Console Wars: The Clone Wars

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


"where do you find the time to play so many games?"

I don't.



I've only played ~5 of those to a significant extent.

[Nikolai]

Where do you find the money?

[DrSpike]

Gaming is an inexpensive form of entertainment.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Where do you find the money?

Cheap Ass Gamer for deals, and i do have a few used games from gamestop.

And I am almost 30, married with a working spouse and no kids and vices like no smoking and excessive drinking

[Nikolai]

All console games from the current generation cost 500-600 NOK over here. 1 USD is 5.7 NOK atm. Used to be slightly above 8. I don't know if the prices is much lower over at you, but I call that money when we talk 18 games... Especially with an expensive wife.

[Asher]

I've got about 20 360 games too, I think.

Compared to 3 PS3 games: Folklore (the best of the bunch, underrated), Resistance (decent), and Motorstorm (garbage).

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Nikolai
All console games from the current generation cost 500-600 NOK over here. 1 USD is 5.7 NOK atm. Used to be slightly above 8. I don't know if the prices is much lower over at you, but I call that money when we talk 18 games... Especially with an expensive wife.

yeah, those prices are quite high then. new games here in the us are usually 60 for 360/ps3 games and 50 for wii.

Deals are usually easily had if you wait long enough. I jumped in (with a free 360) in oct, so there were quite a few older games that had been reduced. And during dec games like cod4 and AC were frequently sold for 38$, blue dragon for 30, forza 2 dropped like a rock after the bundles were released.

[DrSpike]

I rarely buy games on release - Halo3 and Mass Effect were the only ones, both £35 here.

Most games you can pick up for £25 after a month or so - I did this for CoD4, Bioshock & Forza 2. My other games were £10-£20 used.

Games are pretty cheap in my view. Even the full price games are competitively priced compared to other entertainment.

[lord of the mark]

I didnt expect to start a discussion of how many games people have gotten, I made that snark because some otehr folks tend to ask ME that whenever I talk about a bunch of games in one thread.

For the record, in the period since the 360 has been out, ive only gotten 8 games - all for PC - coincidentatly I got my current desktop about the time 360 came out, fall of '06. In that period Ive purchased BG2, RoN, The Sims, CK, RCT3 and Age of Sail and and received throug freecycle HL and an old EA Hockey game. So yes, gaming has been pretty a pretty good value for me.

[DrSpike]

'tis a crazy world

An Xbox Premium is cheaper than the Wii now here by a significant margin, and the Elite is not that much more.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


yeah well this was about the NPD results. The NPD SW results paint the best possible picture for the 360, since its not only their best market, but its the top ten and favors the block busters that appeal to its core demo, not the scattered casual and niche games for say the Wii.

To do a real overall picture of the global console market would require regular and repeated attention not so much to Japan (where no one has ever really expected the 360 to be a player, and the real story has been the strength of the Wii, IIUC) but especially the European market. And we just dont have the traffic to keep up such a discussion.

And the PS3 is now selling more than the 360 in the US for the last two months in a row.

Nintendo is doing much better than both, but it is an oblique competitor to the other two at most.

[Asher]

Until the ~third week of February the 360 was still short on stock. Despite this, the 360 had its best February ever.

PS3 sales were buoyed by the Bluray news in Jan/Feb.
Xbox sales were hurt by shortages.

It's a perfect storm for the PS3 to slightly outsell the 360 for those months. But it's not indicative of anything long-term, anyone with a slightest clue about the industry knows that.

That's not even mentioning the fact that the 360 is basically still at its launch price 2.5 years later, while the PS3 had massive pricecuts already to try to become competitive.

[DrSpike]

The 360 is nothing like at its launch price here. I bought mine a year ago (some time after launch, when it had already come down in price) and you can get one for over a £100 cheaper these days.

[asleepathewheel]

I'm expecting a domestic pricecut prior to gtaiv, a massive pr campaign by ms, and april npd showing that all the ps3 gains for the first quarter erased in one month. The gains of the ps3 over the 360 have been rather insignificant in the US.

[Asher]

Originally posted by DrSpike
The 360 is nothing like at its launch price here. I bought mine a year ago (some time after launch, when it had already come down in price) and you can get one for over a £100 cheaper these days.

That has more to do with the US dollar than anything else.

The 360 is $50 cheaper now than at launch for the same box (2.5 years).

PS3 has been on the market for 1.5 years now and has dropped from 499/599 to 399.

$100/$200 in 1.5 years vs $50 in 2.5 years...

The PS3 had its recent cut, the 360 will get its soon. Sony probably won't cut it any time soon since it's still losing a ****load of money...