Friday, November 17, 2006

Death of a PS3

This video is quite funny. It is rated NSFW (Not Safe For Work) only because of the expletives uttered by the crowd and the guy at the end of the video.

On a busy street, a couple of guys from SmashMyPS3.com take a newly purchased Playstation 3, the first day they were available, and destroys it in front of the fanboys waiting in line to buy one. Some of the guys were there 18 hours, and apparently this was the first, or one of the first, purchased that day.

The video is here: http://www.planetboredom.net/video.php?id=2944

Oh, and Michael, if you watch this can you tell me if this happened outside the Eaton Centre in Toronto? It looks very familiar, but at the same time kind of alien...

2 comments:

Michael Skeet said...

You are absolutely right, guy: the video was shot at Eaton Centre/Dundas Square. For what that's worth.

Question: is this just a clever marketing ploy on the part of Sony, or is their manufacturing really this screwed up?

Another question: why do I care? (Trick question: I don't.)

Unknown said...

You are absolutely right, guy: the video was shot at Eaton Centre/Dundas Square. For what that's worth.

I thought that's where it was! The cars all had license plates on the front, too, which is fairly rare here in the U.S. But I wasn't sure, as it looked a bit different from what I remembered. I guess it's true, you can't go home again.

Question: is this just a clever marketing ploy on the part of Sony, or is their manufacturing really this screwed up?

You mean the stunt, or the lack of game machines?

The lack of game machines is true, and isn't a clever marketing ploy. The same thing happened with the X-Box, the PS2, and will happen this week with the Nintendo Wii. It's not really a "screw up". I imagine it costs a lot of money to tool a factory to build something (I have an idea of how much work went into retooling a GM plant for a new car model). There just aren't enough game consoles for the demand right now, just the same as what happened with Cabbage Patch dolls and Tickle Me Elmos. They could have ramped up production, but that would have been costly. That's an option only if you run the risk of losing a lot of sales of orders aren't fulfilled.

Besides, there are reasons not to pump out a lof of units for a new piece of electronics. Microsoft had a big problem with X-Box 360s dying within a year, causing them to introduce a replacement program.

Logan desperately wants a PS3. He doesn't quite understand economics yet, and how it would take him over two years worth of allowance to afford one.