Second only to the challenger disaster: PS3 launch in Australia

I love this stuff. Playstation 3 launched in Australia last night and I just had to laugh at the coverage. Practically no one came. Stores that opened at midnight shut up shop, a few preorders got picked up, stock filled shelves. I mean, I thought there would be some excitment surrounding the launch, but boy was I mistaken. What a dud.

Some awesome reads:
Australian PS3 Launch - Unmitigated Disaster
Playstation launch is a muted affair
Australian PS3 launch shindig

The launch party of the dodgy new bourbon McKennas (a bourbon for the discerning bogan) I was at last night had a better showing. Bad luck Sony, that will teach you for treating your market like crap. Wii and 360 FTW!

PS3s going for cheap in Japan

In an interesting compliment to an earlier post I made regarding the PS3 in Japan Kotaku is reporting that prices of Sonys new console have been slashed by up to 20% in the electronics district of Japan.

I find this very interesting. It's pretty amazing that this whole perception that the "PS3 would just sell" really is backfiring on Sony. In my opinion its for a couple of reasons:

No Good Games: Sony launched the PS3 with what could only be described as the worst lineup in history. With no good games to purchase people then turned to blue ray media to play on their machines, of which there is none.

The Sony Attitude: Sony have been quoted to say that as gamers we'll buy a PS3 because its a Sony, so it must be good. Bullshit. Show us a good console with good games at a good price and we'll buy it. One interesting quote was from sony saying that people would work 2 jobs to own a PS3. Not likely. This attitude is just alienating and pissing off their market.

Overall I just don't think that (especially for the moment) the PS3 is attractive enough for its price. Could this be the demise of a once great console franchise? Maybe, but I hope not. The competition is what has driven Microsoft and Nintendo to be so innovative with their consoles and services. To lose a major player like Playstation from the mix will mean these companies wont have to try as hard to make themselves stand head and shoulders above the competition.

Still: Xbox 360 FTW ;)

Lost In Translation Tidbit : Electronics

I was half expecting Japan to be way ahead on everything, but it's not really the case. Here are a few points regarding Japans love affair with Consumer Electronics

• Their mobile phones (Keitai) are, until recently, all CDMA. They are switching to 3G now, but all the phones are BRICKS. Noone uses Nokia, no Razor phones, hardly anyone uses Ericsson. They all use these random phones I have never seen. All clamshell style and huge.
• Their phones have awesome features provided by the network. Like GPS, Email (real email), Fast internet etc etc. They even have these little squares of black and white dots on billboards / posters that you can take a shot of with the phone and it automatically opens the website of the advert for you. Pretty neat.
• Wii is everywhere. They Love it. The ads are great too.
• PS3 is NOWHERE. They don't advertise it at all, and the stands at the stores are full of games / hardware but noone seems to be paying much attention. I was expecting saturation bombing of adverts for it and people just going crazy, but I looks like they can't give it away. It is PHYSICALLY HUGE by way. I am talking MASSIVE and it really isn't all that impressive in terms of the demos I have seen.
• As there is no room on the train you don't usually see people working on laptops, but Sharp laptops seem popular. Most people have these little clamshell PDAs which I think can do email.
• While there is heaps of electronic tech, its hard to tell what it does as its all in Japanese, including the markings and labels on buttons / the unit, pretty much rendering any purchase by westerners as useless.
• As I said in a post before, they love their in dash DVD and GPS units.

In general I am suprised that they really aren't that CRAZILY into their gadgets. They do love their phones though.