PS3 in stock?

Yesterday at 3:00pm at my circuit city where i work got a shipment of 5 PS3's.

supprised. we took down our "the PS3 is temporarily out of stock" sign and started telling customers who were shopping for playstation products that we did have them in stock.

at 11:00pm when we closed. we had 4 left.

employees are prohibited from purchasing PS3's at all, and even then we asked employees if they could, would they buy one of the PS3's we had in stock. all but one employee said "no"

there was one customer who was planning on getting a PS3, he was excited and had a bundle of games to purchase... unfortunately those games were just pre-order boxes and the only game he held that was actually a game was Resistance fall of Man.

when we pointed this out.. he had to think.. yes THINK about whether he wanted to continue with the purchase. he did anyway, and bought a pre-order for Oblivion.

does this make sense to anyone at all?

Today, i covered another employee from 8:00am to 5:00pm, we started with 4 PS3's in stock. thinking that since it was Friday, and there are many more customers than on a Thursday, we would be sold out fairly quickly of the few we did have.

we opened at 8:00am and I worked until 5:00pm
when i left, we had 2 PS3's in stock. An astounding 2 PS3's were sold in the 9 hours i worked.
so over the course of 26 hours, we sold 3 PS3's of our 5. thats a total of 17 hours that the store was opened.

now if you view my previous blogs, I'm not a fan of the PS3.. but even I find this very odd.
so to any of you looking for a PS3.. just call your local store (circuit city or not, it doesn't matter) and ask, they may just have one.

Why the PS3 will not succeed.

There is much speculation around why the PS3 will or wont succeed. and I guess I'm going to join in on the bandwagon on how it wont succeed.

a few reasons:
1: Loss of fan-boy Love.
I am a forum poster, I post in gaming forums EVERYWHERE, and I've experienced first handed as forums started out as strong Playstation dominated gamers ruled them. into where the Playstation gamer influence dropped significantly, to such a level where the few Playstation gamers that stayed strong, would start to throw accusations that nothing had changed and that the forums were ALWAYS full of Nintendo/Microsoft fan-boys. not just that, but how individuals that I know personally who I would never dream of owning anything but a Playstation, are outspoken on their dislike of the PS3 and how they are going to get a Wii60.

2: Weak launch to strong opposition
call it what you want, but Sony launched into a war where the opponent has set up camp, has nearly 200 games out, costs about 40% on average less then them, has plenty of units manufactured and sold, and has stolen many of its exclusive must-own titles. and it doesn't appear to get any better anytime soon as developers can earn allot more money by making a game for the Xbox or the Wii than they can cater to a larger audience, and also reduce production costs and time required to make the game.

3: Gimmicky Everything
Blu-ray, I have no need of it and neither do vasts amounts of gamers, infact most games that will be made for the console wont need blu-ray either, hell designers have fit the whole Unreal 3 engine into a 50mb constraint including a full game. and when you realize that digital distribution is in the future for gaming. its hard to imagine downloading a 25gb game when 9gb games offer the same quality, graphics, size and play. Blu-ray is best for watching movies, not games. so if you really want a HD movie player and a game console. then Sony catered right to you. otherwise you are paying extra for something that is unneeded.

4: Same old same old.
there is little difference from the PS3 and the PS2 besides graphics. the online part is better... but only slightly, its quite underwhelming when compared to Xbox Live. The user interface is also different, but mimics the PSP where it worked (kinda) on a full console it feels static, and confusing. forcing you to go through drop down menu after menu to find what you need rather than using the whole screen to show you everything you could do. sure it looks nice, but it gets boring quickly. and yes, it does have motion sensitive controllers, that is different from the PS2.. but the games that are using it use it are using it in a half-assed way so that its rarely critical to the game (though the flying games seem to be the only games that have done it right, kudos to them!)

5: Few exclusives.
The PS2 lived on exclusive games and content. there were many games that it got that the xbox or Gamecube never saw. but many developers are saying that with the increased cost of game development, making a platform exclusive game is risky business. this translates into the big 3rd party games will most certainly be made available for all the consoles. and some 2nd party companies will become 3rd party companies making games for everyone. also with the increased difficulty to make PS3 games over 360 games, its more unlikely that an exclusive for the 360 will be ported to the PS3 as that time could be better spent making a new game for both consoles.

6: Rushed
despite the numerous delays, and the launch games that have had an extra year of development. the bugs are still many and extreme, the many launch problems with broken/buggy PS3's and extremely small shipments all point to a launch that was too early. in fact at least while the 360 came out it was the most powerful gaming machine on the market for awhile, until the very powerful Core 2 duo game out for PC's with the GeForce 8800. But the PS3 isn't even that fast compared to the even newer Core 2 Quad and a GeForce 7900. so if they had waited even longer the hardware would have been even more outdated.

7: No advantage over 360
Not hardware, software, graphically, game-play, features, there is not one thing that i can see that the PS3 can do that the 360 cant. this is quite surprising as the PS3 has had a MUCH longer development time than the 360, and launched a year later. still this white box manages to STILL pack a punch a year later to this mammoth of a console.

I know I've said allot. but I stand behind it. its going to raise some anger and I will certainly draw some fan-boys flame. but overall I do not see the PS3 being that big of a heavy hitter as the PS2 was. hopefully they can get it right for the PS4.

Wii Definition Notes

My official nintendo branded wii component cables came in the mail the other day. and I believe they are worthy of note. I plug them in, and change the settings to 480p and look for the differences.

despite what everyone says, the most noticeable difference in the games I believe is actually the much improved color and contrast. the brights are brighter, and the shadows are darker. while yes, the textures are much more highly detailed I can say that 480p while better than 480i, isn't THAT much of a step up. the clarity and precision of everything is much higher and better looking, but at 480p its also allot easier to notice the flaws as well. like a lack of Anti-aliasing effects on Wii games.

its known that a good way to make low resolution games look amazing, is to use Anti-aliasing. the Gamecube and Xbox could do this, the PS2 couldn't, thats what caused all the jaggies. and unfortunately Legend of Zelda doesn't use this technology (but Wii sports does)

with the component cable is much easier to notice this. but I emphasize on the bad points of this cable even though the good points are much more note worthy. overall the cable is worth it. and after a few more months I'm sure Anti-aliasing will become a requirement and standard practice for all Wii games so they can look good with component cables.

on a side note, I no longer work in retail, I put in my 2 week notice at Circuit City today. so while no longer work in retail, it holds no barriers against my knowledge of products. there is no such thing as "insider information" when it comes to retail.

Halo 3 and Graphics in games

So the Halo 3 Trailer is out, not just that, but the Public Beta is having sign ups, and the Halo 3 Website changed. I cant help but feel that Halo 3 is on the mind today.

When halo is brought up in conversation, many people mention how it looks amazing, or how the graphics made the game. and in viewing the new trailer, I realized that I don't feel the same way. I would be happy with a Halo 3 that had just higher-res textures and slightly-more-polly models. I've always played the game for its game-play and multi-player, not for its graphics, which were just icing on the cake.

if improved visuals makes the game play better then I'm all for it, but for most games that isn't the case. I don't want to have to pick out one blur from another blur because the lighting effects are over the top. I don't want to have to say "the water is awesome, but the frame rate sucks" really because I love the way the game is played.

im not going to defend halo, im not going to say its the best game ever, im not going to say that everyone should love and own halo and an xbox 360. I realize that Halo doesn't fit to everyone's tastes. for example, I HATE Kingdom Hearts, but I NEVER say its a bad game, mainly because its very popular, and just because I hate it, doesn't mean its a bad game. I guess thats how I would define a fan boy, a person who tries to enforce their opinion onto others without that persons feelings in mind.

anyway back on the Wii front.
I'm about 4/7th's of the way through Zelda, its an amazing game, but i'm starting to have a few little tiny irks about the design. firstly I'm having a bit of a problem of the lack of side quests and enjoyable mini-games. it seems that heart pieces are starting to take place of a lot of prizes for mini games and I'm not really finding that they are worth the effort. I guess I was hoping for more of a game like Oblivion, with a huge world and tons of side-quests and plenty of weapon upgrades with a heavy Zelda theme.

and while Twilight princess does take a lot from OoT, it doesn't really almost stand on its own. its borderline linear. and I thought I would NEVER call a Zelda that. I'm not saying its a bad game, its an amazing game, just it could have been better. I guess I'm starting to agree with that 8.8/10 score. Ill sum up my feelings about the game when I finish it.

Wii wait in line

Ive already got a Wii, so why am I out in the freezing December 3rd cold to get a Wii?

Well my dad, who loves my Wii, was telling HIS friends about how I got my Wii and how much the whole family enjoys it. my mom, and dad frequently play Wii Tennis. my brother enjoys a few other Wii games, and I enjoy my Legend of Zelda.

My fathers good friend asks if there is any way I could get a wii for him, so he can give it to his son for his birthday/christmas present. "For $50 ill do it"

$50 isn't allot of money, its one game, and yet I'm out here in the cold waiting AGAIN for a console I already own. its not so much money that I profit exponentially like someone could on E-bay, and I'm doing it for a family friend.
When I have kids, I'm going to have their friends wait in line for me.

The funny thing was, the store also had 3 PS3's in stock, and not a single person in line wanted one.

Welcome to Gamedom

I'm an avid gamer, and I've worked in retail for awhile now. I'm mostly a PC gamer, but I do enjoy a console game or two. This is my first, and only blog, enjoy.

So what qualifies me for making judgments on video games, hardware, and the industry in general? well not too much, I do work in retail, and I do know how things go behind the scenes at stores before a console launch.

For example, this last few weeks my store has been preparing for the PS3 and Wii launch, and I can say that it has been insane. Hundreds of calls a day, to each department of my store asking if we have the Wii or PS3 in stock.

And I have to tell them each and every time:
"Sunday, the launch schedules are for Sunday."

If you keep up with the gaming news, you will find a very consistent and obvious pattern, every Sunday since launch of the Wii, there are more to be sold in stores. This is how I got my Wii, last Sunday (the 26th of November) I waited outside of my local Best Buy for about a half-hour and got a Wii.

As for the PS3, well its going to be much harder to get one.
so generally I can say this, if you want a Wii, its not as hard as it seems, all you need to do is get to your local retail store this Sunday morning about 2 hours before it opens (they will hand out vouchers at about 1 hour before it opens) and you got yourself a Wii.