The Semi-Official PS3 Thread - Page 2

Everyone loves free-market capitalism until someone more enterprising gets to a hot item first.

I think quite a few people say: "more power to them, maybe that will be me next time".

While I don't hold it against anyone trying to make a profit, I'm really glad I'm not one of these people. I feel sorry for the legitimate Playstation fans that their console launch is turning into such a circus.

Bottom line for me: $600 is way too much....Blue Ray is something I neither asked for, nor want!

Everybody keeps quoting the higher end PS3, how about the $500 one?

Still haven't played with one yet, Walmart has it on display but not playable. Need to stop by Target again see if they finally figured out how to turn them on.

I also noticed some of these come with free Blu-Ray movies, but I rather they had one good free game. It's a shame consoles don't come with a good game anymore, unlike Atari and the NES.

That's the one most people are going to buy.

I believe they only account for 20% of supply as well. That comes out to, like, seventeen units at launch.

So much for backwards compatibility:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...JLEnY&refer=us

They just figured this out now?

Interesting. I've only tried a handful of games (Bully, REZ, Phantom Brave, Okami, Einhander, Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Tenchu, and a few others -- basically the first things I grabbed) and haven't had problems. Granted, I haven't had time to play through each one, and since I don't currently have a way to get old saves onto the PS3, I can't jump into the middle of a game. I'd love to get more documentation on what games have problems, and what they are.

Fun with Shortages:

GameStop not getting enough PS3s to fill preorders despite being very conservative with them to avoid this very problem.

And:
Best Buy to offer empty-handed PS3 buyers an Xbox 360 with a Buy 2 Games, Get 1 Free deal.

With all sincerity I wish all of you who intend to get this system (for yourself or as a gift - not to resell) for the holidays the best of luck. I hope the other pre-Xmas shipments are more substantial than launch day looks like it's going to be.

With all sincerity I wish that those of you who obtain this system wise up and put it on Ebay. With so few exclusive launch titles, you can buy yourself a 360 to play the vast majority of the games, then sell the 360 AND buy yourself a second generation manufactured PS3 with your profits, and still come out ahead. Even if you must have a PS3, why not pocket a grand or two, even after purchasing the 360, then buy a system early next year.

So having a PS3 is going to be more of a technophile prestige piece than a gaming console, I guess.

Curb Stomp Me Now, please...wow, that's just fucking sad news that those cats camped out 4 days for nothing. Wonder who made the call.

I went to the link that was in that article, and one guy quit his job while another was using his engagement ring money to buy a PS3. I don't feel sorry for them at all.

I've kind of decided in the past day or two that I'll try to buy one of these PS3's on Friday. I figure I'll drive by CompUSA between 5-6AM. If there's no one there then I'll chill out and do work, otherwise if it looks crowded or something I'll just say screw it and go into work.

Once I get it though, that's when it'll be hard for me to decide if I want to keep it or try to sell it. I've got about $1K I've got saved up for buying an HDTV and about $400 in gift certificate points on my credit card that I can use towards Circuit City, Best Buy or Amazon. I've been dying to get one of those Sony SXRD LCOS HDTV's so if it looks like I could make an extra $4-500 and pick up that TV if I just sell the PS3 I might have to jump at that chance.

Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I'll be getting a PS3 eventually so why not spend the money now. I'm sure they won't be coming out with a hardware revision or price drop for at least a year and a half and I'd be likely to get it before then anyway so what's the point of waiting?

My Best Buy, at this very moment, has a good baker's dozen tents set up with campers in them playing 360s, watching movies and being mocked by EVERYONE inside the store. Seriously, EVERY customer who asked the security guy I was talking to what was going on (which was about 90% of them) made some crack about the guys. Most of the jokes were stupid comments about how they need girlfriends and whatnot, but it did a bit to ameliorate years of baseless Nintendo bashing (I have no beef with legitimate complaints, mind you).

In Japan, PS3s are being sold below or at retail price on auction sites like Yahoo Japan. All the japanese guys looking to clean up by re-selling their consoles online basically got biten right in the ass. The 80,000 PS3s didn't sell out nearly as fast as expected, and the hype seems to have died down pretty fast (in the US PS3s go for US$ 2,300 on eBay, while in Japan you can get the Premium version for 500 bucks).

With RR7 on PS3 looking worse than RR6 on the 360, and all the launch games being underwhelming (but then again, the 360 launch line-up wasn't that much better), things are looking pretty dull in Sony land.

That guy that got 100 PS3s must be crying himself to sleep right now.

That's rather unexpected to me, since I thought Japanese love PS2 and since they were lukewarm to 360 and Xbox, I figure that they'd be all over PS3. I can't see that happening at U.S., though. But then again, I'd never realize that PS3 wouldn't sell that well in Japan.

May want to reconsider CompUSA. They're essentially bundling PS3s with Sony 40"+ HDTVs.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6161716.html

I think we're seeing the first inklings of the Wii's inevitable domination of Japan.

At what PS3 costs, yeah.
I still maintain that SONY has priced itself out of the casual gamer market. Yes,you have the hardcore who are camping out tonight,but that alone is not enough to make a major market sucess of the PS3.

Where did you read that the launch didn't sell out, and that they're selling below retail price?

People on Yahoo Japan Auctions are bidding outrageously high prices to thwart those trying to scalp PS3's.

CRT HDTV owners be aware-- The PS3 downscales 720p games to 480p on incapable TVs. In other words, if your TV does not support 720p (most CRTs don't), you'll be playing 720p PS3 games--like Resistance--in Wii resolution.

That's baaaaad.

Well that rules me out then because my t.v. seems to only support 1080i and for some reason it says in the settings that it(my t.v.) supports 540p as well but what in the hell that means I'm not sure of since I've never heard of that resolution.

I believe it means you'd be playing 720p games in 540p, upscaled from 480p. If that isn't too ridiculously confusing.

....It is mind-boggling to me that the system doesn't output in 1080i. Wow. That means your television's internal upscaler (which is almost certainly a piece of crap unless you have a new/very expensive television) has to do up-rezzing work.

From all the technobabble I read when looking into HDTVs, I do believe that 540p is just what some people call 1080i. The logic and reasons for this have long since faded from what remains of my memory.

Progressive means your TV draws each line twice, interlaced means it draws the lines just once. So 540p and 1080i are both drawing the same amount of lines.

In related news, Holy Shit. I'm one of those backwater bastards whose high-def TV jumps right from 420p to 1080i, and I can't even tell you how pissed I'd be right now if I had just found out that I'd paid two hundred extra dollars for a Blu-Ray drive that's only pumping out the same resolution as my $45 standard DVD player. That's just fucking madness right there. Seriously, what's wrong with Sony? How can they possibly be screwing up every single thing like this?

I am trying to imagine just how mad I'd be if I hooked up the PS3 only to discover that it was outputting a 480p image, and there was nothing I could do about it. I'd return the damn thing, that's for sure.

On a related topic: why the fuck do my two HDTVs jump from 480p to 1080i? Also, why don't I have HDMI, DVI, or VGA? Clearly someone planned this HD thing quite well.

**Damn, the IGN and Gamespot Message Boards are going Defcon 5 over this issue. The "consensus" is that the scaler chip was stripped out to save money. If you attempt to start up Resistance: FOM with a t.v. that doesn't accept 720p, you get an error message and the game outputs in 480p. If your t.v. doesn't broadcast 720p, but accepts the signal, the television upscales the signal to 1080i (which is a crappy, crappy solution as most televisions have godawful internal scaling capabilities).

Apparently the XBox 360 upscales internally from 720p to 1080i and avoids this problem with an upscaling chip (which the PS3 lacks). PS1 and PS2 games also will not be upscaled for this reason.

jesus christ. Sony is continuing to ask...nay...DEMAND that the PS3 fails.

Not doing 1080i is just fucking outrageous. I think gamers have a legitimate reason to be upset.

I've long been a supporter of the Playstation, but reading all the technical difficulties, the steep price, and this latest bullshit with the resolution (seriously. My fucking computer monitors do 1080p. Anyone with an HDTV in five years is going to be able to do 1080p. So much for being a fucking all-in-one), I'm jumping ship. And since the Wii isn't wetting my appetite much, I guess I'll finally be springing for a 360 with an HD-DVD hub.

Hasta lasagna, Playstation. It was very good while it lasted.

Uh, I think you're getting the PS3 launch confused with the Japanese 360 launch.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10449175/


According to the press (and my buds in Japan), the PS3 sold out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6135452.stm

The Japanese online price drop is normal. When the PS2 launched there in 2000 the average Japanese online auction price was $500 while the average U.S. auction price was $850 (I know because I had to buy one online for my boss). So the price differential compared to the U.S. auction sites may seem like a lot but it's right on target for Japan immediately following post launch. What everybody's forgetting is how the Japanese online prices will probably jump up after people who couldn't get one at the U.S. launch will try to get one for Christmas. At least that's what happened with the PS2.

Amazing just how stupid SONY is. It boggles the mind at how dumb and arrogant they have been with the PS3.

Ok, so I'm guessing that means I'd still be playing in 480p with a PS3 though, correct? I know I'm not buying one to play in that resolution. The sad thing is my t.v. has HDMI but only supports 1080i, so no PS3 for me unless they find a solution for the 480p problem. There's just no way I'm paying that much for that kind of resolution. Fuck sony.

Wow, what a fuckjob this is about the scaling. That is just mind-boggling. With the high price of the PS3 Sony is catering to those of us who actually understand resolutions and DEMAND the best HDTV has to offer. Screwing those of us with 1080i TVs is just dumb. My Sammy LCD does 720p so I'd be ok but I'm still pissed at the arrogance of Sony.

It is still amazing to me that Gates and Moore may actually pull this off and beat Sony at their own game. I hope they do, but I really didn't think they would.

I'm sure the PS3 not scaling properly to 1080i is probably just an OS glitch or something like that. Probably the same kind of thing that has been giving the Xbox 360 issues since their fall update for 1080p.

The problem is, as I understand it, getting games that are outputting 720p graphics to correctly scale to 1080i. If a game outputs natively to 1080i there is no problem. However, since RFoM only outputs to a max of 720p, a problem with the software has it instead outputting to 480p and upscaling that.

It sucks and I'm sure it would piss the crap out of me if I only had an HDTV that could handle that but I'm sure it will be fixed relatively quickly with some updated drivers or something.

Regarding the guy who's saying that CompUSA is only bundling PS3's with new 40+ inch HDTV's, that's not true. You can guarantee yourself a PS3 at launch if you buy a 40+" HDTV this week, but I've called the CompUSA I'm planning on going to and they said that they've only had maybe 1-2 people that did that and were expecting to have 15 PS3's on launch.

Since I'm hearing that there are much fewer PS3's going out than expected (supposedly no 20GB ones) I'll probably call them again tonight before they close and see what they say. If they've got some in stock or whatever and there's no line tonight, I'll drive by early tomorrow and try to pick one up.

Also, I doubt that Sony is trying to "screw" anyone. It's just got a ton of stuff going on now and after all the hardware problems and stuff haven't been able to fully QA everything before shipping it out. They just want your money and they're not trying to MAKE you buy a new TV.

They just want you to buy a PS3 and lots of Blu-ray/games so that the format is succesful and the cost of producing discs quickly drops (giving them another advantage over HD-DVD).

The lack of 1080i is a deal breaker for me.

And such is the reason why there isn't a prison rape on record to accurately display how hard Sony should get fucked over this launch.

I wonder how many PS3s purchased tonight will actually be "played". Most will be on ebay by 12:30am.

What's with putting a "Ricky Bobby" DVD in the first units sold? Give us a game dickheads.

Pretty much.

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/ps3-lau...guy-215259.php

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/ps3-lau...ket-215211.php

If I was in charge of Sony, this is not how I would want my flagship product to be launched.

It could work in their favor. This is going to get them a huge amount of press as some super hot ticket item. The fact that so many people are doing this to resell for large amounts of money could just be seen as proof of its pure awesomeness.

Yup.

Plus what are they going to do, shoot the people in the line? Oh wait ...

I guess it beats flooding the market with PS3s and garnering tepid sales.

Every hour that passes, this becomes gospel truth.

That's what I thought, but it's not the case. The reason the XBOX 360 was able to add 1080p through a firmware update was because the 360 includes the scaler chip. The PS3 does not, probably in an attempt at cutting costs.

This means that in order for the PS3 to add features such 1080i upscaling, it has to do it through software, which would be an enormous performance hit. The Insomniac guys in a 37 page thread (I foolishly closed down the link, but this is all over gamespot and ign) basically said "there is no software solution, this is a hardware issue that cannot be fixed, sorry guys".

If your t.v. won't accept a 720p signal, and the game doesn't output 1080i natively, you get an error message and the signal will be 480p. If your t.v. doesn't output 720p, but does accept a 720p signal, your television's most likely godawful internal scaler will blow up the image for your television's signal, which is not an elegant solution.

Oh God, if I see another link to that cartoon I'm going to snap!

I love the fact that NOBODY acutally seems to want this system; they just want that sweet, sweet Ebay mark-up money. I'm gonna laugh my ass off when Ebay becomes so flooded over the weekend that PS3s start selling for near cost. Way to camp out for 36 hours to make fifty bucks, genius.