back to article Blu-ray Xbox 360 to be sold at a loss?

Microsoft is on track to have sold 2m UK Xbox 360s by next week. But the company could be forced to sell Blu-ray models at a loss, if rumours about HD drive development are true. Figures from market watcher Chart Track have forecast that since the console’s December 2005 UK release, Microsoft will have shifted around 2m units …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Surely they must be able to get a better deal than that...

    They stamp those things out for about a pound each!

  2. Chad H.

    Well

    it wouldn't be the first time microsoft sold xboxes at an intentional loss... So there is precedent.

  3. TeeCee Gold badge

    Well, duh!

    Why don't they just sell it as an addon, you know, like they did with the HD-DVD drive?

    That way, those who don't want a bloody HD drive on their console and don't want to pay for one can continue to not do so. There's a reason for those sales stats, it's called price.

    In fact, I suspect that this is what will happen. There will be an addon for the existing range and a new, "Bloo-Ray inside" version at the top end.....

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    On the fence

    GTA4 is for me a game where i'll buy a console. At the moment, the PS3 has a cool factor about it. But if the Xbox360 would have a Blue-ray player for the same money as they are selling it now, I would buy it.

    But then when would they bring out this new unit?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Horns

    Let me say this first.

    XBox360 - 60 weeks to sell 1 million units.

    PS3 - less than 50 weeks to sell 1 million units.

    Xbox360 sales worldwide - 17.98 Million.

    PS3 sales worldwide - 11.41 Million.

    So before the XBOX fanbois start slagging off the PS3, the lead is less than 5.5 Million worldwide and M$ had a 18 month headstart.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Xbox Blu

    XBox 360 = the most expensive Microsoft Service Pack... ever.

    From the original release with no HDMI, a small HDD that was almost impossible to upgrade, and no HD media support Microsoft have been quickly "patching" bits on.

    Now, more than 2 years on, any XBox 360 owner who wanted a bigger HDD and HDMI that has already shelled out for an Elite/V2 Premium is looking at more expense if they want to watch Blu-Ray movies.

    I've just ordered a PS3 to use as a Blu-Ray player as well! (DOH!)

  7. Bruce Arnott

    Sold at a loss

    From what I remember Nintendo is the only console manufacturer to have ever made any money on hardware sales?

  8. Chris

    but

    wasn't the wii the only console _not_ being sold at a loss on release this time round? Sony certainly were absorbing a big fat loss on every console sold, even with such an expensive release price, and I'm sure I remember seeing the same thing for the Xbox 360 when it was released (although they weren't taking as much of a hit).

  9. Andy Pellew
    Gates Halo

    Why add Blu-Ray to the console?

    It's not like game developers will want to worry about whether or not the XBox they'll be running on will be Blu-Ray or not ... they'll just stick to DVD because that way ALL XBoxes can play it ...

    Makes no sense, make it an add-on for people who want it. Just cast your mind back to all the reasons Microsoft gave for making HD DVD external ... they're all stil valid. Even more so now.

    My money is on a separate drive ... not even Microsoft are this stupid.

  10. Scott

    Blu-Ray on 360?

    This could be a good or bad move on M$ part.

    If they are only incorporating Blu-Ray for playback of movies on the 360, then I don't see any sense in it. It would be better for them to make it an add-on as they did with the now defunct HD-DVD drive.

    Now if they were to incorporate it into the console for GAMES, this could be a major plus (with a negative I'll explain next) - How many people played Mass Effect? The fact that they had to cram so much on a DVD meant that it took forever for the game to load, for textures to decompress and load, and made it miserable for many players due to the wait. With Blu-Ray, that wouldn't have been the case - it wouldn't have to decompress files/textures/etc.

    The negative on this, is that all previous 360s sold without the Blu-Ray drive would not be able to play the Blu-Ray games.

    Wondering if M$ is working on the X-box 3 (or.. ehem... 720?)

  11. Greg

    Hang on...

    So the X-box has been out more than twice as long, and has sold twice as many units?

    So all that slag fest about the PS3 selling slowly and being a failure was complete nonsense?

  12. Mark
    Gates Horns

    360 is dead in the water

    A drastic pricecut in Europe has done nothing to stem the drastic decline of 360 sales, whilst all the time, PS3 sales are going from strength to strength.

    Expect that PS3 - 360 gap to disappear as the months progress, as it's clear the 360 has shot it's wad, with Halo3 and Gears Of Warts, whilst the PS3 is justing getting a foothold, and the big guns are only just coming out (MGS4, Gran Turismo, Little Big Planet, Final Fantasy, God of War III, Resistance 2 and so forth).

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ISO declares XBox standard console

    In a surprise move, the ISO committee has announce that xbox360 will become a new ISO standard console.

    Said the Norwegian technical committee, everyone was against it being voted a standard, but somehow it ended up a standard anyway.

  14. Giles Jones Gold badge

    M$ adding features, Sony removing them

    Sony got the design right first time. Nobody wants the clutter of external drives. Plus consoles aren't typically designed for expansion so if you buy one then it is updated you lose out.

    Sony has actually removed features to cheapen the PS3.

  15. Iain

    Oh do stop lying, Mark.

    The European price cut caused sales to rise by over 30%. Your rants on every single 360-related story are tiresome shilling.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Let me say this second

    The lead is actually 6.5million to Xbox360 (18-11.5) and it has fairly consistently maintained that lead since the launch of the PS3 on a worldwide basis. Based on current sales patterns the PS3 sales will overtake Xbox360 after about 3-4 years. The PS3 is currently outselling the Xbox 360 by about 40,000 units per week, but that's before the current price drops on Xbox 360.

    I would reserve my judgment until the figures are released for GTAIV. That will be a very interesting indicator of GAMING choice and a quick look at the various game shops charts would appear to indicate that things are very close. (Current chart leaders - HMV - XBox360, Amazon - PS3, Game - XBox 360).

    The key thing here is all about attachment rates. People who are only buying PS3s as BluRay players aren't making Sony much money. They want you to buy games not movies, although I am delighted that Sony has done an excellent job of finishing the HD format wars which has to be a good thing.

    Personally, I wouldn't be tempted by an Xbox360 with a BluRay player unless they solved the noise issues. They really are too intrusive for a movie player.

  17. Iain

    PS3 shills, and the "Everything will be all right tomorrow" excuse.

    Why is it that PS3 fanboys never talk about the games that are already out? It's all "just you wait, Lair will arrive and it will be awesome", "Little Big Planet is coming soon", "MGS4 will destroy your puny 360", "I saw a press release for God Of War III, and the pictures in my head were really pretty".

    That, or talking about how their games console is the best because you can watch movies on it. Yawn.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    @ anonymous coward

    Firstly the difference between 17.98 and 11.41 is 6.57 and it was only a 12 month head start as both were released in November. And to the other Anonymous coward, if you want to get GTA4 then get an Xbox360 as they are releasing extra content in August. No idea when or even if this is coming to PS3.

  19. Phil Rigby
    Paris Hilton

    Blu-ray won't be an addon - here's why

    Cost. It's a lot more money to take a drive, produce a case, market it, package it, ship it to stores than it is to take a bare-bones drive and slap it inside the console. If integrating it is going to cost MS about $80-per-unit loss, then how much would making it an external drive cost?

    If you don't believe me, look at the price difference between internal and external dvd drives for PCs to see the precedent. If it's external, they'll lose a damn sight more money.

    Paris because she just bought a HD DVD add-on :-)

  20. Mark
    Gates Horns

    re: Hang on...

    It's been out twice as long, but it's not sold twice as many.

    12m PS3

    18m 360

    The gap is 6million currently, with all the big releases coming on PS3 this year....

  21. B. Park

    PS3 fanboys...

    ... please can you explain to me exactly why you are so keen to see the 360 fail? What is in it for you, personally? I am perplexed at the passion with which some of you lambast the MS console, and can see no obvious explanation or logic behind it.

  22. jai

    re: On the fence

    but why would the xbox be the more appealing choice

    sure, the box itself is cheaper, but to play online it'll cost you the xbox live xtortionate costs

    ps3 is free online game play

  23. Neil
    Gates Halo

    Surely a Bluray addon makes more sense

    I mean - you have 2m potential UK customers to sell to, as well as any new ones. Plus the rest of the world. Plus HD customerds have happily stumped up >£100 for the attachment alone, when they werent guaranteed a format that would win the "War". In what world would it make economic sense to create a whole new 360 with bluray intergrated? If MS do this, I see it dead in the water.........

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Money better spent...

    ...would be for Microsoft to invest some serious money in raising the build quality of this wretched console.

    Mine's just back from the all-to-familiar RRoD repair and it's already developed a rattle like a fan is improperly seated or is sticking. So I guess in a few weeks it'll die on me, then it's back to the repair shop.

  25. Phil Hare

    Blu-Ray games

    I agree with everyone on here who's said that the Blu-Ray player should be an add on, as it's only ever going to have any value as a HD film platform. I'd love to say that there will be games on the market for my PS3 that take full advantage of the BD format but there just aren't; no development studio has the patience or funding to develop games that fill up a BD.

  26. Alex
    Boffin

    @ AC - Let me be the first to say

    Actually, it's:

    MS to shift 2m XBOX360s in the UK takes 104 Months

    Sony to shift 1m PS3s in the UK takes 51 Months

    So on course for being roughly the same sales rates according to the above.

    You are correct to assume a 18month headstart though with only a 5.5million lead.

    Not sure that MS will go Blu-Ray. MS have really cut the price of the Xbox down to an almost poultry sum for a next gen machine (Can anyone say "Firesale"?) making it so affordable that they would then risk eating into profits by selling an addon for a loss? Let's be honest - after the slating they gave Sony, do you really think that they would start to sell parts of their consoles at a loss?? Doubt it.

    *Wii is not included in the above due to it not being a next gen console - yes i own one, yes I love it, yes in terms of sales it "kicks the Llama's ass" but the statement still stands*

  27. Lee Robinson
    Stop

    Blu-Ray Players

    How many people actually use their PS2 as a DVD player.......I wonder how many people will actually end up using their PS3/XBOX as a Blu-Ray player in a year or so. Now the 'format war' is over manufacturers will be willing to invest more money in Blu-Ray and a wider range of hardware will become available and prices will drop.

    Anyone chosing game console pref because it plays a realesed (although growing) handful of mediocre high definition movies that hollywood have thrust onto us is simply an idiot. I'll be interested when some of back catalogues are released, maybe even something like The Sopranos, The West Wing and 24 on some kind of Blu-Ray compendium. Anyone know what they originally shot Star Wars in? That'll be another money spinner for Lucas.

  28. Michael
    Flame

    To be fair

    Sony and MS fanboys can bicker as much as they want about sales figures and how one is more successful than the other.

    They're both embarassed by the Wii. Not only do the Wii sales figures make Sony and Microsoft look silly, but the Wii consoles were sold at a profit, which is something neither Sony nor MS can say about their consoles.

    Anti-Wii folks are quick to say "the Wii isn't a next-gen console". To that I say two things. 1) who are you to define what is and is not "next-gen", and 2) then MS and Sony should be all the more embarassed that a "lesser" machine has so soundly outperformed them. Perhaps what we're observing is that a beefier processor, new shiny white case, and changing to wireless versions of the same controller, does not innovation make...

  29. Mark
    Dead Vulture

    @Phil Hare @Park

    "there just aren't; no development studio has the patience or funding to develop games that fill up a BD."

    MGS4? 50GB Blu-ray

    Ratchet & Clank 25GB Blu-ray

    Uncharted Drakes Fortune, 25GB Blu-ray

    Whilst I can't vouch for the first, because it's not out yet, the latter 2 are full 25GB games, with NO obvious filler matieral like FMV cut scenes.

    The fact that lots of 360 games are struggling with the limitations of DVD9 (Bioshock and Mass effect Texture reuse, and dark areas to hide massive compression artifects).

    Why do I want the Xbox to fail? Simple, because it deserves to fail, it was launched on the unsuspecting public, with jetosoned features (no HD DVD, no HDMI, no standard HDD), and launched in a rush without proper testing and R&D, just to beat Sony to market.

    By buying Xbox, people are rewarding Microsoft for treating consumers in such a shitty way.

    Finally, Why on earth would Microsoft want to willingly, throw away money to provide a less-than-cost Blu-ray player for the 360? It's not like it would even put it on-par with the PS3, as it could only ever be used for movies, as there are 17 million existing users to cater for.

  30. jai

    @Alex

    104months is 8 and a half years?

    you mean 104weeks perhaps?

  31. Chris

    re: Blu-Ray games

    There are plenty of games pushing the boundaries of Blu-Ray discs, Uncharted being one of the first. Konami have admitted that MGS4 was only just able to fit onto a Blu-Ray disc, many of the exclusive Sony have lined up are planning on maximising the full potential of Blu-Ray.

  32. Tom
    Unhappy

    High Definition Shite

    I'm wracking my brains trying to think of any good films that have come out recently that warrant me spending money on hi-def.

    I canceled my Amazon DVD Rental after about 3 months because I'd watched everything I wanted to see. Am I alone in my world-weary cynicism, or do other people also feel that there's bugger-all that's worth watching coming out of Hollywood (or heaven's above, UK cinematography)?

  33. Mad Hacker
    Jobs Horns

    Add a BluRay player to anything and you win!

    Hey, Apple should add one to the AppleTV.

    I think Sony realized something. People want a BluRay player. But they don't want to spend more than $100 to get a standalone player. So what do you do?

    Bundle one with something that people are willing to spend more than $100 for.

    Makes perfect marketing sense.

    BTW I have a PS3 in my house right now (and an XBOX 360.) The PS3 kinda blows as a BluRay player, because my Harmony universal remote that controls my entire home theater system, cannot talk to the PS3 because they only support Blutooth and not IR. An IR receiver would've cost them 10 cents. But a pretty big mistake to leave out (I've invested $250 in my universal remote, and not about to shop around for a new one that supports IR and Bluetooth.) If the 360 (that my Harmony controls fine) becomes available with a BluRay drive, the one feature of accepting IR commands will make it a MUCH better BluRay player than the PS3.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @Lee Robinson

    "Anyone know what they originally shot Star Wars in? That'll be another money spinner for Lucas."

    I think it was originally daubed on the walls of caves by torchlight.

    Lucas is currently reediting the cantina scene in Star Wars for the BluRay version so that the warty bounty hunter insults Han's mother, hits him with the table before taking his blaster and shooting himself. The band are to be replaced by multiple copies of Jar-Jar...

    People will still buy it.

  35. jai
    Thumb Up

    re: Blu-Ray Players

    there's no way the original star wars were filmed in HD compatible film

    that said, in the mid-90s when Lucas re-worked them and re-released the Special Edition versions, he said then he was reprocessing each frame of each film so that they'd be future proofed for new tech

    so i'm quite looking forward to getting them on blu-ray - that'll be the 4th time i've bought A New Hope then.

  36. Steve Medway
    Joke

    Sold at a loss?

    Shouldn't that have read 'sold at a bigger loss rather than just a loss'? Implying that an MS console has actually made money is unusual in a reg article :-)

    Afterall you've got to factor the cost of fixing the dead ones under an extended warranty lol rolf (at MS's incompetence).

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Mark

    "Ratchet & Clank 25GB Blu-ray"

    Oh you mean that game that was touted as Sony's greatest game last year, an absolutel showcase of what the console is capable of?

    ... yet only sold 25% the units of even mediocre 360 games such as Kameo in the same amount of time and only sold 2% of the number of units the likes of Halo 3 sold?

    It seems pretty obviously Bluray makes jack all diff in terms of the games people actually want to play, there's still no PS3 game that's made headlines in number of units sold 18 months after it's release whilst the likes of Gears and Halo 3 really broke records. Preorders of GTA4 are also higher than PS3s sales by a longshot according to major retailers like GAME in the UK, Gamestop and EB Games in the US etc.

    To suggest the 360 has no good upcoming games this year to compete with the PS3s upcoming games also only goes to show you're ignorant of what the 360 has but this is probably because you're too busy posting outright lies on forums about what the PS3 can/can't do. Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Too Human, Halo Wars, Fable 2, Banjo-Kazooie 3 and Splinter Cell: Conviction - those should get you started and can easily compete with any exclusives the PS3 is intending to throw out.

    Still to this day people are comparing console numbers but companies make nothing on consoles barely, the real money comes from software and the PS3 is trailing by millions upon millions of units and this is not good for Sony, they made more of a loss with the PS3 than any other manufacture (and far more than the Wii) and that has continued to this day. Coupled with the fact that people just aren't buying games for the PS3, ironically because some buy it as a Bluray player more than anything because it's the only decently future-proof Bluray player there is and Sony may well consider stepping out of the next console round unless they can do a serious re-think. They've just lost far too much ground in terms of software sales going from number 1 by a longshot last gen with the PS2 to being last place by an even longer shot with the PS3. Sony needs to up software sales but no matter how good the games they release are they're just not making the sales they need to make.

    360 goes Bluray? It's game over for Sony, they no longer have any real terms advantage over the 360. The 360 is cheaper, has more, higher rated, more highly acclaimed content that's backed up by vastly higher sales - things like MSN messenger, video store on the console just sweeten the deal.

    For the Wii lovers, don't worry I wholeheartedly acknowledge the Wii is number 1 this time which only goes to make the PS3 fanboys plight even more rediculous - even if 360 sales stopped completely dead in the water right now the PS3 would still need a year or more to catch up with current sales but would still remains 10s of millions of units behind the Wii and what are the PS3 fanboys going to say then? That the Wii is going to mysteriously vanish making the PS3 the greatest console on earth? What an interesting dreamworld the PS3 fanboy must live in.

    Finally Mark, let's face it, you backed he wrong horse this round, the PS3 is a clear last and has nothing left to make the ground up, deep down you think perhaps that if you back the PS3 on forums like this and slag the 360 off that somehow it's going to change people's opinions, that they're going to go out and buy PS3s and somehow that'll increase sales enough to convince developers to concentrate on it instead of the Wii/360. It aint gonna happen, no one cares enough what you think to change their choice, the battle is fought in reality and when people spend a few hundred $ some comment by someone so blatantly biased isn't going to change their mind. I'm sure you'll come back here with your usual lies like claiming the 360 RROD problem is still prevalent even though it was eliminated in consoles over a year ago now but it still wont matter, you'll still be backing the last place horse and you'll still be deluding yourself in thinking you can somehow make a difference for a company that as a consumer you actually owe nothing to but to save face will continue to pretend to yourself is still a company worth backing. Well, enjoy yourself, the rest of us will enjoy reaping the benefits of the real winners offerings this time round - Nintendo and in second place Microsoft.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mark and others

    People that fervently evangelise MS over Sony or Sony or over MS are deluded. The companies took carefully considered but different approaches to making the market their own "to make money" and return the huge investments put out over the previous three years designing and building the consoles.

    Sony and MS couldn't give a fig about "an unsuspecting public". Their role is to manipulate punters into parting with cash on consoles and games as part of a long term strategy called "return on investment". Sony and MS have both done completely inexcusable practices to customers in the past, neither is blameless yet some people attach an almost religious belief that Sony/MS are the diety that'll look after their best interests.

    Jeez people, get real.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    The article you refer to was published APRIL FIRST!!!

    Just a little detail, but the digitimes article was published on APRIL 1st!!

  40. Allan Rutland

    Might work...

    I'm unsure about those prices mentioned in the article, seem a bit high really for the kinds of buying power we're talking about here. MS paying £10 for a DVD-ROM? come off it, that's more expensive than a single machine at a time OEM buys them for.

    As for reason, the biggest draw the PS3 has been getting is the movie playback. It's seen as the cheapest way to get a player...which it is. Thereby profiting nicely from that side of things. Throwing in a cheaper player option, with more games, will pretty much swing that buying option back in MS's favour. After all, making a loss on the console isn't really an issue (look at the immense amount Sony lose on the PS3). The bigger concern is games sales, and that is all about market. Selling at a loss is pretty irrelavant on this kind of scale, and when its not a huge hit it's pretty easy for them to go for.

    Using the Blu-Ray drive for games is out. It's changing the hardware to a degree which would effect play between various machines. Just need to look at the utter foul up Sony made of this when they removed the hardware backwards compatibility on the PS3 to find a load of junk from EA ceased working as they were offloading old PS2 code to it.

    Personally though I don't see the point of Blu-Ray (or HD-DVD while it lasted). DVD is pretty much the last of the physical media formats as lets face it, come the next generation of machines we're just going to download everything. Steam and other services show it works well, and it's bound to happen to the consoles next time around. And the only reason to fall for the HD movie fluff is if you like buying the same old stuff again and paying too much to the movie industry, which can frankly sod off in my book.

  41. Philip Medlock
    Thumb Down

    DVD playback dreadful on xbox 360 so blueray is a moot point

    I'm using an Xbox 360 as a media centre extender and both the dvd and dvb (digital tv) playback are pretty poor. You get deinterlacing problems, noise, lip sync issues, vsync tears. It's ok for watching tv but for blueray it'd be useless.

    Once they've added the blueray hardware what's going happen about decent quality deinterlacing, 24 fps support, full support for audio decoding, blueray 2.0 profile support on xbox 360's with a hard drive?

    Xbox 360 is a great console but Microsoft haven't shown any ability outside that area yet.

  42. MTT

    @ Allan Rutland

    "Personally though I don't see the point of Blu-Ray (or HD-DVD while it lasted). DVD is pretty much the last of the physical media...the only reason to fall for the HD movie fluff is if you like buying the same old stuff again..."

    That's not entirely true. I've seen the difference between dvd, upconvert DVD, and Blu-Ray player performance on my own home television and it is stark. I mention that it's on *my* home player, since I imagine that most of us don't have the enormous $50K t.v sets that are on display in the stores.

    For older movies... well unless someone goes back to Lucas the original film prints, DVD is the best you're ever going to get. BD doesn't magically make the print quality better, it needs to be there first and somehow been lost in the transfer process.

    So, yeah. I won't be buying a ton of older movies on BD, unless I have rented/Netflix'd the disc first and know that it's a remaster. However, to say that there is BD tech is all fluff... you should really check out the BBC Planet Earth on Blu-Ray before you say that... it's absolutely stunning.

  43. Phillip

    Philip Medlock

    I use my XBox360 as a DVD player and have never experienced any issues with DVD playback, infact DVD playback is better than my old Philips DVD Player.

    I have a Pal Xbox360 and play movies i've bought over seas, ripped, taken region coding off, burnt back to a DVD5 and watched.

    I've never had "deinterlacing problems, noise, lip sync issues, vsync tears" issues.

    Stop spreading bullshit around. As much as Microsoft sucks, the Xbox360 kicks ass. It gets far more use as a DVD player and Games machine than my PS3 which pretty much collects dust.

  44. Doug
    Thumb Down

    When did they start making profit on Xbox

    I've not heard anything which states Microsoft has started making a profit on the Xbox projects. There's also other issues with the story which makes it sound like a Microserf wrote it.

  45. Maksim Rukov
    Heart

    my PS3 won't come out of the closet

    I have both the PS3 and the Xbox 360, but my PS3 remains in its box, in the cupboard, awaiting a game that I would want to play on it. I was tempted to sell it but changed my mind ever since blu-ray won the format war.

    While both consoles have good and bad points (imagine that), when it comes to the crunch I would recommend the 360 over the PS3, mostly because of the games.

    Anyway, when my PS3 does finally come out of the closet, I'm sure it'll be a valued piece of gaming hardware.

  46. joe
    Thumb Down

    Hate or not to hate

    I've got both, XBOX360 before the PS3 but i only buy PS3 games and are willing to wait till games come out on the PS3 if possible. Now i'm not a fanboi of either platforms and truth be told i hate Sony more than Microsoft. Ya i get a funny look around the office when i say it. Not what you would expect coming from an UNIX admin's mouth but still true. Notwithstanding my ilk for either company the PS3 is a better console. If the xbox does come out with an internal BluRay player i would be a bit jaded to spend any more money with Microsoft's current gaming platform. HDMI and BluRay is not a compelling enough to spend the money, even if i didn't have the PS3. Buy a standalone player for movies. Like the guy in the ING commercials says "Save your money"

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @ skidMark

    Mark: "By buying Xbox, people are rewarding Microsoft for treating consumers in such a shitty way."

    Boy, you have a short (or just selective) memory. If anything Sony are worse than MS: root kits; draconian DRM policies; stripped-down & late released PS3s for 'teh Europeons'....etc etc etc

  48. Mark Ashworth

    I don't really hate the Xbox360

    Honestly I don't, but I think it is a shoddy piece of hardware, shipped to the market early to gain advantage for M$. I believe if M$ do win the console war, then you can expect the cost of everything (hardware and software) to rise as M$ move more in line with the rest of their products (got you by the balls, now pay through the nose approach).

    I do own a PS3 (the 360 has been traded after 5 replacements) and I am more that happy to use it for gaming and blue-ray.

    In response to the fact that all PS3 owners are waiting for decent games to be released, we already have some (Drake's Fortune, Pain, GT5P, UT3 etc) and many more to be released over the next 12 months.

    I hope the console war continues, it means that the consumer will hopefully get better hardware, better games and not one single company can hold a monopoly.

    Notice I haven't mentioned the Wii, that's because it's last generation and may have a large install base, but I can see gamers getting bored very quickly of it.

  49. FlatSpot
    Joke

    colour clash surely

    Does that mean you will be able to have a Blu Ring of death to go with the Red one... think the colours might clash darlings...LOL

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    I pity you poor people...

    ...who have to choose whether to have a PS/3 OR an Xbox 360.

  51. Alistair MacRae
    Alert

    PS3 is still behind.

    You talk about the PS3 came out later than the 360 and that its ONLY 5-6 million units behind.

    The fact still is the PS3 is behind on this day and for many more days it will continue to be so. There's probably going to be people who would have bought PS3s but have got Xbox 360s as they came out earlier and cheaper and wont be looking to buy a PS3 now.

    The Xbox 360 isn't reducing prices because it’s panicking it’s because the market is approaching saturation and it's now lowering its price to try and get more of the market.

    I know 7 of my friends have Xbox 360s as do I. No one owns a PS3 except for me.

    The PS3 is a nice Blu-ray player and is nice and quiet but it’s really buggy on playing media from my PC.

    I reckon a lot of the people who bought one did so because it's a cheap Blu-ray player which you get to play games on.

    You can see this reflected in game sales to console ratio. Last time I heard the Xbox 360 was on something to 11 to 1 console and the PS3 was 3-ish, (admittedly the games are terrible :P but there's two I’m interested in the future). The Wii is as low a 0.5 games per console which really is terrible. They'd be in trouble if they hadn't sold at a profit on the systems.

    It's really down to the PS3 not REALLY being a proper games system. It has that Cell chip processor which has caused the common thing you hear PS3 fans saying "Just wait till next year when (insert game here) comes out" the things so hard to work with its games are constantly delayed.

    If Microsoft wants to release another SKU I don't care about it being blu-ray or not just make it quiet, the thing is ridiculously noisy next to the PS3!

    The PS3 feels better quality than the 360 but the PS3 6 axis controller and remote are rubbish i'd love to be able to use the 360 controller on the PS3

  52. Jeff S
    Alert

    who cares ?

    I'm loyal to neither company, between myself and 2 brothers we've owned a console from every company bar Sega since we were knee high to a grass hopper. Of the current generation we have 2 Wiis, a 360 and Playstation 3 between us. The Playstation 3 is used least, it has a lack of decent games and the online service is miles behind Xbox Live even if you do have to pay an annual fee, which is by no means extortionate has someone has claimed. The games that are out there are not up to the 360s standards, maybe that will change, who knows ? We don't care about HD DVD or Bluray as we use our consoles for gaming, we have dedicated systems for our home entertainment. Having said that, we don't own one HD DVD or Bluray film either so our decision on what to buy had nothing to do with the now ended format wars.

    People, get real and just enjoy your console for jaysus sake.The Wii is the only one my wife will join in with and my 360 is for when she's away on business. But alas my brothers PS3 is a dust gather at the moment eeclipsed by his Wii too, and that's not fanboism. For whose drooling at the thoughts of the next GT game, demo is disappointing, try Froza and you probably won't be bothered with GT anymore ;-)

  53. Simon Oxlade
    Go

    PS3 for me

    I'm a PC gamer - have been for years, but I'm just about to buy a PS3 over an Xbox360 for a number of reasons:

    1) The PS3 is a bloody good BluRay player - comparable to £400 standalone players and has all the decoding licences on board all for the asking price. By contrast the PS2 was a pretty awful DVD player.

    2) Online play is free - I don't play online much, but I like the occasional dabble - and I simply wouldn't make enough use of Xbox live to warrant the subscription fee (seriously I barely play online at all)

    3) You can load and stream content around your network.

    4) I'm not a fan of console games per se, but I am interested in GT and GTA IV (just as I was interested in Forza, Project Gotham and Burnout). Difference is that I couldn't justify the expenditure on JUST a games machine when I won't be using it every night of the week. However add in the other functions the PS3 offers out of the box and I feel it is worth the extra money.

    5) Seems to be built better - we haven't had a PS3 fall over yet at work, but have said good bye to two xbox360s so far...

    I also have a Wii and I know which machine will be played the most. SuperMario Galaxy is a work of art...

    P.s. Star Wars not recorded in a High def compatible format??? It was recorded on FILM which is analogue and is the highest def format you can get (excluding comments about grain etc from the size of a 35mm negative). The special Editions were digitally remastered and regraded in order to clean up the image (New hope was especially bad) and to better integrate the new effects. No matter what format it was recorded in - even if it was shoved on a HD-D5 tape, they can still easily ingest it into the latest digital equipment and remastered. I'd expect a Star Wars BluRay when either there is enough demand for it (sales still small), Lucasfilm isn't in the middle of a massive production (Indy IV) and when they have created some new additional content in HiDef (which is more of an issue than the films themselves).

  54. Mark
    Gates Horns

    @ AC

    "Oh you mean that game that was touted as Sony's greatest game last year, an absolutel showcase of what the console is capable of?

    ... yet only sold 25% the units of even mediocre 360 games such as Kameo in the same amount of time and only sold 2% of the number of units the likes of Halo 3 sold?"

    Since when has quality of game been linked to sales?

    Halo3 sucked badly, the fact that multi-platform COD4 gets vastly more players is proof to that.

    R&C is a mighty fine game, and does show what the PS3 is capable of (despite it barely scratching the surface of the PS3's capabilities), it's also sold well over a million copies, so by your calculations, Halo3 has sold well over 50million copies...

    No wonder Xbox managed to sell consoles, with idiots like this AC around...

  55. Neil Jones
    Stop

    Missing the Point?

    The fanbois comparing sales figures are missing a point here - the reason MS are incorporating a BR HD is because they realise that many PS3s are being bought as BR players, not games consoles. I (like many others) have both a 360 and a PS3 - the 360's for games; the PS3's for BR. If the Xbox had a built-in BR that was implemented as well as Sony's is in the PS3, then I wouldn't have bought the PS3. So to comment that "The 360 is dead" in response to a move by MS that is likely to bring about an sway in sales in the Xbox's favour by taking away an undisputed advantage that the PS3 currently has seems ill-considered.

    If MS integrate a decent BR player, Sony lose a potential market of Xbox owners who want a BR player, as well as suddenly facing competition in the "next gen+BR drive" console market.

  56. fishman

    Real sales numbers

    While the Xbox360 has 50% more units out than the PS3, how many of the Xbox360s are replacement units for the defective ones? I know people who have bought an extra 360 while their 360 was sent back to be repaired.

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    360 RRoD.

    Someone claimed that the RRoD is a thing of the past? Not according the the official 360 forums it isn't - even the new Elites are RRoD'ing.

    Mine has RRoD'd once already and is close to a second RRoD - it froze a couple of times playing RSV2 last night and refused to turn off as well. So it looks like it'll be off to Havant AGAIN sometime soon - I've had it back a grand total of 5 weeks since it's first repair.

    Not good.

  58. Iain

    @fishman

    How many PS3s sit in home theatre setups, never seeing a game disc, or are being used as Cell calculation units? How many of those second 360s are then passed on second-hand once they return from being mended and the impatient owner bought another?

    We'll never know, so at best they're a rough guide. Go look at the software sales if you want to see what the development studios really care about - why do you think it's worth concentrating millions of pounds on 360 and PS3 game development when the hardware sales are so much better than Wii? Because Wii owners don't buy games as much, and they certainly don't buy 3rd-party ones.

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @ Mad Hacker

    "If the 360 (that my Harmony controls fine) becomes available with a BluRay drive, the one feature of accepting IR commands will make it a MUCH better BluRay player than the PS3."

    Apart from the fact that the original 360 can't output 1080p, the native res. of Blu-Ray? Or that the noise it makes is like having a hydroelectric powerstation in your living room?

    No, the really important stuff is being able to use an aftermarket remote control with it.

    If MS want to position the 360 as a serious contender for a HD playback machine, they need to sort the noise out, as that's the killer for me. I also find the playback interface on the PS3 is much better. I have both machines - the PS3 is used mostly for movies and the 360 only for games, mainly because of XB Live and I prefer the controllers. However, I do get sick of the almost constant crashes during games, which I've not had happen on the PS3 yet. I'm on my second 360, and I fully expect this one to die too.

  60. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    You're all foaming at the mouth!

    I nearly bought a 360, but plumped for the PS3 instead and by and large I have been very happy with it. No there aren't as many games, but the ones that I do have are brilliant, and I am happy to wait for Resistance 2, LBP, Home , etc.

    Am also using the PS3 to play music, as the core part of my home cinema setup, browse the web, but mainly yeah to play games.

    I love that damn thing, and everyone should get one.

  61. Alex

    @ jai

    Aye sir - I stand thankfully corrected. Thank you, Kind Sir.

    Wii is still number 1, but seriously; it is NOT a next-gen console. Again, i own one, love one, and cherish it ;o)

  62. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    'Next-gen' bollocks...

    Alex: "Wii is still number 1, but seriously; it is NOT a next-gen console. Again, i own one, love one, and cherish it ;o)"

    FFS. The Wii is not 'next-gen', it's CURRENT generation - just like the PS3 and Xbox 360. It's just NOT HD current-gen.

    END OF DEBATE.

  63. Iain

    @AC

    Maybe Mad Hacker has a recent enough 360 that he's got a HDMI connector. Or maybe he's using the 1920x1080p VGA output. Maybe he's only got a 720p screen anyway. Maybe he's already got the HD-DVD drive, and doesn't want a whole second console and a second video input to deal with.

    Any of which would make a 360 Blu-ray drive useful.

  64. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Iain

    "Any of which would make a 360 Blu-ray drive useful."

    Except he wasn't saying that dear boy, he was saying, and I quote, "If the 360 (that my Harmony controls fine) becomes available with a BluRay drive, the one feature of accepting IR commands will make it a MUCH better BluRay player than the PS3."

    Which is bovine poo I'm afraid. It wouldn't be better BR drive than the PS3, even with the criteria you mention.

  65. Aitor

    External Bluray?

    Bluray can't be external, as the maximum Bluray bitrate exceeds that of the connection.. and this isn't good.

    So forget about quality external drives...

  66. Alex
    Flame

    @ AC "'Next-gen' bollocks..."

    Oh do shut up and get with the lingo!

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like