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back to article Sony scoffs at the Microsoft EX-BOX: A MILLION PS4s sell in ONE day

Sony shifted one million Playstation 4s in the first day they went on sale in North America. Although some users reported hardware issues, Sony's spring off the blocks bodes well for the release of their latest console in Europe and Latin America, which will take place on November 29. The Japanese firm is hoping the …

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    1. Van
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      Re: Sympathy for Sony

      and some say Bill Gates was a crook to boot....

      Unfortunately the console buyer is a finicky so and so. They wouldn't pay the price for the Dreamcast and it's extra features, and listened to Sony's over hyping of the PS2. Now Sony have no choice but to subsidise and rely purely on brand loyalty. Nintendo and Sega could trounce this lot if they were as open as the big 2.

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      1. MJI Silver badge
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        Re: Dreamcast & Nintendo/Sony

        Dreamcast was pretty good, but was a bit gimmicky.

        Could have done with twin sticks, the plug in cartridge is a bit weird, GDROM is limited compared to DVD.

        Was good graphics, definately same generation as PS2.

        Sony entered the market after Nintendo went Philips for the CD drive and Sony had developed one for Nintendo.

        I think MS entered partly due to the Dreamcast running Windows CE.

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    2. Mark .
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      Sympathy for Sega

      It's not as if Sony are some small company, or a console-only company - they're a massive multinational with a presence in many markets (indeed I'd argue that Sony have a broader presence than MS, when you consider all the different hardware products they make - yes you can label it all "entertainment", but you could label Microsoft as "technology").

      Sony themselves were a giant who got into gaming in 1995, where the existing companies Nintendo and Sega were primarily doing games consoles, so Sony did just the same thing that you accuse MS of (not to mention that this is what loads of big companies do). Microsoft got into gaming just 6 years later - by 2013, they've both been in it a long time.

      Nintendo were a card company that got into computer gaming...

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sympathy for Sega

        Sony are trying to jettison all of those other businesses as they're losing huge amounts on stuff like TVs as people aren't buying them.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bored

    They're both lacklustre re-badged versions of their previous generation, nothing new here move along please. Might as well game on an iPhone or PC.

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    1. Van
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      Re: Bored

      or the Xbox 360 or the PS3

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    2. MJI Silver badge
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      Re: Bored

      Phone gaming, no we want buttons.

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      1. silent_count
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        Holmes

        Re: Bored

        I'm kind of curious about what will happen to the console market when phones reach the processing and graphics power to compete (if they haven't already).

        Plug in the charging cable, the USB-to-HDMI into a TV. Pick up the bluetooth game controller(s). And away you go.

        Sure, it will never be as good as a dedicated console, the same way a console will never be as good as a gaming PC, but I suspect it'd be good enough for enough people to make a serious dent in the console market.

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        1. Mark .
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          Re: Bored

          We can answer that question today with laptops - why not plug into a TV and pick up the bluetooth controller?

          As someone who prefers PC games anyway, I do wonder this. I think the answer falls into:

          1. Can't be bothered to plug it into TV, want something just sitting there already plugged in.

          2. Like the kind of games released on consoles.

          3. Prefer that you can buy a specific console and be guaranteed to have games run on it for years, rather than having to worry about specs and upgrading.

          4. Games are far more likely to be written to support controllers, that every console ships with.

          1 would still apply. 2 would apply far more so - whilst there are plenty of fun games for phones, these tend to be a very different style than those on consoles. And although there are more free games, there are also fewer games made with large budgets.

          For 3, whilst phones don't have the widly different specs of customisable PCs, there are large numbers of different models, as well as an upgrade cycle far faster than even PCs.

          4 would apply even more so - how many games are written for bluetooth controllers, as opposed to written for pure touch that the majority of people will be using on a phone?

          We might see that the technology delivered by the phone market could be used by manufacturers to create their own competing consoles, without having to roll their own technology and OS - e.g., as seen with the Ouya. Potentially this could lead to the market increasing in size (more choice, lower costs) rather than reducing.

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        2. Van
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          Re: Bored

          Excuse me silent_count, but consoles came with custom graphics and sound chips before the PC. You say never? PC build costs will rise as PC gaming declines and becomes the expensive niche like in the 90s when PS1 and Dreamcast were the better gaming machines for 1/5 of the cost .

          Custom hardware will always be better, the target price point will hold them back though. Walk into Nintendo R&D with a memo targetting a 1500 USD price point then see how good the PC looks as a gaming machine.

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          1. Anonymous Coward
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            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Bored

            Consoles haven't used proper custom chips for years. Just PC tech adapted to work with UMA or other performance boosting tricks.

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            1. MJI Silver badge
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              Re: Custom Chips

              Here are 4 custom console chips which are well known, Cell, RSX, Xenon, Xenos

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          2. Levente Szileszky
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            Re: Bored

            "PC build costs will rise as PC gaming declines and becomes the expensive niche "

            Err, no, actually PC gaming is one of the FASTEST GROWING SEGMENT, thanks to digital delivery services like Steam. PC is also ALWAYS far ahead of any console and the lack of kb+mouse for console games pretty much leaves us, original FPS players (age 40+) with no choice but staying on PC...

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            1. Anonymous Coward
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              Anonymous Coward

              Keyboard mouse yawn

              "PC is also ALWAYS far ahead of any console and the lack of kb+mouse for console games pretty much leaves us, original FPS players (age 40+) with no choice but staying on PC..."

              You're still living in the tech demo twitch shooting era. Firstly, ever since the year dot there has been more to consoles than pushing x amount of polygons, and for Platformers and arcade games PCs were a joke. Second, Keyboard and mouse is the worst possible tool to feel involved in a shooting game.It is unrealistic, zero feedback,no analogue movement, and too accurate.

              Today's shooters deserve a new controller like driving games have steering wheel and pedals with force feedback. It's people like you holding the genre back.

              Goldeneye on the N64 is held in very high regard for good reason, it wasn't until HalfLife that the PC had something that could be classed as ground braking, after the Quake yawn fests and tech demos that followed.

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              1. Goat Jam
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                Re: Keyboard mouse yawn

                "You're still living in the tech demo twitch shooting era."

                Whereas you are living in the lazy-ass auto-aim shooting era.

                If you don't believe me then ask yourself what would happen if Battlefield servers weren't divided between console's and PC's.

                The answer is that if you mixed them up then the console kids would get their arses handed to them by the PC players (probably even if they were allowed to keep their godawlful autoaim assist, which on PC would (rightly so) open you up to accusations of hacking").

                "no analogue movement"

                Are you trying to suggest that using a mouse does not provide analog movement?

                Why do juvenile console people always have to get on the interwebs and go around belittleing PC gamers? Don't you think that having been playing PC and console games since the 1980's we might already know how to suck eggs and that your puerile brand loyalty is really not going to do much to impress us?

                "Second, Keyboard and mouse is the worst possible tool to feel involved in a shooting game"

                Now you are just being ridiculous. As if moving a cursor with a thumbstick to the approximate position of a target and letting autoaim do the rest is the pinnacle of "involvement". 'tis but to larf

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                1. MJI Silver badge
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                  Re: Keyboard mouse yawn

                  Well after playing KBM & controller then have their plus and minus points.

                  Mouse better to aim.

                  Controller better to move around.

                  Motion controls were a good idea with FPSs on Wii and PS3 with Move.

                  Pity they have been abandoned for the new generation and yes Guerilla Games I am pointing at you!

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              2. Levente Szileszky
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                Re: Keyboard mouse yawn

                "You're still living in the tech demo twitch shooting era."

                Ouch, you don't know much about FPS games, I can tell - twitch is typically popular among 16-20 years old people, they have much faster reflexes and they tend to not to think much; just look at Call of Dumb-series, it's all about them.

                No, the 40+ populace is quite the opposite, we rely on skillset and teamwork, thinking ahead. Some people I know actually went even further and now only fire up tactical shooters (Arma-series and alikes) but not all of us have hours and hours for one round so we stick with older, team-oriented games (eg older Battlefield-games - unfortunately DICE completely screwed us beginning with BF3 so it's over for BF.)

                "Second, Keyboard and mouse is the worst possible tool to feel involved in a shooting game.It is unrealistic, zero feedback,no analogue movement, and too accurate and too accurate."

                Hahaha, PRICELESS, it's really awesome - thanks for making my point about skilless console crowd whining cluelessly ("no analogue" - with a mouse! :D) about having to learn things in order to avoid becoming cannon fodder.... :)

                ...relax, just lay back on your couch and keep turning around with your controller without any hurry, no worries, they will never let us (older) PC gamers onto your server because you would quit playing games in tears after a few nights. :D

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          3. silent_count
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            Re: Bored

            @Van: I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at. I'm not aware of any stage where a console has had more, for the lack of a better description, 'polygon pushing ability' than a decent gaming PC of the same era.

            My point though is that, in terms of 'polygon pushing ability', consoles > phones the same way that PCs > consoles. But even though gaming PC are technically 'better' at running games, consoles are good enough for most people. I also thing were soon reaching the stage where phones will also be good enough at playing games for many people, and that will eat into console sales.

            @Mark: Regarding the "can't be arsed plugging it in" factor, you're surely right. I'd suggest something like Miracast to use the TV's screen to play games but the latency probably isn't low enough.

            As for the types of games, I wasn't thinking designed-for-phone games like angry birds, more something like MAME (I know there's a port for Android, I think iOS too).

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            1. Van
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              Re: Bored

              If a phone becomes better than a console at pushing polygons, then the phone ability inside the device will be stripped out of the device and you have a cheap small console that will probably insert directly into an HDMI port. Then we will also need console controllers, steering wheel pedals etc, as touch screen gaming is shit.

              Humans evolved to use tools, which is why some gamers will actually prefer using at least a stylus than poking and prodding with a finger.

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            2. Van
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              Re: Bored

              "Van: I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at. I'm not aware of any stage where a console has had more, for the lack of a better description, 'polygon pushing ability' than a decent gaming PC of the same era."

              @silent_count

              Which bit of 'consoles had custom graphics and sound chips before the PC' dont you understand?

              I think you're struggling because you either think PC gaming started in 2002 or you've only ever played games that needed to push a lot of polygons. Or perhaps youve confused the PCs higher resolutions available to meaning graphically superior? In which case I'll give you Arcade games, particularly the polygon shifters from Sega in 93, again with custom built boards designed to play games, not business applications.

              I remember when a PC had no output for sound and no PCI slots. The best upgrade was a 16 Bit sound card, it was pricey and plugged into the lone ISA slot. This was around the SNES era, there were no gaming PCs. Super Mario World and Super Tennis just couldn't be done on the PC.

              You've got to accept that microprocessor evolution wasn't exclusively designed to be used by the PC. In the mid 80s arcade boards, Sega were using 2 x 68000 CPUs, with a Z80 and an additional Yamaha chip for sound. in 1992 Sega went to Lockheed Martin for help with 3D. In 1993 they went to Intel for a 25MGHZ CPU and 5 graphics co-processors from Fujitsu.

              This was all before Doom appeared on the PC let alone PCI slots and 3D cards. At this time, Consoles were being designed with custom processors for graphics sound at a low price point for the mass consumer to play similar games to the arcades and they did a very good job.

              I'll reiterate for you, SNES, PS1, N64, Dreamcast all had games the PC couldn't touch at the time, yes they were all held back by the TV's low resolution, but that didn't stop them being good in areas that mattered.

              Nintendo even added a 3D accelerator, co developed with Argonaut , to each cartridge at the end of the SNEs era, again before PCi slots and 3D cards on the PC.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Take the figures with a pinch of salt

    1m sales in 24 hours makes a good headline but we are actually looking at over 3 months worth of sales due to the pre-ordering system.

    Also that 0.4% failure rate could be higher as there will be a significant number of PS4s that won't be opened until Christmas day.

    We won't really see how successful any console is until six months after release when the initial hype has dies down and there's good stock replenishment.

    Just a side note, Sony have stated they lose money on each PS4 but are profitable if its bought with an additional game and controller so it may take a while before the PS4 helps Sony's profit line.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Take the figures with a pinch of salt

      They will surely sell alot of cameras too, the voice commands work properly (compared to the partially working Xbox system), and the PlayRoom demo on US TV recently was totally awesome.

      That's a system seller for many right there.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Take the figures with a pinch of salt

        Works properly? C'mon, it can open some apps not all of them, can't switch the machine on and can't navigate between menus, that's less functionality than the 360's kinect. The Playroom looks fun but all the major sites who've reviewed it have said its four tech demoes that gets boring quickly.

        At $60 with no games, no functionality outside of some token commands and a facial recognition system that wont recognise your face without a controller in your hand its a waste of money. Lets also not forget Sony's track record for supporting extra hardware, anything outside of an additional dual shock 4 is a wasted purchase.

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        1. MJI Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Take the figures with a pinch of salt

          And the voice control is not that good on X1 either, turns off your TV when you ask it to turn on.

          Switches to another profile it they walk in front of the camera.

          Quits a game and does not save if it miss hears your TV channel name for a game name.

          None are perfect.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Take the figures with a pinch of salt

        "the voice commands work properly (compared to the partially working Xbox system"

        The Xbox One's voice control is far more sophisticated and effective than the PS4s - and it copes with varied accents and background noise far better. It has on Kinect processing too - so there is hardly any CPU load on the Xbox One for this functionality...

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  4. John H Woods Silver badge

    MattEvansC3: "Also that 0.4% failure rate could be higher as there will be a significant number of PS4s that won't be opened until Christmas day."

    You might want to refresh that bit about sample sizes from Statistics 101. Even if 90% of those million PS4s are under the tree, the sample size tested would be 100k units, with 400 failures. Even that that gives you high confidence that the failure rate of the full 1M units will be 0.4% to 1 significant figure. (My maths is a bit rusty but I make the 99% confidence interval 0.351 to 0.449).

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      And you might want to apply real world distribution into your Statistics 101 class.

      DOA hardware faults aren't random throughout the units, faulty hardware or workmanship generally occurs within a batch. You will likely see no hardware faults in a few batches and then a high number of hardware faults in a single batch. Due to how products are distributed ahd shipped faulty batches stay together so it is very common to see faults constrained to chains instead of being evenly distributed.

      Now if those faulty units were sent to somewhere like GameStop that would have a higher number of day one users then the overall fault rate would be lower. If the faulty system were sent to Toys R Us which would have a larger number of parents buying PS4s to be opened on Christmas the overall fault rate would be higher.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Some faults will be cause by damage in transit.

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        1. asdf
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          >Some faults will be cause by damage in transit.

          ie. the six dollar an hour seasonal temp warehouse drone (even Walmart contracts this stuff out to avoid having more true employees) fresh out prison being his usual careful self with the man's stuff.

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  5. Herby

    Recent Adverts on US TV...

    There is a company flogging "convertible" laptops that double as both touch and traditional laptops. The babe hawking them is posed as a paramedic, and admits to needing a laptop for homework, but uses the touch for "XBox and Twitter. I didn't know that you could use a normal laptop for "Xbox". Maybe if they can use a laptop for PS4 that might have something.

    It seems to me that as more and more things are going "portable", the need for dedicated game consoles is going down and down these days.

    So, slowly the game consoles will be less and less relevant. It is already happening to desktops. Maybe the folks at Sony could make up a special SD card that you could plug into a laptop and make it a PS5 or some such. Of course it would make them lose control of the $$$ stream they get for the games published that use their game console, but...

    p.s. I always thought gaming was a real poor thing to do on a computer. Then again I'm an old fashioned kinda guy (now where is that copy of Spacewar?).

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Recent Adverts on US TV...

      Gaming in Windows8 and WP8 comes under the Xbox brand.

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      1. Levente Szileszky
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        Re: Recent Adverts on US TV...

        "Gaming in Windows8 and WP8 comes under the Xbox brand."

        Only if you are really high on the Ballmerian Kool-Aid - because nobody else considers gaming on a Pc running Windows 8 to have anything to do with Xbox, at least not a sane person.

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        1. MJI Silver badge
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          Re: Recent Adverts on US TV...

          Err PC gaming comes under Steam

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  6. Sheep!

    1 million sold on day 1!!

    999,999 returned bricked on day 2...

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