January 31st, 2008 Hans
The doubters have been silenced. Sony has done in one year what took Microsoft 6 years to accomplish: post a profitable quarter for their gaming division. This, despite the massive costs incurred with providing state of the art Playstation 3 technology at an affordable price that includes the Cell microprocessor, Blu-Ray, a standard hard-drive, and free online play with dedicated servers.
Sony is no stranger to reporting profits; before the Playstation 3 was released Sony had dominated the videogame business for years. However, with the costly inclusion of Cell and Blu-Ray, Sony lost money on their videogame division last year on behalf of their love for gamers by providing a machine that is unrivaled at a price that could be afforded by mainstream consumers. Below are the figures reported for Q3:
Operating Income (millions of U.S. dollars)
Sony Corporation $1,661
Game $113
These results, fresh off the heels of the reports of Sony working on a 45 nm version of Cell and shrinking the Blu-Ray diode component to 3 mm, Sony clearly has the best hardware engineers in the videogame business — and that’s what they know how to do best; run a videogame business. Microsoft was bleeding for years due to the costs of the Xbox 360, the red ring of death fiasco, and lackluster hardware/software sales. But, that’s what we’ve come to expect from Microsoft: delivering inferior hardware at inflated prices due to terrible management.
Not only has Sony’s videogame division returned to profitability, but the PS3 outsold the Xbox 360 in Q3 2007. According to their respective financial reports for Q3 earnings, Sony sold 4.9 million Playstation 3’s compared to Microsoft’s 4.3 million Xbox 360’s.
Microsoft’s LTD (lifetime-to-date) figures for Xbox 360’s sold since its launch up until Dec. 31, 2006 (roughly 14 months) amounts to 10.4 million units sold globally. In comparison, the Playstation 3’s LTD sales from launch until Dec. 31, 2007 (roughly 14 months for America and Japan and only 9 months for Europe) amounts to 10.49 million units sold with the platform not even released in Europe for a full year compared to the Xbox 360 figures. This, despite the PS3 being priced at $599 in the US and even higher in Europe, with many of its titles delayed, thus significantly lowering the software quality of its fall 2007 relative to the Xbox 360 which enjoyed Halo 3, Mass Effect, and BioShock.
(SOURCE: http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps3_sale_e.html )
It is a common misconception that Microsoft had a better year in 2007 than 2006 in terms of retailer sales. Microsoft stuffed the retail channel in late 2006 in order to meet their fiscal sales figures, resulting in no further retailer sales until mid-summer of ‘07. In terms of consoles shipped, Microsoft’s best year was in 2006. It’s an amazing feat that Sony, in its worst year that the PS3 will see within its lifetime, managed to outsell the competition in its best year (‘06), as well as the year that showed the most promise with titles such as Halo 3 (‘07). Microsoft is destined for third place and Sony will have no trouble outselling them by a large margin in 2008.
This is a sign that the tide is drastically turning in Sony’s favor and ‘08 looks to be even more promising. With killer software such as Killzone 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Gran Turismo 5, Resistance 2, MotorStorm 2, Little Big Planet, Grand Theft Auto 4, and Devil May Cry 4, Sony is looking poised to recapture the videogame industry. With Blu-Ray’s victorious defeat over HD-DVD, the popularity of high-definition media will only increase, leading the way for billions in profit for Sony over the next decade.
Indeed, 2008 is the year of Sony.
Posted in Industry News, Playstation 3 | 75 Comments »
January 28th, 2008 BennyB
From the 1up.com DMC4 preview:
What the 360 doesn’t do, however, is drop a wireless Bluetooth signal, which is what happens fairly consistently on PS3. There’s nothing like being in the heat of battle when Nero or Dante suddenly stops doing what you want him to.
Interesting the writer chooses to mention early problems with the Sixaxis Bluetooth dropouts as a negative slant on the PS3 port of Devil May Cry 4. What about the chronic ‘red ring of death’ problems the 360 is still suffering from to this day? Shouldn’t it be noted that many users won’t even get to play DMC4 on their 360 because of potential RROD or disc read issues?
This isn’t the first time we’ve reported on what looks to be shady internet practices. We all know how the last one turned out now don’t we?
Posted in Other Systems, Playstation 3 | 49 Comments »
January 26th, 2008 m0dus
New feature here at SDF Towers. Comment of the Week is just what it says on the tin – our pick for best comment of the week.
Thanks to everyone for their contribution – we’ll be contacting the lucky winner soon with a copy of one of our top rated PS3 games Lair (which we awarded an unprecedented 10/10 to).
So without further ado, here is the winning comment from nextgenuser:
1: PS3 Outsold Xbox360, true fact. Anyways, 50% of Xbox360 are break, because of his 3rd world materials, kthxbye.
2: The reason because GTA was delayed, its 360 fault. Because, x360 doesnt have any special programming, and is not hard to create a game, so they can sell you a piece of shit and xboxers will buy it anyway. PS3 needs a TRUE programming, PS3 needs quality, so it takes a bit longer, and only true gamers will buy the game for PS3.
All ports are “bad†on PS3 because of x360, anyways, 360 is going down FAST, so, who cares about 360 since microsoft is failing like the old xbox.
3: I have a 60gb PS3, so, what’s the problem if 40gb ones cant play PS2 games? is just like an Add-on, if you want to play PS2 games, run them in PS2 like everyone does. Maybe you are one of those that wants to run a SNES game on DS, using the old game cart, better luck next time xboxtroll.
4: PS3 outsold 360 on Japan, even Wii outsold 360, everyone knows that, because Japan hates microsoft and they just want quality before retardism and easy-programming games.
5: PS3 is better than Xbox360 on all ways.
PS3 has better graphics.
PS3 has a RAM 7 times faster than xbox360.
PS3 has a Cell, like 10 times better than the 360.
PS3 has Blu-Ray, not like 360 with DVD, and the DEAD HD-DVD.
Actually, PS3 is better, the only problem is that companys have to research more for it, just wait FFXIII and you will see what’s a game, and not the child-programming xbox ones, they make a game in 4 months because is easy to programm, xbox fans will buy their shitty games anyways, to get more xbox points and play tetris online or something.
6: PS2 was better than the old Xbox, because Xbox doesnt have any complicated programming. Just compare God of War or FFXII with any Xbox game, there’s an example of the TRUE gamming-programming. Xbox games were made with an advanced RPG maker or something, easy stuff.
7: Is so funny to watch xbox fans posting here, crying like the child do, and defending a dead console.
So, xbox child, I know that is hard to accept the fact that Xbox failed like HD-DVD, and I know is hard to accept that companys scams xbox fans with easy-programming games, but, is the reality, accept those facts, sell your 360 and buy a PS3, you have time now, dont keep failing. Anyways, the 90%+ of the xbox fans, will buy a PS3 thanks to Metal Gear and FFXIII, you know how this works, the best games goes to the best company =) even Wii have better games than Xbox, Failure company is Failure.
Best regards: the truth.
Oh, by the way, I expect some xbox fans comments and stuff like that, dont waste your time, I have reason, SDF have reason too, leave this war, you lost it already.
Posted in Features | 67 Comments »
January 24th, 2008 BennyB
It begins. Sony is already overtaking Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in Europe, according an interview with David Reeves, President and Chief Executive Officer, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.
Here are some snippets from the interview:
- Reeves claims PS3 will have outsold 360 overall in Europe by late summer, these are his team’s projections
- Just over 1m PS3s were sold in Dec in PAL regions
- 22% of that figure was in the UK
- Reeves says that PS3 has already outsold 360 in a number of European territories (LTD), including France, Spain, Germany and Italy and some other smaller territories like Switzerland.
- PS2 and PSP also sold over 1m units each in Dec in PAL-land.
- PS3 outsold 360 3:1 last week in PAL-land
“We don’t often mention the competition, but I will give you some interesting data: In terms of installed base in some of our major markets, such as France, Spain, Germany and Italy – plus some distributor territories in smaller markets like Switzerland – our current cumulative installed base is now higher than Xbox 360.
“It has not yet reached that in the UK. But the team here expect to overtake the installed base of Xbox 360 across all PAL territories in late summer. It’s also worth mentioning that last week we outsold Xbox 360 in PAL territories by a ratio of three to one.â€
Source
Posted in Industry News, Other Systems, Playstation 3 | 50 Comments »
January 5th, 2008 Hans
In a stunning, but not surprising, announcement early Friday afternoon, Warner ended the format wars by vowing exclusive support to Sony’s Blu-Ray format. The details of this announcement are sure to resonate across the industry as Blu-Ray now holds 80% of the studio support, leaving Universal and Paramount the only studios left on HD-DVDEAD’s payroll.
Luckily for HD movie fans, Warner sided with logic rather than moneyhats that Micro$oft uses in their subversive attempt at stifling the adoption of HD movies. Warner, keenly aware of Micro$oft’s motivations in supporting HD-DVDEAD, sees that the future of creating one format for the next-generation optical disc format is crucial to sustaining the $40 billion dollar industry. They understand that Micro$oft never wanted a clear HD victor; rather, they wanted to make sure that Blu-Ray would never become popular, thus undermining one of the main strengths of the Playstation 3 and keeping consumers away from the product. Once the stalemate was assured, Micro$oft would attept to woo studios over to their failed digital distribution plans. Warner made the right move by turning down over $500 million dollars in moneyhats from Micro$oft and effectively ended the format war, free of charge, in Sony’s favor.
And who can blame them? Only Micro$oft shills supported HD-DVDEAD from the start. It’s not rocket science to see that Blu-Ray is the true successor to DVD: it sports pristine 1080p quality that is delivered through 50 GBs of data and 54 Mbs bitrate while HD-DVDEAD was a stillborn format with specifications that barely beat out DVD — only a paltry 30 GBs of data and 36 Mbs. Moreover, Sony has always had the majority of studio support on their side: Sony, MGM, Lionsgate, Fox, Disney, and now Warner. The trojan horse of the Playstation 3 has compelled the industry to support Blu-Ray in record numbers as the onslaught of the new media format outpaced its rival by more than 2:1.
The Micro$oft shills kept on proclaiming the next big thing would win the war — “Chinese players”, they said, would mark the end of Blu-Ray and victory for Micro$oft. Once the Chinese players never materialized, the roaring crowd of mouthbreathing Micro$oft shills proclaimed that “Paramount will decide the war”, and so Transformers and Shrek came and went with HD-DVDEAD never managing to outpace Blu-Ray for a single week. After this failure, the fans yet again stated that “$99 dollar HD-DVDEAD players would win the war”, and so we saw that standalone Blu-Ray player, despite being priced far above their HD-DVDEAD counterparts, outsold the competition in December.
Make no mistake about it — HD-DVDEAD was truly HD-DOA. Blu-Ray outsold the now confirmed dead format 52-0 this year. That’s right — Blu-Ray won every single week of ‘07 in terms of media sales. The writing was on the wall. You truly do have to laugh at the clowns that decided to buy into the whole “360 add on”. What a waste.
This revelation made such an impact on the industry that HD-DVDEAD has canceled its HD-DVDEAD CES 2008 press conference, likely in preparation of raising a white flag. In the coming weeks and months you will see Universal go neutral, Paramount find a backdoor clause in their contract so they can abandon the dead format, retailers abandoning red covered titles in order to make space for their superior blu counterparts, and the industry will be in harmony once again with Sony as their leader.
It’s been an amazing ride so far in ‘07, but for the new year Sony has already started out with a bang — a bang that has killed their biggest rival and set the path for over $20 billion dollars in potential profits from their Blu-Ray incentives. With the killer lineup of exclusive Playstation 3 titles in ‘08 coupled with the victorious format in Blu-Ray, Sony is poised to reclaim not only the next-gen media throne, but also crowned in the videogame arena. We are one step closer to Micro$oft’s inevitable death in the console arena, and we couldn’t be more pleased.
Posted in Blu-ray, Industry News | 113 Comments »
