Friday, March 23, 2007

PlayStation 3 is finally in PAL region.

Console War VII - Battle for Australia

After months of delay due to production (or lack thereof), the much anticipated last next-gen game console from Sony finally hit the market in Australia (& Europe). And boy, what a launch it was. It was nothing like the launch in America where gamers get mugged and shot at. No was shot, and no one was mugged. As a matter of fact, no one was there.

If you were to mug the fans at a launch in Sydney, you will be lucky to get away with $39,960 AUD, that is, if you can get past the security guards that outnumbered the amount of buyers. According to Kotaku only about 40 people turned up to the midnight launch at Sydney. The fact that it was launched on a Friday, when everyone have school/work the next morning didn't help.

Over 500 stores opened their doors at midnight for the PS3 launch, including Havey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and Myers. But my guess is, it'll be lucky if they sold 500 units by the next morning. All the shops are probably closed by 2am. The media even went as desperate as to ask the crowd to fake excitment. *yawn* yah *yawn*

If PSX was a sporty RX-8, and PS2 was a BMW Z4, then PS3 would have be smashed up Ferrari. An expensive useless piece of shit. It's like Sony has suddenly hit a brick wall at full speed. The launch was pathetic at best.

Console War VII - Battle for Britain

Halfway across the world, a launch at a Virgin store in Britain fared much worse than Australia. Just take a look at the report from UK Resistance. While I will admit that UK Resistance was never really fond of the PS3 in the first place, the launch was disasterous. Looking at the picture, a total of 2 people turned up. TWO!

Yes, you can blamed media bias, you can argued that the pictures were taken 5 hours before the launch or whatever, but if Sony could come up with a better product, that wouldn't have happened then, would it?

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the BBC is reporting that Sony is giving away free 46-inch HD television and a taxi home for London gamers. A bribe of some sort, trying to make it looks like that the PS3 is actually selling.

In the report, and I quote, "Sony has declared its launch of PlayStation 3 to date as a success, saying early sales are faster than those of its predecessor PS2." May I ask who's the fucking idiot who said that? Probably Ray Maguire, the head of SCE UK. Which part of the launch was successful? The bit about no-one got shot because there were so few people not worth mugging? or the bit about everyone got a PS3 because no-one came?

Mr. Maguire went on to say, "High definition is very important to people, A lot of people have bought flat panel TVs and they want content to go on it and PlayStation 3 is one of the few places they can get that kind of experience."

I've got a question for you, Jerry Ray, if HD is so important to people, why the fuck do I need to buy a HDMI cable to view HD content?

Sony is digging its own grave with PS3. While I can understand the thinking behind the PS3 wanting to be an all-in-one "entertainmnet system". Something is better left untouched. It tries to be a gaming system and a multimedia centre, but not excel in any of them so far. For me personally, I like to play my DVD on my DVD player and play my games on my game console. I have never watched a DVD movie on the PS2, despite the function being there.

The price tag is definitely hurting Sony, especially when other systems like XBox 360 and the Wii selling for far less than the price Sony is asking for.

I want to feel sorry for Sony, but I won't. They blindly think that people are willing to pay that much money to get a "entertainment system". Mind you, the bad publicity over the last couple of months between the NTSC launch and the PAL launch definitely helped to fuel the negative image of the PS3.

Just looking at the launch, Sony still thinks that they are doing well. There is a fine line between optimistic and living in their own fantasy world. Everywhere you see, every report you read, every sales chart you look at, PS3 lacks behind all other competitors, yet Sony still sits in their tiny office, saying that PS3 is doing great, selling well. When will you ever realised that your console just sucks, Sony? I certain hope you can beat XBox360 (I hate Microsoft even more, that's why I love Japan so much, because the XBox is dying over there), but to even think for a second that the PS3 is doing well is like Bush saying they are winning in Iraq.

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