that only about two-thirds of their PS3 allocation have been pre-ordered despite the best efforts from all of their store employees to strangle £50 out of customers for a pre-order. The reasoning? Get ready for a collective sigh. We hear this reason so often, it has to be true, right? So sayeth a store manager: "We've had a lot of interest in the console, mostly from PS2 owners looking to upgrade, but the price is putting many off. It looks like you may be able to just walk in and pick one up without a preorder on launch day."

Well, go ahead and test it out if you'd like. Walk in on launch day! We wish we knew how many PS3's were allocated to GAME, but if there's going to be around one million units floating around, a good number of them are probably going to this, the biggest gaming specialty store. Thoughts? Feelings? Opinions?

This is definitely on the better side of Sony news -- especially for those gamers in Europe strapped for cash! Well, sort of. Pay special note to the "may be offering" part of the subject. This hasn't been confirmed officially by Sony or by European store GAME (the biggest UK gaming store chain), but a Sony rep did say: "that the GAME group and Sony were planning to offer interest free credit on the console, allowing gamers to pay off the cost of their PS3 for just a few pounds a month over a year."

You know, this actually makes a lot of sense, as RPGSite put it and we'll reiterate. Most consumer electronics over a certain amount have this kind of option (computers, high-end TV's) but this is the first time the option has been offered specifically for a video game specialty store. It comes with a lot of forms to fill out, so take a pen to the store with you if this gets confirmed. While the price is still high, you'll be hard-pressed to find someone complaining about paying £35 a month instead of the full £425. What do you guys think? Would this be a smart maneuver, or would you rather plop down the full amount right away?

On the heels of a "positive news recap," it makes it even sweeter to report that the PS3 has moved up on CNET's Weekly Hit List to take the #6 spot. This top 20 catalog is based on visitor interest, so it's great to see Sony's brainchild advance three spots from 9th place (it's "Still Warm" according to placement).

Interestingly enough, the Nintendo Wii has dropped off the chart entirely. Last seen at #18, the console had been on it for almost 60 weeks. At least we know what's on CNET visitor's minds.

[Via Punch Jump]

That's right boys and girls, Best Buy Canada is touting bold game prices on their website. For the ripe price of $74.99, these jokers don't come cheap. But if you thought the next-generation of gaming was going to cost you anything less than an arm or a leg, you might as well dust off your cartridges.

Does this really come as a surprise though? With a console as steep as the PlayStation 3, it'd be naive to think the games would be bargain-priced. As much as I'd like to say "Keep your eyes out for an amended page" or be wary of the current costs, we may be kidding ourselves thinking that next-gen games are going to be anything cheaper than 75 bucks a pop.

We've all heard about the supposed pricing of the next generation of games. Kaz says we're getting off easy when it comes to PS3 games. But what about the developers making these games?

Recently, Brian Eddy (Midway Games), Todd Howard (Bethesda Software), and Evan Wells (Naughty Dog) discussed their take, as developers, over the pricing issues on the latest Gamasutra podcast. Evan Wells says that games are still a bargain at $60, claiming that "a small [price] increase is completely warranted" in regard to price. Could Wells' position be tied to Sony's stance on higher game prices, since he is currently the lead designer on Naughty Dog's PS3 title Naughty Dog (c'mon guys, name that thing something else already).

Brian Eddy and Todd Howard disagree, saying games are too expensive as is. Eddy says that as game prices go up, gamers "simply can't afford that many games" and this may reduce sales numbers. Howard agrees and adds "I'm a proponent of a $19 price point."

With these differences of opinion between developers, do you think that game prices will really affect third-party support on our next-gen consoles? If the games are more expensive, will developers be attracted to the chance to make large amounts of money quickly, or conversely, if they are cheap, will developers tend toward higher sales numbers instead?

If you're a basketball aficionado you may be interested to know that NBA Live 07 is slated to be one of EA's lineups for the PS3 launch. By "one of" I'm of course alluding to their tendency to include an army of sports games for November and the Sony console as well. You may also be interested in the fact that they've predicted who will take the cake in the NBA Finals coming up via their NBA Live 07 simulation (though we don't know for which console). Hope this doesn't ruin anything for you, but it's Dallas Mavericks over the Heat.

Sorry Miami fans.

If Sony's support for previous homebrew endeavors (like the PSP) was any indication of their PlayStation 3 involvement, then indie coders out there would have something to worry about. Thankfully that's not the case.

We've heard about their desire to get homebrew developers on board with the Linux system to create some unique and independent software for the next-gen console. Izumi Kawanishi spoke up about this recently saying that Sony would "like to see various individuals participate in content creation for the PS3."

The idea here is to broaden their Linux strategy. Using Linux World, they plan on giving homebrew hackers all the freedom to build from the ground up. No SDK libraries or support. It's all you guys.

This would be a huge step for independent game makers out there, especially if Sony would let them distribute it over their online platform too. There's still no word on the distribution part though, but hopefully we will see some integration on that end as well.

It's only natural for a company to lose out in at least the first year of its console launch, which slowly evens out and turns into a profit as units are sold. This is well known in the video game industry, however Sony announced yesterday that it plans to lose some odd $817 million dollars related to start up costs for the PS3, which is just astronomical.

The company has already sunk over $400 million into promoting the console and the implementation of the Blu-ray drive along with the Cell processor will no doubt help aid in creating an even larger hole for the company to climb out of, as analysts speculate Sony will spend between $500 and $800 dollars to manufacture each console.