Sony to miss FY PlayStation 3 sales goal by 25%, Nomura report says

I don't think the price tag is as important as the media claims.

I don't know about that...

The PS3 price tag is not holding back hard core gamers, but it is stopping those occasional gamers who might pick one up on a whim.

I know it has stopped me. I was in a Toys-R-Us just today and they had the PS3 boxes out in an aisle (just the boxes - take to the register and they give you the actual PS3). There were about 15 of them, and this was at 4pm.

I was there for another reason, but I might have bought one if the price were $299 or even $349. But not $599. I don't have a whole lot of time to play games - wife, 4 kids, my own business = no time. So sinking $599 into something I would use occasionally is not worth it.

And I suspect that's why the sales are down - it's too much for a "what the heck" purchase.

That being said, I think Nintendo will reach a point where their supply problem will affect their sales. At Christmas and just after, the Wii was hot in people's minds and demand was high. As people give up on trying to find one, it will be forgotten about and they will lose out on some sales they might have otherwise made.

I know I would like to get a Wii but I have not been able to find one and I have no time or desire to camp out or visit a Target at 8 am on Sunday mornings to try to catch one. Once spring rolls around, the kids will be doing outdoor sports and I'll be fishing/golfing and video games will be on the back burner.

Thank you! They're "younguns" so it's Wii I'm thinking.

The PS3 price tag is not holding back hard core gamers, but it is stopping those occasional gamers who might pick one up on a whim.

There is some truth to that.

The PS3 (and the 360 to a certain degree) aren't aimed at the family type consumer like yourself as much as the Wii (and its control system) is. It's a different market, IMO one that is shrinking compared to the more involved gaming market.

That said, I don't think the price is excessive at all. You mention that you golf. The cost of golfing over 5 years far exceeds $600. Movie tickets cost a good $35 minimum for a family your size, prorate that over 5 years.

IMO gaming is a cheap hobby over time, no matter how you slice it. But I agree, the upfront $600 cost (there is a $500 version) is a bit much to buy on a whim.

It always puzzled me, given that Americans watch some 3-4 hours average of TV daily, that HDTV hasn't caught on fully yet. Seems like if you are going to spent almost 1000 hours a year doing this, its worthwhile to spend a bit more to enjoy it.

That said, I don't think the price is excessive at all. You mention that you golf. The cost of golfing over 5 years far exceeds $600. Movie tickets cost a good $35 minimum for a family your size, prorate that over 5 years.

Well, not to belabor the point, but with the amount of time I have, I get to golf maybe once or twice a year. Same with movies.

The other thing that is somewhat of an issue is that it is $600 for the device, but then for newer games it is $40 - $50 a pop. So it's not just $600 prorated over time.

I understand what you are saying - in my younger days, I was more of a hard core gamer. (In the good old days, I had an Atari 2600 with a cartridge that had a zero insertion force EPROM holder piggybacked on it and I would change the EPROMS instead of the cartridges - my dad knew a guy whose wife worked at the plant where they made the ROMs. I would get games before they were in stores.)

If I had more time, I'd love to have the PS3. The problem I have is not only getting time to play the games, but also the time to spend to figure the darn things out - they are much much more complex than the old arcade games. Sometimes I miss the old shoot-em up games that you could play 15 minutes at a time.

It always puzzled me, given that Americans watch some 3-4 hours average of TV daily, that HDTV hasn't caught on fully yet.

I think it's because most of them don't realize what HDTV gives them over regular TV. If you have a 27" or 32" standard 4:3 TV, regular channels look just fine. Once people start getting more widescreen large TV's, you'll see HDTV become more prevalent - because standard TV looks terrible on a 50" widescreen. Once they get the TV's home and want to know why it doesn't look like it did in the store, then they'll want HDTV.

The inexpensive widescreen LCD TV's that are now becoming available is what is going to push HDTV.

My wife recently bought me a 42" Panasonic plasma TV for $1099. It's getting to the point where there will be no reason for anyone to buy a tube TV.

The guy behind MGS4 said he doesn't care for FMV. He likes a game environment that has the feel of a movie. From what I understand there shouldn't be a lot of pre-rendered content in MGS4.

haha, Nah, you've mixed the WII up with the PS3... which indeed has puny launch title library and all but 1 definate is nothing but $hit.

That's the case for both systems. Difference is Zelda is a system seller while Resistance is a good, but not great shooter.

I picked up a PS3 last weekend. The Blu-ray player is very nice. You can rent Blu-ray DVDs from Blockbuster.com