Valve Co-Founder, "PS3 is a total disaster"
 

WOW is all I can say. I can't believe any game company would come out this harsh at a console maker.

http://www.planetxbox360.com/index.p...ails/show/1205

Sooooo not surprised to read this.

Why is that? I have never heard, not that I ever paid much attention, from Valve and Sony having a conflict. The way he said they need to just scrap it, I mean, come on, scrap the PS3 they just released??? There has to be more to this than just a developer not liking the system, but even then isn't there some kind of competitive etiquette that would keep you from just trashing something that bad? If there is something between Valve and Sony, what is it?

It's not surprising because Newell has always been very anti-console. More surprising is how positive he is about the 360 rather than how down he is on the PS3.

I dunno. That's a pretty big statement with absolutely no supporting facts. Perhaps in the interview, he goes into details that support this opinion, but to just call a console a "disaster" is absurd, especially this early into its life cycle. He comes across as a total a-hole and idiot in my book, at least he does if that's really all he had to say.

And where does he say anything positive about the 360 at all?

Yet Half-Life: Orange Box will be released on PS3....

Sounds a bit iffy to me.. I mean where was he on this a year ago. Specs and dev kits have been around for some time. It's almost jumping on the sony hate band wagon I would say. They did announce HL2 + team fortress for ps3/360 not that long ago so why suddenly start complaining now?

... and obviously there's no way that his idea of scrapping the PS3 has even a hint of commonsense in it. Imagine the backlash from developers, early adopters, retailers, the media. Sony would never recover to sell a PS3 mark 2.

Realistically it would have been nice if they'd shipped the ps3 with a normal dvd drive ($200+ cheaper?), but too late now.

News Alert: He can dislike the PS3 and Valve (and the publisher) can still release on the PS3.

I was thinking, why are we down on Sony because they have ample supplies of their product so people can just walk in and pick one up?

Maybe because Sony released an expensive system with no games that people want to play? Not having a MGS, GT, FF or GTA type system seller game at launch was Sony's biggest mistake and now they're paying for it.

Since when has a sony console had a MGS, GT, FF, or GTA at launch or in the first year for that matter?

I think he just doesn't like programming on the thing, most developers don't.

They haven't but when the PS2 came out there was only Dreamcast. Madden alone was enough to sell out systems everywhere. Same with PS1. They really didn't have any direct competition at the time of launch. Now with 360, it's a whole other story because you can get a system which offers the same games/quality for much less.

That's about as big of a spin-job as I've ever seen.

They only have ample supply because the system isn't selling at all.

Yet the numbers show otherwise. I wonder why that is?

Now I realise and accept that the system fell far below expectations, and that right now it isn't for everyone, but does anybody truly and honestly believe that it won't be the largest selling system globally in a few years?

I'm sure many believe that it won't be the largest, but it'll definitely be competitive.

I personally think it'll dominate, but not until the first few price drops are through.

I don't believe it will be, at least not until the price goes below $300, which shouldn't be for at least 2-3 years. Just because the PlayStation has been dominant for two generations is no guarantee they will be in the future. Look at what happened to Atari, Sega, and Nintendo.

Another problem, of course, is that Sony was betting on Blu-Ray becoming dominant, thus causing the price of the drives to fall because of economies of scale. There's a real doubt that this will happen.

Not in this interview, but in others Newell has been surprisingly positive about the 360.

I think a lot of people feel that it won't be the largest selling system.

I'm not spinning anything, I'm just asking a question. I haven't seen a Wii in a store...ever. So that automatically makes it a success? I just don't understand why a store having it in stock where people can actually buy it means it's a failure.

I absolutely believe that, and have no reason to believe otherwise. The system simply does not appear to be above and beyond anything else on the market, and Sony's not going to dominate on name alone.

The numbers don't at all show otherwise. They show that Nintendo is kicking the everloving crap out of the PS3.

The only reason it IS available all over the country is because demand is virtually non-existent. PS3s already sit for days at a time on shelves. It'd be one thing if they were selling, and being consistently replenished, but that's not happening - they're actually staying on shelves. That's why it's - thus far - a failure.

Considering the amount of Wiis that were shipped, and the widespread belief that you'd be able to walk in and easily get a Wii BECAUSE of the high volume of shipments - I'd say the Wii is a smashing success thus far.

Have to agree with him (other than the scrapping comment which is just stupid). Sony has done pretty much everything they can to fuck up the PS3.

Overpriced. Shitty launch lineup. Tiny launch supplies that prevented selling them when hype would have had them fly of shelves, now hype has died down and stock is sitting on shelves.

They are going to lose a ton of 3rd party exclusives as with development costs developers aren't going to be able to turn a profit on the PS3 user base until it gets MUCH larger, and that isn't going to happen until they have a price drop and a killer game like Final Fantasy XIII or MSG4 come out.

I don't see them catching MS or Nintendo in the sales race this gen, which is shocking to me given how dominant the PS2 was in terms of Sales and number/diversity of great exclusive games.

The Wii has sold a ton more units that the PS3. It is flying off store shelves as fast as they can get them out there.

There have been fewer PS3s shipped to stores, and they are already sitting on shelves not being bought as demand has pretty much died as it has no systems seller games and costs $500-600.

People don't want to pay a $200 premium over the $300-400 X-box 360 for a console with less killer games to play right now, or a $250-350 premium over the Wii with its hype garnering controller, Wiisports and Zelda.

Wii still sold out everywhere... not so for PS3

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070116/...eogames_ps3_dc



More than half of a group of surveyed stores had Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 in stock, while Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s new Wii was sold out, an analyst said on Tuesday in a report signaling demand for the market leader's new console may be soft.

"Our channel checks yesterday of 52 retail stores, from boutiques to big-box retailers, showed that 28 of the 52 stores had PS3 consoles in stock, while none had Wii consoles in stock," American Technology Research analyst Paul-Jon McNealy said in the research note.

He added that those stores with PS3s in stock typically had units numbering in the low single digits, with only one major retailer having 60-plus machines in stock.

McNealy said availability in stores of PS3s, which are more expensive than Wiis, does not necessarily indicate slack demand and that he would continue to monitor PS3 inventories closely.

Sony spokesman Dave Karraker said the company is airlifting more than 100,000 systems into the United States every week, which is why units can be found at retail.

"It isn't because demand has weakened, it is because we have kept the supply pipeline moving," Karraker said.

New video game consoles tend to be in very short supply for months after their release as demand for the latest new machines outweigh manufacturers' ability to turn them out.

Supplies of Sony Corp.'s PS3 have been limited in the weeks since its mid-November launch and units sitting on store shelves could indicate weak demand for the powerful new machine, which boasts cutting-edge graphics and the company's Blu-Ray high-definition DVD player.

By comparison, shortages of Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, released in mid-November 2005, lasted well into early 2006.

Nintendo Co. Ltd. sold 604,200 Wiis in the United States in December, topping Sony's PS3 sales of 490,700. Sales of the Xbox 360, which has been available for a year longer than the PS3 and Wii, hit 1.1 million in December, retail market research firm NPD said last week.

Sony last week said it shipped 1 million PS3s to North America by the end of 2006, hitting its target by diverting some units from Japan. The high-end version of the console retails for $600 in the United States.

The Japanese company, which saw its PlayStation 2 dominate the last console cycle, said on Tuesday it had shipped 1 million PS3s to Japan and that global shipments reached 2 million in about two months after the launch, compared with its original target of hitting the figure by the end of December.

The PS3 launch was beset by manufacturing delays and speculation is rising the company will fall far short of its 6 million global shipment target by March.