Analyst: Cheap PS3 Identical to Costly 360. Price Similar to PSOne

Costs not an issue. Recent machine share cast

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Analyst: Cheap PS3 Identical to Costly 360. Price Similar to PSOne
To date, Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, has made some of the juicier comments on the emerging PlayStation 3 to come from the financial sector, claiming that in real-terms, the PlayStation 3 shares much of its commercial DNA with the Xbox 360.

"PS3 will sell out at $499. It may sound like a lot of money but is certainly not significantly more in inflation-adjusted dollars than the PS1 at $300 in 1995. The "cheap" PS3 and the "expensive" 360 are identical in all respects, save for the Blu-ray drive. Both have similar processors, 20GB hard drives, and DVI cable interfaces that will support 720p high definition," Pacter told Gamespot.

Indeed, Pacter believes the only difference lies in the pricing options for the consoles' high-definition movie platforms. "The difference in price is $100, so if you like Sony more and want a relatively inexpensive option to buy into high-definition movies, the cost is probably justified. In other words, consumers will compare the $499 PS3 to the $399 Xbox 360 and will likely decide based upon the potential selection of software (Japanese, US, and European for Sony, US and European for Microsoft), plus their assessment of the likely winner in the format war. If Blu-ray is the standard, the price differential will hold."

Mulling whether you'll enter the fray for a PlayStation 3 at launch this autumn? Cast your eye over these morsels, a mass of brand new hardware shots released by Sony just yesterday, and see if they hold any sway with you.


Comments

Showing the 20 most recent comments. Read all 29.
Myristate 25 Aug 2006 14:24
10/29
"SuperSaiyan4" How About You Get A Life And Stop Chattin Breeze. Spong Is A Great Site, Get Yourself Over To Ign For Some Older News!!!
hollywooda 25 Aug 2006 14:35
11/29
chattin breeze.... i never heard that 1....
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PreciousRoi 25 Aug 2006 15:12
12/29
somewhere in that article the guy says they both have DVI, to my knowlege neither does or will. confirm?
tyrion 25 Aug 2006 15:29
13/29
PreciousRoi wrote:
somewhere in that article the guy says they both have DVI, to my knowlege neither does or will. confirm?

There's currently no DVI cable for the 360 - there were rumours a while ago that it had no digital video out - and there has been no announcement as far as I'm aware of a DVI cable for the PS3.

What the "analyst" was probably trying to get to was that they both support HDTV resolutions up to 720p. I've heard the PS3 can do 1080i and maybe even 1080p over component, but I don't know if it's been officially announced, most of the talk has been about the HDMI resolutions.
config 25 Aug 2006 15:38
14/29
hollywooda wrote:
The "cheap" PS3 and the "expensive" 360??, wot the hell is this t**t going on about?, i get sick of everybody banging on about the PS3 is cheap because u get a Blue-ray player!

No, he comparing the specs on the low-end PS3 to the high-end 360, and saying they're virtually the same. He nevers says that the PS3 is cheap anywhere other than in his comparison.

Though clearly this analyst is a techtard, because there's no way you could compare the 360's PPCs and the PS3's Cell, especailly given that latter is completely unproved.

this is about games consoles right?

Yeah well, let's see where Microsoft takes 360 with it "Windows Live" capers. Both Microsoft and Sony are trying to get a firm grip on the home media hub, is all.
hollywooda 25 Aug 2006 15:47
15/29
I just think it's sad that the games industry has come to the point where we no longer talk (argue) about the games that are on our consoles?, that's all, it just seems like if i wanted a pair of tweezers i'd buy a pair, i wouldn't go out & spend more money on a Swiss army knife?..... i dont need all the other s**t, this is where i think the PSP went wrong, it didn't focus on it's sole purpose, to play games...does that make any sense?....to anyone?....it's a Friday afternoon.... i need a beer.
tyrion 25 Aug 2006 16:47
16/29
hollywooda wrote:
this is where i think the PSP went wrong, it didn't focus on it's sole purpose, to play games

See, why do you think its sole purpose was to play games? PSP was always a multi-purpose device.

Just because we have a strong connection to the games industry, we colour companies' intentions. However, looking back, the PS1 had a CD-player, the PS2 had a DVD-player, the PS3 is going for the home entertainment hub, Xbox has had a similar set of "enhancements".

It appears that convergence is the way of the world these days. Do you have a camera on your mobile phone? How about a calendar? Alarm clock? Games? Heck, even SMS on phones is a convergence of mobile and pager.

hollywooda wrote:
it's a Friday afternoon.... i need a beer.

I'm going to get one right now, so don't expect any more updates! :-)
TigerUppercut 25 Aug 2006 17:59
17/29
Off Topic, but I wonder what the PSThree will look like.
And I wonder how long it will take them to release it.
Remember, the original PlayStation and the SP2 went through TONS of hardware revisions. You wouldn't know it if you didn't know what to look for, but, say, the original 10,000 Series is a world away from final run Phatline PlayStation 2 hardware.

Same can be said for launch PlayStations and the final pre-PSOnes.

SuperSaiyan4 25 Aug 2006 18:26
18/29
Myristate wrote:
"SuperSaiyan4" How About You Get A Life And Stop Chattin Breeze. Spong Is A Great Site, Get Yourself Over To Ign For Some Older News!!!


How about you go get a life? Spong is a good site however the articles imo tend to get a little too exagerrated...
Myristate 25 Aug 2006 22:42
19/29
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Myristate wrote:
"SuperSaiyan4" How About You Get A Life And Stop Chattin Breeze. Spong Is A Great Site, Get Yourself Over To Ign For Some Older News!!!


How about you go get a life? Spong is a good site however the articles imo tend to get a little too exagerrated...


And that aggravates you so much, you feel a strong desier to (take the time out of your incredible life) and post wingeing about nothing! anyways this is far to much of my time wasted already!

i have no time for you, i just dont like people cussin a site like spong that update's gameing news immediately, when they dont even have 2% of the ££ IGN, Gamespot ect have!

wiiwillwin 26 Aug 2006 09:40
20/29
22G? The game is defenitely not that big, they must of added tons and tons of bullshit to it so they can say 'see, we do need ble-ray'
tyrion 26 Aug 2006 11:48
21/29
wiiwillwin wrote:
22G? The game is defenitely not that big, they must of added tons and tons of bullshit to it so they can say 'see, we do need ble-ray'

The fact is though, they have added it and they have the chance to add it. You'll never get that much whatever it is in Gears of War.

Maybe they have added many more channels to the sound track, maybe they have localised it in more languages, maybe they have huge textures for the landscape, maybe they have added special features like God of War. Who knows?

Whatever it is they have added to R:FoM will never appear on an Xbox 360 game in the quantities required to get the disc footprint up to 10GB unless Microsoft go back on their word.

Also, Insomniac is an independent games developer who have no reason to bloat their game just to prove Sony's point about developers needing the space of Blu-ray.
TwoADay 26 Aug 2006 12:37
22/29
Oh, I know, I know! There will be "developers commentary" as a feature when you play the game.

And the E3 videos, and a 2 hour "making of" the game.

Ditto 26 Aug 2006 13:11
23/29
TwoADay wrote:
Oh, I know, I know! There will be "developers commentary" as a feature when you play the game.

And the E3 videos, and a 2 hour "making of" the game.


Brilliant.

I'll always remember 1080 Avalanche for having the title theme's music video.
PreciousRoi 26 Aug 2006 19:52
24/29
tyrion wrote:
Also, Insomniac is an independent games developer who have no reason to bloat their game just to prove Sony's point about developers needing the space of Blu-ray.


No reason aside from massive amounts of goodwill from Sony for making their point for them...
Bentley 27 Aug 2006 08:56
25/29
Forget about stupid ideas of devs "making a point". The fact is that the blue-ray drive will be an advantage for developers in that they will be able to store awesome amounts of data. Bigger levels, with more detail, more information etc. Cast your minds back to the days when PC games came on a 1.4MB floppy, and that seemed ample. When CD-ROMs came along, initially one could be sceptical about needing 700MB of data for games, but eventually the extra capacity transformed games; and again the same happened with DVD. To mock Sony for implementing a forward-thinking data medium for PS3 just shows naivety. Super Gayun's just showing that he is a clueless imbecile that may be able to read the words, but he certainly does not understand them.
PreciousRoi 27 Aug 2006 15:46
26/29
You can call it a forward thingking data medium, I see it more as the narrow end of the HDCP wedge. You can see it as an altruistic benefit to gamers everywhere, I see it as Sony doing what they think is good for Sony. I also don't think that Sony encouraging a developer to show off the data storage capabilities of the Blu Ray is a "stupid idea". Trusting Sony to do anything beneficial to consumers(without ulterior motives), THATS naivete.

I will note however, that at the introduction of the CD-ROM, games already spanned multiple floppy disks. How many multiple DVD games are extant? Just becasue its bigger, doesn't mean its better, load times for games now are already very irritating, should Blu Ray prove worse, it could be an unfortunate step taken too soon for crass reasons that have nothing to do with making better games now. I thnk the DVD9 has a few more good years left, and a few multiple DVD games won't hurt anyone, Now that I think about it, Blu Ray is hardly the kind of quantum leap that the switch to CD-ROM was, its actually sorta underwhelming when you think about it...so that was a pretty disingenuous comparison...
GameGod 28 Aug 2006 10:24
27/29
tyrion, you are such an *ss, the ultimate $ony fanboy or PR, always finding the bright side of Fony pathetic decisions... look, look, if the P$3 costs so much it's because $ony don't want you to hurt your spine, so they are emptying your wallet for you to walk home lighter!!! Thx so much $ony, without you I would have become a paraplegic gamer with all this gold loading my pockets...lol... you are so pathetic tyrion... do you actually belive what you're writting??? I hope for you that you aren't the fanboy you sound to be & really work for Fony, at least this would part of your bullshit desperate PR work!!! Cheers...
tyrion 29 Aug 2006 07:22
28/29
GameGod wrote:
tyrion, you are such an *ss, the ultimate $ony fanboy or PR, always finding the bright side of Fony pathetic decisions...(snipped for space)

Ah yes, personal attacks and rhetoric, the first resort of the intellectual elite.

Lets, see. Dollars in company names to indicate greed; check. Mis-spellings of company names to indicate untrustworthiness; check. Accusing poster of working for the company you don't like; check. Facts and counter arguments; um, not so much.

You are entitled to your opinion of me, of course, but try to base your opinions in facts if you wish to be taken seriously. I have defended Sony, it's true, I've also in the past defended or praised Xbox 360, Live, Wii, Gamecube, DS and Nintendo. I have also bitched about most, if not all, of the above.

I have an opinion, it may not be aligned with yours, but it is mine. I have as much of a right to express my opinion here as you do.

Now the facts here are; R:FoM is up to 22GB, that size game can't be delivered for the Xbox 360 unless Microsoft allow the HD-DVD drive to be used for games and Insomniac is an independent games developer.

At no point in my post do I say that a 22GB game is a good thing. I allude to the idea that being able to produce a game that size may be a good thing and that restricting the size of games to under 9GB may be a bad thing.

If you are going to do anything except sling mud, please try to counter the facts and assertions that I have put forward. If all you can add to this discussion is name calling and baseless accusations, then go ahead, but I won't reply.
GameGod 29 Aug 2006 10:28
29/29
Dear tyrion, you are the fact!!! a fantroll trolling... I really do hope that you work for Fony... otherwise, sad... so sad...
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