PS Magazine editor: why I’m buying a 360
Has Hell frozen over, or are PlayStation enthusiasts finally realizing what we’ve realized all along: that $600 is way too much for a system that’s being marketed as a home entertainment, new format-pusher PC system first and a video game console second? Official PlayStation Magazine editor Dana Jongewaard discusses her feelings about the PlayStation 3 via her 1up blog after the jump.
From the blog:
Contrary to popular belief, editors of the Official PlayStation Magazine don’t get free hardware for their own personal use. So I’ve been having an ongoing debate with myself about the PS3 since E3. After Kaz announced that the price would be $600, I found my enthusiasm sagging.
It’s not that I find the concept of a $600 console insulting. Inflation happens, and it’s natural that eventually initial prices will be higher than they used to be. But when I know that a console’s direct competitors cost two-thirds or half of that price, it becomes harder for me to justify shelling out that kind of money–especially when I can probably get the Wii and the 360 combined for the cost of a PS3.
$600 might be worth it if there were several huge titles on the near horizon that were PS3-exclusive. But for the first year at least, there are very few big titles that are PS3 exclusive. GTA4 and Assassins will be available for the 360 at the same time. And most of the big guns–FFXIII, MGS4–won’t be hitting for quite some time after the launch.
Ms. Jongewaard continues by saying she’s not a hi-def TV owner and she doesn’t care about Blue-Ray movies or how awesome in-game audio is; she can get what’s probably going to be the same experience for less of a price. She’d only consider getting a PS3 after a price drop.
Ms. Jongewaard’s position majorly reflects the way most PS3-wary gamers feel about the console, and it’s really interesting that these comments are coming from an official, generally pro-PlayStation group of people.
It looks like there are going to be some tough times for Sony up ahead. With the Wii debuting before the PS3, it’ll be interesting to see just what happens at its launch.
Thanks for the scoop, frontieruk and grimey gutter!
another one bites the dust, and another one gone, another one gone, another one bites the dust.. hey hey!
message to Sony - you really dun fucked up this time…
360 fan revolt plan - buy a PS3 on launch day, return it un-opened the next day, take $600 in store credit and use it for Nintendo Wii, and 360 games/accessories. Hey Sony can you say boycott? I can, and without speeding $600 for a console, and another $100 per a game…..
Bet she isn’t the editor of OPM for much longer.
It’s okay; I bet OXM would be more than happy to take her.
Shes right tho
It was being rumored for a while but didn’t realise it had been confirmed.
It’s technically still not confirmed. 99.99% sure though
I read an interview with the developer in a 360 magazine which said it is now officially confirmed. Cant remember which mag so dont hold me to it….
Remember reading something about it not being economically viable to release it only on the PS3 as the development costs are so high they would struggle to clawback their expenditure.
ya the OXM confirmed… and also considering the ps3 editor is even saying it give me a break.. Assassins creed is going to be a “big x06 announcement”
Notice she doesn’t really praise the 360. I guess she wants to get the lesser of the two evils.
Is this E2K all over again?
How many of those 100 million PS2s (that Sony brags about constantly) were bought when it dropped to $200 and under? 45%? 50%?
Just accept who won this round.
First I have to admit that I am a huge gamer. I am not a Sony “fanboy” nor a Bill Gates “lap sitter”.
I have bought an Xbox360 and also plan to buy a Playstation 3 at launch. Everyone has to realize that if you want to bring the Xbox360 to the same features of the PS3 (premiums versions) you will pay about the same if not more. I bought my Xbox360 at lauch and here are my costs. I live in Canada so are my dollars are in Canadian Funds ($1.00 Canadian = 90 cents U.S.)
Xbox360 Premium $499.00
Plug N Charge Kit $ 39.00
USB WiFi adapter $129.00
Total Cost $667.00
The Playstaion 3 Canadian Price has been announced at $659.00 for launch. Here are the features that you get in the PS3 that you wont have in the Xbox360.
HD-DVD playback (blue-ray), the Xbox360 add-on is rumoured to be about $180.00. Free “xbox-live” type of service. I play about $180.00/year to have 3 accounts (one mine, 2 are my kids). Linux built-in. Thats a huge plus for a person like me since I have been using Linux now for 3 years (Debian if you want to know). More powerful systems (over 2 teraflops vs the Xbox360 1.2). There are alot more features that is built into the PS3 I think I made my point.
As for Sony “screwing” there fans, how do you think xbox fans feel since Bungie announced that Halo 3 will be Xbox360 title only? So if you have a xbox, you will have to buy an Xbox360 to “Finish the Fight”.
Now thats what I called getting screwed over. Will people pay at least $300.00 to finish the Halo triliogy???? Can some please answer that for me?
Yes these next consoles are expensive and will be for at least 2 years. A friend of mine is a Manager for Best Buy and he tell me that the best selling console is the PS2. It outsells all other consoles combined and that the Xbox360 sales have flattened and there is always stock of them.
We will have to wait at least another year till a 3 systems are launched to see who the real winner will be.
First of all.. Halo is shite.. Don’t like it and many here agree. Besides, xbox is more then just halo.. And do you expect to play the new MSG on the ps2? Don’t think it will happen.
Second, with PS3 you’ll HAVE to buy bluray wether or not it will be the next dvd. If hddvd wins, your PS3 isn’t that fat anymore. Microsoft gives you the choice to add the new dvd standard. I bought a gameconsole and not the new dvd media system.
Third, ofcourse PS2 sells better.. They’ve dropped the price. If you don’t have much money to spend then the cheap PS2 with millions of (shitty) games is a good alternative.. What’s your point? You cannot compare a good selling console which is on the market for years with a new competitor which isn’t even out for a year..
All games on the PS3 will be in the “blue-ray” data format. Sony is using this format to try to stop piracy of game disc. So having it as a blue-ray player is just an “extra” feature since the PS3 has to have the blue-ray reader to play the games. Alot of game developers appauld this move by Sony since it will be harder for pirates to copy their games, but we all know it will be just a matter of time till the “blue-ray” is cracked.
As for Halo being shite, i will have to disagree will you on that. On a average night, over 100,000 players are playing Halo 2 online and over 250,000 on a busy night. That many people can’t be wrong, but then again I liked Killzone more than Halo 2.
Yes PS2 has a huge collections of “shitty” games and so does the “Gamecube” and yes Xbox does also. But for $129.00, and doing just alittle bit of research, you can pick up a huge collection of sony games for about $20.00 each. i.e. the Ratchet and Clank series, Jax & Daxter, GTA series etc, etc. So for a buget gamers, he should have no issues of picking up good quaility game even though they may be a bit dated.
In the end, the gamers will decide which console win. Since I am a huge gamer, I will have both, but can anyone tell me why the Xbox360 is doing so poorly in Japan????
yeah. That’s why they put in the bluray.. not! It’s just a lame excuse to get people hooked on the bluray so they don’t buy hddvd. And load times will be verry slow on that bluray.. ie oblivion would take 2 or 3 times longer to load.. enjoy..
You disagreeing on halo being shite I can believe, but if you think that way about the game because so many people (kids actually) play it every day then your vote doesn’t count. Then it’s just rolling with the masses imho. Just because so many people play it doesnt make it a good game. The 50cent game sold millions but it’s shite too. And millions of people listen to classical music, but it’s shite imho..
And about the japanees not liking the console? Because they like totally different things then the rest of the world.. Like a hopping game or a game where you can look up the skirts of little girls and stuff. They’re not into halo and call of duty games.
If you really want to get techno about blue-ray and the PS3 here are a few valid points.
Sony told all game developers that “all” PS3 wil have a hard-drive so the “Cell” processor will have a “swap” file to write data to. With the 7 spu’s of the Cell, the game developers write the code where all game textures, static meshes, maps, sounds etc..could be decompressed and stored on the swap file. Once all this data is stored on the swap file, load times will not be an issues. A good example of this is the excellent code Bungie wrote for the Halo & Halo 2…load time are very tiny indeed. Unlike Oblivion for the Xbox360, they wrote the code assuming that the Xbox360 did not have the hard-drive. Thats why load times will be longer on the Xbox360 than the PS3. Only the initial data transfer and decompression will take a little bit of time, but since the Cell processor can do upto 7 tasks at once, no one real really noticed….if coded the right way.
Exactly thr point I was going to make.
I bought a games console and if I want to add wi-fi (which I don’t have any interest in) I can, if I want to add a drive to play HD DVD format I can, If I want my pad to “rumble” I get it for free (Ha ha sony) but the point is I am not paying through the nose for fuctionality I don’t want and will never use.
I think if the 360 had managed to sell as many consoles in the first year (not even that long yet) as the PS2 has done since it’s launch then Nintendo and Sony would have just given up already, it’s like comapring apples and mince pies.
I will say again, this will only get bought when there is a drop in price to give it a realistic tag for the features I will actually use.
Wifi is a feature I needed so I needed to buy the adapter for my Xbox360, unlike the PS3 premium its built-in. For me its a plus, for you not. As I stated in the earlier post all PS3 games will be in “Blue-Ray” format, the PS3 needs the blue-ray reader to play the game made for it. I like my Xbox360 and have no issues with it, but since I am a huge gamer I will buy a PS3 also. The Xbox360 and the PS3 have their pros and cons, that was the point I was trying to make.
well at least you can turn on the 360 and play it while you wait for the PS3 games to load on the Blu-Ray format.
If load time are an issue then the Xbox360 suffers also. Have you tried playing Oblivion? Sometimes it takes over 30 seconds just to load a area with that game, even though I think its the best game right now for the Xbox360. Load times are a huge issue with consoles that use any type of media disc to store the game data.
Agreed, but it will be a far bigger issue with Blu-Ray.
And oblivion never took that long for me. You cleaned your cache?
How can you clear your cache while playing the game? If there is a way of doing that, please post it.
Thanks.
Ooooooo, put the handbag away, didn’t realise you were playing it in 24 hour stints. I cleared it everytime I turned it on and never had any problems.
Now put your fucking handbag down.
No I only play in 1 or 2 hour stints. Even after a few minutes of play load times become an issue with this game. Also I find that load times are on an issue with other Xbox360 games (I have about 15 of them).
I thought you were abit more mature but since you are using vulgar language I now know that you are just a “dumb twit”
Hey leroy if you are such a sony whore then what the fuck are you doing on XBOXIC????????????? You are getting way to worked up over this sony bashing shit.You act like your last name is sony and everybody is trashing your family name!!!! Let it go dude and grow the fuck up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think you should use some more exclamation points.
By this time next year the 360 will be no more!
You really believe that? Look at the xbox, it stayed around. So you think the ps3 is so superior the 360 will only last 2 years? You’re an idiot! Go to a ps3 forum and rave how awesome you are with rest of the sony whores! (Is that better on the exclamation points)
The Xbox360 will be around for a long time and so will the PS3 and also the Wii. Microsoft, Sony and Nin. have invested billions of dollars in their game consoles and they will not just drop them and walk away.
Just one tips. I noticed when i am on wifi on the 360 Oblivion loads are much much slower. Especially when you go to the menu where you load games and scroll down you will notice how much slower the scrolling is and the screen behind is hacking. Usually is is moving smoothly.
After i kick out my 360 from the router it works smooth again.
You can call me a fanboy or whatever but i like that Sony actually is delivering a product with all the features build-in. Look at the powerbrick that follows 360. Also if you “choose” to buy the HD-DVD then its another brick taking space in you living room not mentioning the cables. Also proper handcontrolls with loading facility already build into them.
Don’t get me wrong i love my 360 but i think PS3 is better designed. But still if you want the best from both worlds you need to buy them both so as a console i think both are great.