Why Playstation 3 Is Not Relevant

The playstation 3 was also unveiled, but despite its superior technology, it is not going anywhere. The PS3 is likely, at its earliest, to be out next spring, or later in certain markets-- by which they very well may mean the US. The XBox360 on the other hand will be out six to eight months earlier and in time for the critical holiday season. Unless sales of the system completely bomb, Xbox360 will have a great hold on the market long before the PS3 comes out.

What could happen:
If the xBox360 is not backward compatible to older xbox games, customers may simply wait for the PS3. Nintendo made this mistake with the gamecube and they are now struggling even to stay in the console market.

Poor quality manufacturing of the xbox360 may also hold back buyers. Early purchased xbox's had a high rate of hard drive failure, burning some customers who bought their systems in the beginning. The problem was identified as coming from a Mexico based factory and corrected, but not before angering many customers. Rumors of a repeat may not be so good for early xbox360 sales.

PS3's Failures:
PS3 is including Blu-ray disc technology. The Blu-ray disc is one proposed format to replace the DVD, and can hold more data, meaning larger games, and more intesnse graphics. But since there is no standard DVD replacement yet, including blu-ray is risky, especially if the PS3 isn't coming out for another year. Sony likely sees this as a way to push their priority format of the blu-ray over the HD-DVD. But then again, its a similar tactic sony used to push its Memory stick format over flash drives: the Memory stick lost that war too.

While the hardward is impressive on the PS3, it no doubt will also be expensive. Console makers often sell the system at a loss or very small profit margin hoping to make up for the difference in selling games. But since Playstations best known game--Grand Theft Auto-- is no longer under contract to be playstation exclusive, there is no killer game that will pay off the cost of the hardward. And if projections are right, new games will cost as much as $65 each, up from $50. The higher cost of production of High Def games will eat into profits while at the same time consumers will be buying fewer games because of the higher cost.

Meanwhile, Sony is a hardware maker, not a software developer. While it seems some aspects of the PS3 may attmept to do what the xbox360 does in terms of connecting household media, no doubt sony is going to have some problems doing this. MS software such as windows is tempermental. We don't even think MS can tame their own operating system to smoothly integrate the Xbox360 with home computers, so we have no confidence in Sony to do so.

Things to Look forward to:
But becuase Sony is a hardware maker, and above all, a gadget company, the many USB ports on the PS3 will hopefully be useable with other devices. For instance, plug your sony cybershot camera into the PS3, view a slide show. Plug your song digital video camera into the PS3, watch your movies. Plug your sony MP3 player into the PS3, listen to music. Sony has already said the PSP will also work seamlessly with the PSP. Of course, again, don't expect the iPod to play nicely with the PS3. And as for your kodak digital camera, your HP photo printer, and your LG video camera, those too will probably be banned by the sony police.

MS has said that their software will sell the xbox360: online offerings, integrated media control, ect. Sony it seems is making itself to be a game system first, everything else second. The trouble for sony is that the game market is changing. There have been few improvements in games or new game genres in recent years. Cinema like game play and graphics have essentially already arrived. Both xbox360 and PS3 promise to take things to the next level with High Definition television. But both with be roughly comparable in visual effects; the only thing that will set the systems apart are the additional services. Since pong debuted almost three decades ago, game designers have been pushing hardward to produce better graphics, and nearly every other year games with increasingly stunning visuals have appeared. But now games are very near naturalistic, camera like graphics. Better visuals are not going to sell games.

UPDATE:
The XBox360 will be Backward Compatible paving the way for MS to completely wipe the competition from the map. Buy stock in High Definition televisions manufacturers now.

UPDATE No. 2:
This Article suggests that the xbox360 would be compatible with the iPod, but not the PS3. But since Sony has This Awful Thing, we doubt PS3 would be compatible with an iPod, even if certain salespeople made the claim now. And in either case, unless MS was planning on producing a firmware crack for the iPod, its not in their best interest to open xBox360 up to the iPod, since they keep pushing their own media player and MP3 players. While there is a Rumor suggesting that PS3 will work with the iPod, neither sony nor apple have ever been very good at playing with others.