Why the PS3 Slim matters to current PS3 owners
I’ve been a PlayStation 3 owner for almost two years now. I’m pleased with my PS3’s performance. Despite its frequent use, my console has never failed me so far. When official word of the cheaper PS3 Slim came out, I didn’t leap for joy or congratulate Sony. After all, they don’t pay for my salary or put food on my table.
In other words, I didn’t care. Why should I? I already have one, and as people have belatedly discovered, it’s great.
As days pass and more news of the PS3 Slim assault my RSS feeds, I begin to realize that the PS3 Slim’s onslaught really does matter to existing PS3 owners. Not immediately, at least, but it would eventually affect us. Here’s why:
Notice anything about the sales figures? Sure, it may merely be a massive sales spike, but considering the PS3 Slim’s cheaper price point, there’s a pretty good chance it’s never going to sell less than the original (i.e. more expensive) PS3. That’s a reasonable assumption, right?
Think about how this sales growth is going to affect the PSN population. Xbox 360 owners bemoan the glut of foul-mouthed tweens in Xbox Live. While the PSN has its share of obnoxious players, it’s relatively quieter here. Imagine what would happen to our Killzone 2 multiplayer sessions when the same foul-mouthed tweens get a hold of the cheaper PS3 Slim.
If the Slim’s sales boom sustains for the duration of this generation, the PS3 could end up in the second or (heaven help us) top spot in the “console wars.” When more people avail of a service, there would naturally be more cheaters, more foul-mouthed tweens, more trolls, and more griefers. Again, I’m not saying the PSN is devoid of such characters but because of this surge, expect to see more.
Is this is the price we’ll pay for Sony’s success? I really hope not.
Image credit: Penny Arcade
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September 9th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
How about a system to ban the foul mouthed idiots.
Strange article to hope Sony doesnt sell more just to save us some annoyances online.
As long as the game has a mute player option it will never ever be a problem for me. The more players the merrier, means more available games and a better choice on the M.A.G. servers
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Mike Reply:
September 9th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
The mute player option won’t really work since there’s still text. We haven’t even talked about the cheaters yet!
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September 9th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I too share this fear. I started out on xbox because it was cheaper and had certain sessions on xbox live that were borderline unbearable. After a dispute with xbox live over their shady billing practices which cost me close to 100 bucks I switched over to PS3 and have been in gaming bliss ever since.
My hope, however, is that most of the foulmouthed tweens with stick to xbox live for their multi-platform titles to boost their gamerscore.
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September 9th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Im first you fuckwads.
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September 9th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
This was a funny read but there is some truth to it.
The PS3 has always been more expensive than its counterparts and thus appealed to an older or more educated audience (coz let’s face it uneducated people don’t have that kind of money). Now that the PS3 is finally becoming affordable the younger, uneducated “fuckwads”(as you so eloquently put it) will gain access to this hardware and become all the more present in the daily life of PSN. Games like KZ2 will be overcome with a wave of tea-bagging, profanity spewing tweens with ADHD. Home will become even more crowded with an even more homophobic, sexist and perverted populous.
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September 9th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
The big releases will suffer from foul-mouthed tween attacks, but there will always be the games with the smaller but more dedicated and serious userbases that will be unappealing to jackassery so commonly seen (or, rather, heard) in the big LIVE blockbusters like Halo, and to a lesser extent, on the PSN in games like Call of Duty 4.
Some examples of smaller, more dedicated userbases I’ve experienced are with Team Fortress 2 on the 360 and Unreal Tournament III on the PS3. There were very few toolboxes that ruined games with idiocy in those games. Another is Metal Gear Online on PSN. Little 11-year old Bobby was too tired after school to wade through the irritating Konami and Game ID sign-ins and fortunately left this game alone so I could enjoy it. Usually people in MGO weren’t morons, and occasionally they even had mics and wanted to work as a team! Wow!
The common belief is that the larger the userbase, the better the online experience, but I’ve found that just the opposite is actually true.
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Mike Reply:
September 9th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Erm, I’d have to disagree with you on MGO. That place reeks with griefers that enjoy attacking their own teammates. Egad.
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September 9th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Dude thats aloooot of if’s
just go smoke a joint or something
cause youre logic is kinda filled up with paranoia
or more like xboxtweenaphopia
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September 9th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Uhm, what about the great amount of new games we’ll get for the PS3, because of this skyrocketing sales rate? I think that’s something to consider!
Sony will eventually also look further to the PS3 instead of focusing on the PS2, that is still a bestseller.
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Mike Reply:
September 9th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
You mean the shovelware prevalent in the Wii and PS2 is finally coming to the PS3? Wow, I can’t wait.
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September 9th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Isn’t there also a good side on the slim?
How bigger the market share is of PS3 the more exclusive we can get =D (3th party)
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September 9th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
True, but those “bad” guys are just small percent of the total number of players. And the more players are out there, the better!
Plus, I’m totally sick now in a games shops, where I’m looking at the single small stand of PS3 games, just between 10 meters HUGE stands full of XBox and Wii titles. Even Nintendo DS has more titles!
And btw: I’m also VERY happy with my ol’ 80Gb console — for me it is prettier than the [not-so-]“slim”.
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September 9th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I think it’ll be better than on Xbox Live because with Live, everyone gets a headset. For those annoying folks on PSN, not all of them will have headsets because they might not want to buy one (at least not yet). There will be more, but not to the point of the “Live” experience, where you pay to deal with annoying and offensive people.
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Mike Reply:
September 9th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Good point on PSN being free, and that people actually have to pay for XBL to deal with obnoxious folks. I sure hope you’re right though–that it won’t be as bad as XBL.
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September 9th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
There are lots of fowl mouthed teens and adults on COD 4 on the PS3 and also on SOCOM. thus just means more. personally I’m happy fr Sony with the release of the PS3 Slim and cutting the price it was actually hard to actually see a great system sinking under Nintendo and the evil empire Microsoft (hate their customer support). But now the sinking ship has fixed it broken boards and bailing out the water. Now all they have to do is get some more great ads, and do like Microsoft did with Halo 3 they need to get a drink out for GT5, and God Of War III. Maybe bundle the re-release GOW I and II with the slim this holiday season so it get new gamers interested in that title so they want to buy GOW III.
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Mike Reply:
September 9th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Like I said, I don’t really care about Sony’s rank in the console wars.
That said, I admit that a part of me wants to see Microsoft fail utterly because of its annoying domination of the OS market.
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September 9th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Block them and report them to sony. Easy as pie and hopeful sony will ban them.
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September 10th, 2009 at 2:04 am
The spike is largely due to the fact that people knew about the ps3slim and held off purchasing the regular version. I would expect a decline in the coming year with this number. Xbox 360 and Wii have already gotten most of their marketshare, and will continue to sell and probably the pace that it has been for the last couple of years. While the ps3slim will no doubtedly increase sony’s marketshare, until they figure out how to make a successful online community, it will always play a 2nd fiddle. Wii gets around this online community by playing off its “Party” console atomosphere, people physically get together to play the Wii. While no doubtedly a powerful system, this is what is holding sony back this generation.
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September 10th, 2009 at 7:12 am
u guys are a bunch of sony and xbox fanboys both systems are great personally ive had a ps3 since the relase and ive become accustomed to it and the fact that the ps3 is amazing but u gotta think to urselves both systems have there ups and downs i personally like the 360s dashboard over the ps3s like xbox focuses more on wat the gamers want while sony focuses on building up there systems which isnt a bad thing im just saying u guys just choose a system and be happy i love the ps3 but they need to come out with better games like i know mag ff13 and gow3 and uncharted 2are all comin out and from wat ive seen there fucking amazing and exclusive whys the ps3 is dominating the 360 which is a good thing and i do think the slim will sell enough to bring the ps3 back on top
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September 10th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Troll story. Stupid uninformative and solely posted to troll for fanboys. Bad journalism.
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Mike Reply:
September 10th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Relax, it’s a blog. It’s not supposed to be a news story.
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September 16th, 2009 at 2:25 am
Hi, Can i get a one small photo from your site?
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Mike Reply:
September 16th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Which one?
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September 19th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Have a nice day
Pett
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