E3 has been neutured

[Supercheese]

Corporate greed will push some people very far.

Aye. Although often "very far" is only as far as China...

[Nikki]

Irritated much by the new Playstation 3 price?  At least, that's what I think you were implying.  No clue if that's what you were actually implying, though.  I'd say "poor Sony" but they make enough money already.  Still, it was a nice idea for a console, especially since it runs Linux.

And even if E3 ceases to be as we know it, I hope we'll still get soapbox shows from Shigeru Miyamoto.  Even if he has to do it crazed hobo-style on a street corner.

irritated? Iriitated? IRRITATED!!??  boy what an understatement..

[Rowne]

Poor Xze.  Hey, if it's any consolation I suspect that about six months after the initial release, there'll be second-hand ones up on eBay and other similar sites for a fraction of the price.

The only worry then is the $70 price-mark for new games.  I wouldn't worry about that either though because eventually those will appear on auction sites too.

Let the people with money to burn do so, they can waste their money and then throw it away by selling the console cheap, you can benefit from their mistakes.  That's what I do!

[Saist]

Poor Xze.  Hey, if it's any consolation I suspect that about six months after the initial release, there'll be second-hand ones up on eBay and other similar sites for a fraction of the price.

I wouldn't count on that. Yields of 7-SPE are pretty low, somewhere around 25%-35% effiency, and the current crop of 8-SPE and 7-SPE Cell chips have a higher than expected failure rate.

Right now, according to statements issued by Power.org and IBM, I doubt Sony will be able to fulfill any type of launch demand with the Playstation3. From the pubically available information from Asus (the PS3 manufacturer) I question Sony's ability to ship 5millions units by March next year. I would instead expect only 1 or 2 million shipments if Sony attempts to keep the current timeline. That, no doubt, will result in a repeat of the Xbox 360 launch, only on a worse scale. The Xbox 360's launch was a synthetic disaster as Microsoft was unable to fulfill retail channel requests. Regular shipments of Xbox 360 did not commence until this year, around Feb and March.

One of the theories floated during the last E3 is that Sony is intentionally setting the price so high to reduce demand for the console, allowing Sony to get shipping and manufacturing up to speed while a few units go out into the wild. That will, on paper, allow Sony to copy the launch of the Xbox 360 without getting called on a horrible launch and taken to task for it.

The downside is that there are going to be very, very, few Playstation3's in the retail channels. That is great for places like Ebay which will have people able to make a killing selling the units for 2 or 3 times the retail price 6 or 8 months away from launch.

So no. Forget fraction of the price. If you want a Playstation3 before March 2007 and you don't get one on retail launch, be prepared to shell out over $1000 on Ebay and similar sites.

[Rowne]

This just gets worse and worse.  I actually feel somewhat bad for Sony (I'm not without feeling even for corporate bodies), this doesn't sound like it's going to go well.

Then my advice to Xze is; here's a crowbar, I would suggest a five-fingered deal.

[Nikki]

i could always invent my own game console  and i'd make it pretty cheap so that EVERYONE could possibly afford one
Xze also wants to design a game >w<

[Saist]

i could always invent my own game console  and i'd make it pretty cheap so that EVERYONE could possibly afford one
Xze also wants to design a game >w<

Xze-Xze, just for reference, Nintendo developer support ONLY requires that you have 3 people, an idea, and a business license for your state. Keep that in mind.

[Nikki]

i could always invent my own game console  and i'd make it pretty cheap so that EVERYONE could possibly afford one
Xze also wants to design a game >w<

Xze-Xze, just for reference, Nintendo developer support ONLY requires that you have 3 people, an idea, and a business license for your state. Keep that in mind.

is that all? X3

[Rowne]

Indie development requires only that you have an idea and some competence with coding and visual/audio art (or friends that have those talents)!

It's getting more and more prominent these days too.  With worthy entries such as the Tower of Defense, N, Cave Story, Geneforge and The Ship, indie games are actually becoming as much fun as commercial games.