Thanks. That's what I figured but thought there might be more to it.

It is like crack.

Eh, that article is making a big deal out of something that's been happening for a long time. Yes, many people turned their noses at the $500-$600 price tag, but the launch was not as "troubled" as everyone makes it out to be.

It's a given these days that a company will lose money on hardware for a certain amount of time - in fact, they plan on it. It's always played against the money they will make on other items, such as accessories, games, online fees, licensing fees from other publishers, etc.

Generally the system itself will not garner the manufacturer any money until right towards the end of its life-cycle, if at all. As the hardware becomes cheaper to produce, they will drop the retail price in order to entice more purchases, thus making them even more money off of the aforementioned add-ons. This will continue past a console's initial lifespan and part-way in to the next generation.

For Sony and the PS3 this is incredibly crucial as the system is not only carrying their next generation of game software, but is also essentially running as their Blu-ray flagship and their foray in to selling a proposed "multimedia centerpiece." The retail price is actually quite generous vs. their manufacturing costs, and if the system is able to successfully launch their new DVD format, any losses they take on the system will be more than made up for in the long term. It's a gamble, to be sure: their UMD movie format, for example, did not exactly take off running. Fortunately for Sony, they already have two incredibly popular system lifecycles under their belt, and given their huge fanbase, this may turn out to be the right time to take this type of plunge. It just may take a while to resurface. :P

In short, larger installed user-base = mo' money. So they're willing to take a relatively minor loss on the hardware almost perpetually.

I agree with what you're saying, but I think in the short term Sony's learning a lesson: hardware specs don't sell the system, the games do. Look at the Wii... the lower entry price coupled with the awesome library of fun games and the new interface that brings non-gamers to the system means the Wii's are still flying off the shelves.

Sony may eventually make money off the deal, but Nintendo is already raking it in now.

And the blu-ray drive on the PS3 is the biggest problem with the system. Sure, it was a bid to lock people into the Sony standard, but they really could have just sold the system for $300-$400 with the drive as a $300 option and lost less money on the system, while selling a ton more units to expand their sales base for games. Having the blu-ray drive isn't going to make the format widely accepted because people simply aren't buying the PS3 in large enough quantities for it to make a difference. Everyone's waiting for the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo players to come out, simply because no one wants to pick a standard, nor do regular people like to watch moves on their gaming consoles.

We'll see how it turns out. . . in the meantime, I won't be buying a PS3. :lol:

I'll have to take a look but the old wheel might work on the ps3...

if the drive was seperate the developers couldn't be sure what hardware was there. That's one of the major advantages of consoles over PCs. Metal Gear Solid is rumored to use the 50GB format BD.

my little brother has a PS3 and it really isnt as cool as everyone says. just like scott said there really arent that many interesting games and a few the graphics are so good i get motion sick playing them WTF?

With the graphics capabilities a racing game w/ a nice force feedback wheel would be intense but still uber expensive.

sparknotes: its cool but not $600 worth of cool.

Microsoft didn't seem to have a problem offering the HD-DVD drive as an option for the XBox 360.

And if Sony sold a bunch of machines w/o the Blu-Ray then released an awesome game that required it, they'd probably sell a ton of Blu-Ray upgrade drives as well. Anyone else remember how the original Myst game sold millions of CD-ROM drives for PC's?

Some developers are already lamenting the loss of the HD-DVD drive on the xbox360. A few were originally planning on having the huge capacity on one disk and are now going to have to split them up onto multiple DVDs. Its not the end of the world, but now that the machines can display incredibly detailed high-res graphics, the resource files are getting larger than can fit onto one DVD. And as far as I know, the publishers don't want multiple versions of their products shipping and they aren't yet willing (or allowed) to make the games HD-DVD only.

I wouldn't waste my money. Just as I haven't wasted my money on an HD-DVD drive... I'd be happier if they did what you said in the post before, not included the Blu Ray and made the system affordable.

But in a year or two, the cost of producing HD-DVD drives will be 10 times cheaper. Remember when a DVD player cost $800? Only 3 years later you could pick one up at WalMart for $39.95. I expect the same thing to occur for the new generation drives, and then MS can sell their add-on for a profit and drive the sales of that add-on by letting game programmers release HD-only games.

Right, but developers won't be producing xb360 games on hd-dvd - Microsoft won't allow it, because they know that suddenly requiring people to drop $200 on an add-on to play new games is a huge mistake. This is the lesson learned from the failed Sega CD and 32x: while some people may buy it, you've just alienated most of your userbase. So the devs are stuck with standard dvd. I also think that the data transfer rate on the hd-dvd drive would turn out to be restrictive - loading time may be too unbearable for hd-dvd games to really be possible. It's possible that this may change, but not any time soon. By the time hd-dvd is cheap enough for them to try to make that leap, they will have a new system ready for release (MS is holding itself to a very strict 4-year hardware lifecycle). It's most likely that hd-dvd games won't be seen until the next generation.

The larger capacity format that you get by default on the PS3 is one of Sony's big draws for devs. Of course, this is part of the gamble because the higher price point deters people from purchasing the system, which in turn deters publishers from wanting to produce exclusively on PS3.

For example, Capcom has decided to make Devil May Cry a multi-platform title - a pretty big loss for Sony. However, it's looking like other directors, such as Tomonobu Itagaki (Team Ninja) and Hideo Kojima (Konami), are quite enamored with the larger capacity: Ninja Gaiden Sigma is currently exclusive to the PS3, and judging by comments from Kojima regarding the Blu-ray disc capacity, it's still looking like MGS4 will remain exclusive.

My STi in its current (mostly stock - I've only had the game for an evening) incarnation. Photo upload rocks. :D

Your photo just says "Forza 2"

Fixed.

Looks pretty cool... I really don't want to have to get an XB360... tell me what sucks about it, quick!

Why does it look so jagged? No anti-aliasing? That's what that is right? I'm really having a hard time not buying this game.

It... uh ... will look absolutely awful on your 52" TV in 1080p.

56". :p Don't short me 4" man!

it's a 720p shot with no anti-aliasing.

The game looks great at 1080i, though. :)

Scott, I can't really come up with a reason for you to not buy it. . . the racing is better than gt4, but the gameplay (extras, interface, etc.) are not. So it's kind of a toss-up. It is hands down one of the best racing sims available, though. The detail that they put in to the physics is pretty incredible.

Erm. . . it doesn't have any bugeyes. Subaru list: B4 Legacy GT 2.0, 04 STi, 06 STI, 22b, Tommy Kaira M20b, Cusco Advan Impreza. :P

It was kinda funny: my first hour with the game was a total nightmare, because I've gotten so used to the way AWD handles. . .

I picked an RX-7 as my starting car. Me and RWD don't really mix well. :lol:

I'm willing to bet it's not as good as rFactor or GTR2 in the physics department. At least if it's at all like Forza 1, which wasn't even on par w/ GT4 IMO... at least I played Forza 1 for a few minutes, then got all pissed of at how bad it was and went back to GT4 and have yet to go back to Forza.

The biggest problem with forza 2 is that it is not GT4...

Dang I bet it will look SWEET on my 27" CRT.