PS3 Under $400 in Japan?

[OCybrManO]

PS3 Under $400 in Japan?
According to Cool Gamer, will be revealed in upcoming Famitsu.

In the past months, the Japanese blog CoolGamer has been a dependable source of early information regarding the Japanese game market. Not once has their news turned out to be a false lead, so that's why it was pretty important today when the site updated with a small notice saying "PS3 price set below 40000 Yen," which is about $400 at current exchange rates.

In the update, the blogger writes, "In the latest Famitsu, a very important person mentioned that the PS3 price would not be over 40000yen". This information correlates to a previous comment from a Sony rep a few months back, who mentioned the same price. With any luck this will turn out to be the case, and Japan will see the PS3 in the spring of 2006 for slightly under $400.

One thing to note though is that the PS2 was also released in Japan for a bit under 40000 yen, but when it came to the U.S. it was sold for a hundred dollars less at $299. It's not out of the question that same sort of pricing scheme will be employed this time as well.

Hopefully, that will put to rest the rumour that the PS3 was going to launch at a staggering price of $600. So, now that we pretty much know it's not going to be insanely expensive (compared to the 360), it's supposedly a bit more powerful than the 360, will eventually support 50GB+ of storage per disc once Blu-Ray matures (compared to a max of 9GB on a dual-layer DVD), will be able to play the new HD movies on Blu-Ray discs (unlike the "360" which is being marketed as a multimedia machine yet supports no media that offers HDTV), supports up to 7 wireless controllers, has two HDMI video outputs, offers a removable HD (may or may not be standard), and its controller conveniently functions as a boomerang laugh... Microsoft has what? They're, basically, down to "ours came out first" at this point... well, that and the argument going back and forth about which console is going to be harder to develop for.

Anyway, I don't really care about the PS3 and Xbox 360. Just give me a $200 (according to recent information) Revolution and I'll be happy.

 

[smwScott]

I was worried about the price, so this seems like good news. It's actually the exact same price as the "enhanced" 360 assuming they include a hard drive. Pretty impressive considering that it's quite a bit more powerful.

 

[Revisedsoul]

(unlike the "360" which is being marketed as a multimedia machine yet supports no media that offers HDTV)

isnt ms supporting toshibas hd-dvd.

 

[destrukt]

and isn't hd-dvd going to be added to the xbox360 ?

why would you want seven controllers on one console, unless you had a huge tv, or playing an incredibly simply party type game.

 

[OCybrManO]

and isn't hd-dvd going to be added to the xbox360 ?

isnt ms supporting toshibas hd-dvd.

No, at least not in the initial versions of the 360. Those will be using plain dual-layer DVDs. Anything beyond launch is speculation, at this point. Anyway, releasing an HD-DVD version later on would risk splitting the market even further than it already is with the HD and non-HD versions. Developers that want to use the HD are going to have to either alienate the non-HD users or, if possible, make them have a watered-down version of the HD features. Then, if HD-DVD drives are added later... they will either need to release alternate multi-DVD versions of the game for regular DVD users or sell their game only to HD-DVD users. Since developers go where the most money is... that means they typically dumb the game down to the lowest common denominator... so, even if there is an HD-DVD 360 after the initial launch, don't expect many games to use it. I think it's a terrible idea. One of the reasons people buy consoles is because they just work. You don't have to upgrade your system. You don't have to worry about having a good enough machine. If Microsoft wasn't ready to go in November they shouldn't have pushed it out the door. Microsoft is thinking like a PC vendor. They think they can release an unfinished product and patch it later.

Hopefully, Sony will only have one SKU although that remains to be seen. It's highly unlikely that Nintendo will be following Microsoft's lead... but with Sony, you never know.

why would you want seven controllers on one console, unless you had a huge tv, or playing an incredibly simply party type game.

Sports, party games, etc. Consoles are more about social gaming than PCs. Don't forget, I mentioned earlier that the PS3 has dual HDMI outputs... allowing you to play on two monitors/TVs. If four people can play on one standard definition screen divided into four quarters, eight people could easily fit on two high definition screens. Also, IIRC, the seven controller limit only applies to wireless controllers. There are still, I think, 6 USB ports available. That machine is a beast.

 

[MrWhite]

I decided on PS3 over XBox 360 for one reason and one reason only. Mouse and keyboard support. All us FPS purists KNOW an FPS is meant to be played with a mouse and keyboard, and though the XBox 360 will supprt a keyboard and mouse, you can only use it for text input, whereas on the PS3 you can use it for any game (Providing the keyboard and mouse are USB, of course)

 

[Icewolf717]

I decided on PS3 over XBox 360 for one reason and one reason only. Mouse and keyboard support. All us FPS purists KNOW an FPS is meant to be played with a mouse and keyboard, and though the XBox 360 will supprt a keyboard and mouse, you can only use it for text input, whereas on the PS3 you can use it for any game (Providing the keyboard and mouse are USB, of course)

Ya, that is a nice advantage to the ps3. But I already pre ordered and paid off my 360, and i can only afford one so, the 360 won my bet. It would be nice to have both though. A little off topic, i hate fanboys who trash on the other system "The ps3 is a peice of junk" or "The 360 is just filled with turds"
why cant they just be like "Well im going to buy the ps3, to bad i cant get both"... I mean the two systems arent much different specs wise, and both systems way out the same in the end... oh well, maybe i just see to much of this on the xbox forums.

edit: im not saying your like that, just talking about other people on the xbox forums

 

[Naudian]

I always leaned more to the PS3 than 360, mainly because of that allard guy, I f*ckin hated him

I don't care anymore though, both consoles look promising, but I'm going for a new rig around christmas instead :E

The revolution, on the other hand, looks interesting...would be a good change for me...

 

[MrWhite]

Ya, that is a nice advantage to the ps3. But I already pre ordered and paid off my 360, and i can only afford one so, the 360 won my bet. It would be nice to have both though. A little off topic, i hate fanboys who trash on the other system "The ps3 is a peice of junk" or "The 360 is just filled with turds"
why cant they just be like "Well im going to buy the ps3, to bad i cant get both"... I mean the two systems arent much different specs wise, and both systems way out the same in the end... oh well, maybe i just see to much of this on the xbox forums.

edit: im not saying your like that, just talking about other people on the xbox forums

Oh I didn't get the impression that you were implying so...

But yes, I really dislike that aswell, I chose one for a valid reason, though both look good, but I also think the games on the PS3 will be more geared towards myself... but who knows?

I wish I was rich, I'd own all three

 

[Revisedsoul]

eight people could easily fit on two high definition screens.

and how many people have 2 hd tv's just kicking around.

im not saying that in a bad way, just saying that alot of the ps3 features will not be fully utilized by the majority of its owners anytime soon.


also you can still put hd content on dvd's and dl-dvd's just not as much.

 

[VictimOfScience]

and how many people have 2 hd tv's just kicking around.

How many people have one hdtv just kicking around?

Its a rather small portion of the population that can take full advantage of the HD content that is out there now. The console makers are obviously thinking long-term with their HD support as by 2008 it will be very quickly becoming standard and prices will have come down significantly, not to mention the format war should be over by then. **crosses fingers**

The 360 is definitely a great console, but that's pretty much all it is. Its not a PC replacement by any means. It will play games that will look great, but productivity just won't be there. You won't be bringing it to your college or university to write your term papers with, you won't be doing any coding on it, you won't be designing webpages, you will be playing games and maybe storing digital photos/videos/music. And you will still need quite a bit of hard drive space to store all of these things, so they had better make with the big ones and soon because I know there are plenty of you that have TONS of all of those on your rigs right now.

But if you want a console that plays games of a quality roughly equivalent to that of a nice PC right now, then this is obviously your best bet. Plus, you can get a 360 and an inexpensive PC for a pretty darn low price so that you can be very productive and still have lots of fun. Plus you can just stream movies and music from the PC right to your 360 so it can all be stored on the PC's HDD thereby leaving the 360's smaller one open for all of the requisite content from games/Live/Etc. Should be pretty cool.

That said, I am waiting for a PS3, though I don't by any means rule out a 360 purchase sometime in the future .