On Aug. 16, Sony announced that the PlayStation 3, which was $600 at launch, had dropped to $250. While this is fantastic news for those who haven’t purchased one for themselves, this gamer can’t help but wonder if there are some other issues at hand. You’ve probably noticed that Sony has been developing 3-D televisions. Their commercials certainly flaunt the idea of taking the experience of the movies right to your home. While 3-D is the newest gimmick at the movies, the idea of wearing glasses while watching television just seems strange.
In addition to that, not all channels will support 3-D right from the get-go. The PlaysStation 3 supports, for certain games, the ability to play games in 3D. “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception,” “Resistance 3” and “Killzone 3” are some worth mentioning. I believe this price drop was Sony’s tactic to sell the system, ergo selling the games and thus selling more televisions in the process.
But this is a video game blog so you want to know what the CEOs of big companies, such as Electronic Arts, think about 3D gaming. John Riccitiello went on record by saying that “Frankly, we have not seen a big uptake for 3-D gaming. We haven’t seen a big uptake for 3-D televisions in the home, at least not yet. And we’re not here trying to drive the market; we’re here to react to what customers are looking for.”
It seems that local 3-D has not yet proved profitable quite yet. This is cemented by the fact that Nintendo’s last portable, the Nintendo 3DS had poor sales at launch. The 3DS’s main feature is that you are able to play games, with a slider on the side of the screen, in 3-D or non-3-D. Not only was the platform 250 clams, but there were also reports that the Nintendo 3DS was causing headaches and left fellow gamers feeling ill. Nintendo followed up these poor sales, in July, reporting that the Nintendo 3DS would drop in price to about $169.99, which would become effective August 12th. The way they would compensate people that bought it on launch and who are probably steaming from this news is that they would receive 20 free games, from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) days, from Nintendo. Personally, I’d rather take the $80 difference in the price of the 3DS.
