Well, excuse me if I can't wipe this smile off of my face today, but it seems that SONY will finally be lowering prices on its PS3.
Why? Well, in a word... NINTENDO. While SONY was standing on the shoulders of giants, namely the Playstation and Playstation 2, Nintendo went back to the drawing board, designed a new slingshot, and fired its killing blow.
They decided that they would focus on non-gamers, and young children. Two demographics that don't focus on graphics and processing horsepower. It seems now, however, they are pulling in everyone in between.
Now it is no surprise that I loath SONY. But it hasn't always been that way. Back when they were *just* and electronics company, SONY was focused on making the best products possible, with features that their consumers wanted and demanded. And they thrived.
Unfortunately SONY's turn to the Dark Side™, once they got into the music and movie business. Talk about selling your soul to two devils! You see, unfortunately, the features desired most by consumers are not in the best interests of the music and movie industry. Portability of the content is what we want, Digital Rights Management (rights of the movie companies, not yours) are what we get. Blu-ray is SONY's master plan incarnate, or "inplastic" as the case would be. I'm surprised Blu-ray disk players don't count how many people are in the room, and start shooting people if there are too many.
Anyhow, back to Nintendo. The following are my reasons why the Nintendo Wii has made the PS3 its bitch, ordered from most important to least.
By now you know that the Wii's controllers can detect where you're pointing it and where you move it, and how fast you move it. The curiosity on how this functions is enough to drive sales.
People, this is not simply "thinking outside the box", this is thinking outside of Euclidean geometry.
Now normally, I am against wireless remotes because I hate dealing with batteries in things that don't need them. Normal controllers don't need batteries because you're not usually going to play them more than 10 feet away from the console. In this situation, wireless it the only way to go, otherwise you'd be yanking the console onto the floor every 5 seconds.
The PS3 costs $600 US, the Xbox 360 is $400 US, the Wii is $250 US. Which one are parents going to buy for young children? Which one will entice non-gamers to try something new?
It seems that SONY is now realizing that "This generation has shown that consumers are far more price sensitive than previously thought". Noooooo... I was so looking forward to selling my car to buy one of these. Maybe if I stop eating meat I can afford a game.
Now SONY is contemplating a $100 price cut.
SONY has to deal with "My kid beat up a hooker after playing Grand Theft Auto". Nintendo has to deal with "I smashed a window on that home run when the controller slipped out of my hand". You can't even read that without smirking. There's a whole website dedicated to Wii Controller Mishaps. You can actually buy a shield to protect your TV now.
There is only one Wii. Not the expensive Wii with all the features, and the cheap Wii, with minimal features. This isn't Goldilocks and the three bears here. No one wants to be burdened with the stigma of having to own the crappy version. The Wii was designed for inclusiveness and team play, not dividing people between rich/poor boundary lines.
I think SONY just launched the 20 GiB PS3 just to convince themselves that everyone WANTS to give them all their money and justify the expensive price. They conveniently leave out the fact that the 20 GiB PS3 has almost none of the features of the expensive one.
It is well known that Nintendo does not have other divisions to allow it to lose money on its hardware. Despite the $600 price tag, SONY loses money on each PS3 that it sells. The Wii was designed to profit from every sale, despite its low price, from the beginning. You gotta respect that.
Just to end on a high note, here's a video with a song ridiculing the PS3. I like it, despite the fact that it seems to be pro-XBox. The music is really great.
So, until next time, buy a Wii, and keep on having fun!
"bah weep graaagnah wheep ni ni bong"
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Wii would like to kick Sony's ass
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Get Down Mr. Mini-Wheats!
As my multi-media addiction continues to worsen, I provide you with more gifts of multi-media, now with video.
Many of you may not have seen the first video before, but if you listen to 102.2 the Edge in Toronto, you may have heard it on the radio.
Before you press play, I must warn you... you'll probably be playing this at least 10 times before you can tear yourself away.
Now that that is out of the way, turn up the volume, clear some floorspace for dancing, and press PLAY!
While we're on the subject of great jingles, below is the famous "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" commercial. The story of this jingle is interesting, and the commercial itself is regarded as the single most popular advertising campaign of all time. Read more about it here. Some of you younger people may not have seen the commercial, but you may recognize the jingle, which was later written into a full length song. Enjoy!
P.S. If you look up, look waaaaaay up, you'll notice that the quote at the top of this page has a little blue arrow. This blue arrow will play the quote, along with the supporting dialog from the movie Ghostbusters. This, my friends, was the inspiration for this page (at least its namesake, anyway).
Until next time, keep on having fun!
"bah weep graaagnah wheep ni ni bong"
