PS4 NOT backward compatible with PS3

[Hielkenator]

A business that only cares about money? That's the first I've heard of this zany idea

Some people think consoles are made exclusively for THEM, it not about programmers anymore either.
None of the programmer in early 80's made profit.
Offcource bc is a relative new thing, homeconsoles have only been around for about 40 years ( in a completely different form, not even remotely mainstream.) BC is and will always be a marketing trick.

 

[kristianity77]

People saying that the 360 succeeded because it had backwards compatibility with the original xbox need their heads looking at. I cant find where I read it but Microsoft a couple of years ago stated that out of all the 360s out in the wild, only 2% of users had played an original xbox title, on their 360s. 1 person in 50! So anyone who thinks it is important or makes a massive difference to sales needs to think again. Its a convenience to have it, and nothing more

 

[retKHAAAN]

Less profit per hardware sale, but again you're ignoring the huge influx of new customers which would offset that.

If the number of customers remained the same, obviously profit will be significantly less. However, since we have plenty of evidence that shows a large majority of potential customers are pissed off at the lack of backwards compatibility, we know that if Sony did introduce it, then the decrease in profit per sale will most likely lead to overall higher turnover.

you have a grossly over-simplified view of manufacturing and retail...

If a company is going to take a loss on hardware, they're are going to want to re-coup that loss within 2 or 3 software sales. That is to break even. Profit wouldn't come until the fourth or so game sold to that customer... The average customer (regardless of how stupid they are) is only going to buy about 2 games at the time of their console purchase, meaning, it could take months for that customer to produce any sort of profit for the company. Investors want a return on their investment...now. They do not want to wait months. So, unless Sony has some super-secret way of bringing in enough revenue to keep their investors happy, they will not take $100 loss (or even a $50 loss) on the PS4 hardware...

 

[Deleted-185407]

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[retKHAAAN]

I know how businesses work.

You've again ignored the point that the number of customers would largely increase, and in fact, would probably show larger returns far more quickly. They're going to have new PS3 and PS4 software buyers. Why do people think that the number of new customers is not that significant in the least? It's as simple as looking at the reception for the lack of backwards compatibility.

Why do you seem to think that somehow with more customers they will take less of a loss on hardware?

 

[Sicklyboy]

The customer is always right no matter what. You can try tell the customer they're wrong, but most of the time for a business to be successful, it's better to just give in. You'll have far more satisfied customers that way. People don't like to hear that they're wrong, no matter how softly you try to put it. If a customer has an issue with their product, even if they sound silly, exchange their product with no question asked. It's human nature that people hate admitting they're wrong, so if you want fully satisfied customers, just give in to them.

No, really, they're not. From a corporate standpoint of wanting to make every single person happy, sure. Most of the time. My eyes? I'm a retail slave. I don't give a fuck if they're happy or not, I try to share what I know and give them the best, most informed help I can.

Customer came in, used his camera's memory card in the photo printer machine, wouldn't work in the camera now. I asked him for the card, saw the lock switch was engaged, and put it back in. It worked. "You are magic!" he said to me with a huge grin.
"What HDMI cable should I get?" "The cheapest one you can find. Don't waste your money on the Monster crap."
Stuff like that. And if someone says something that is blatantly wrong, I have no qualms calling them out on it. The customer is an uninformed idiot who is seldom right.

People who purchases iPads are an entirely different audience and is not comparable in the least. They're not gamers, and are looking for far more features than just fancy graphics. On that note, the latest iPad is always backwards compatibility with previous iOS software. If you want proof that gamers don't go for shiny graphics, just look at every single previous console generation where the most powerful console has always lost. If people only cared about graphics, then consoles wouldn't exist in the first place because everyone would choose the PC instead. Honestly wouldn't surprise me now if the PC market share started growing significantly on that note, mostly because it's cheaper.

Like what other features? A bigger Apple logo?

Edit - also, "the most powerful console always lost" could easily be attributed to the higher price associated with more powerful hardware. People aren't made of money, especially not these days. I could see the PS Vita doing a LOT better if it was priced down where the 3DS is, $170. However, that would diminish/eliminate profit for Sony then.

I see nothing wrong with cheap hardware converters to introduce backwards compatibility. Having to buy an entire new console is a different situation all together. There will obviously be customers who are idiots and wouldn't know that the Wii U can run Wii software. But guess what? Obviously judging from the fact that they were surprised, it obviously sealed the deal for them. So you have just indirectly proven that backwards compatibility sells and pleases customers.

Of course BC satisfies people. I never tried to disprove that. What I was countering was your argument that BC is pretty much the norm and has been for a while, which is grossly incorrect.

As for my tech friends, they don't see the point in purchasing a PS3 currently (they've only just been interested in the console recently) because of the PS4. Why spend a lot of money on hardware that's going to be phased out? However, they don't see the point in purchasing a PS4 because spending a large amount of money to play one or two games in the short future is a high investment and a waste in their eyes. But if the PS4 had PS3 support, it would have been an instant-buy for them. Getting that instant-buy factor is going to be critical for the launch window.

Why spend money on anything that's technological? The hardware is irrelevant a month after you buy it. PS3 is cheaper than PS4 will be, and price will drop further when the PS4 is released.

"If PS4 had PS3 support, it would have been an instant-buy for them" Then they must not REALLY want either console. Buying a next-gen console for then-last gen shit is stupid. If you want to play PS3 games, buy a PS3 unless they are so grossly unavailable or hideously overpriced. If you want to buy a PS4, the only logical reason to buy one is for PS4 games.

People buy Wii's to play GC games now because of how unavailable the GC is. Go back two or three years when the GC was $40 in GameStop, and if someone wanted to play only GC games, they'd go for the $40 used GC over the $90 used Wii.

I didn't buy a PS3 off of my friend so I can play my PS2 games on it. I have a PS2 for that, AND a compute perfectly capable of PS2 emulation. I bought the PS3 for PS3 games.

 

[Deleted-185407]

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[Another World]

You

You said back in "your" day BC did not exist , while it clearly did. ( with or without addon )

...

i completely disagree with your assumption about my intended meaning. i'm making the distinction that those systems required extra hardware, blatantly obvious ad-ons. my gamecube box says nothing about backwards compatibility with gba on it. my master system, atari systems, etc, are the same. true backwards compatibility, by example, would be defined by the ps2 which could play ps1 out of the box, the original release of the ps3 which could play ps2 out of the box, etc. those systems were marketed with that feature, while every example you pulled was not.

by your definition, the snes is backwards compatible with the genesis, because THIS now exists.

-another world

 

[retKHAAAN]

Obviously hardware is going to cost more, but that's not the point I'm bringing across. I just told you, there will be exponentially far more software sales, as well as the incentive to purchase the console on launch. More console sales also means more bulk purchasing which means the hardware becomes even cheaper. Besides, clearly because of those specs, they're not scared of making unnecessary losses on the hardware.

What does the bolded portion actually mean? Bulk purchasing by whom? Retailers? Because retailers will not pass any "bulk" savings onto the consumer... Consoles will have a flat MSRP and retailers (as a whole) might all sell it at a 5-10% "discount". The word "discount" is in quotes because it isn't really a true discount.

As far as there being "exponentially far more software sales", that's quite the assumption... You're saying that because a console has BC, more games are sold as a result? Not likely. Unless you're taking into account that someone might choose to purchase two last gen games as opposed to one next gen game... Then, sure, you'll have more software sales. Not necessarily more money being brought in though. You're arguing that BC would bring in more money, but you're not realizing two things:

1. Sony makes the bulk of their software money from number shipped rather than number sold. Publishers are increasingly getting paid upfront (or via credit lines) for games shipped to retailers and then offering a "credit" (which is substantially less than the retailer paid for the item) for copies unsold and returned to them. That has little to do with Sony. They're making their money regardless.

2. Disposable income is finite. People will not buy more games just because their console has BC. They will simply replace current gen purchases with last gen purchases.

 

[Deleted-185407]

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[XDel]

Hmmm, so we can still call it the Pay Station then. Good, less confusing that way!

 

[retKHAAAN]

Bulk purchasing as in more bulk purchasing of PS4 components, as in the manufacturing of the console. The more sales they can get, the cheaper the console will be to manufacturer, and the quicker it will be to profit off the console.

Not exactly how it works, bud. If you're looking to build 200 or 1000 units, then yes, you'll likely pay less and less for components based on the total ordered. However, producing units on the scale that console manufacturers are, they are more than likely negotiating flat component prices with their suppliers so they can better manage overhead and software licensing. They also need straight numbers to feed investors. Console prices drop as the tech ages and becomes more affordable. Little if anything to do with the number of units being manufactured...

Also, that's another leap in assuming that backwards compatibility means consoles are being sold off the minute a new, BC console is released... You've made it a point to bring up how stupid the average gamer is. Well, wouldn't the average gamer trade their old console in towards the new one? Especially considering the deals that stores generally offer to do exactly that? Retailers can then turn around and sell this old tech to "average gamers" who see a $150 PS3 as a deal regardless of the harderbetterfasterstronger PS4... You assume that a new console release automatically means new customers. Unless you're the Wii, that's hardly the case...

 

[Veho]

But far more software sales for both the PS4 and PS3. Not seeing your argument here. Overall, the situation would be far better for them. If they were really that concerned about price, then they really shouldn't have included the over-the-top specifications really.

What software sales? People who already own a PS3 (and would sell it to buy a backwards compatible PS4) have already bought the software, so there's no profit there. And any PS3 title over a year old is already either heavily discounted or widely available used, so even if PS4 buyers who didn't own a PS3 beforehand were to buy those games, Sony wouldn't make much profit off of them. So the only profit there is from brand new PS3 titles (that will be dwindling after the PS4 comes out), sold to early adopters. That's really not much money. It's not a good bet.

Backwards compatibility does boost hardware sales, but it's counterproductive if you're losing money on every sale. And Sony can't afford to do that at the moment.


And the "over the top specifications" are there to ensure the console has a lifespan of over two years. You can't release a console with anything but over the top specs and expect it to be relevant in a few years' time.

 

[Deleted-185407]

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[Foxi4]

Less profit per hardware sale, but again you're ignoring the huge influx of new customers which would offset that.

Provided said "Influx" would be huge wheras all signs on heaven and Earth show that it wouldn't, even if we "assume" that 100% of PS3's weekly sales would magically transfer to the PS4, which is silly, it would not cover the costs. They may as well continue selling both models separately like they have with the PS2 and the PS3 before.

 

[Deleted-185407]

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[Foxi4]

My evidence of the huge rise of sales is based on the huge negative feedback from multiple gaming sites and social media. What evidence is there to suggest otherwise? How subsequently do you know it will not cover the costs? You're not providing any logical reasoning as to why the huge increase in demand would not offset the increase in manufacturing costs. You're just stating it. Give me a logical reason.

Perhaps you should check how many PS3's are sold these days. Including Backwards Compatibility into the PS4 would require including most of the PS3's guts into it, and if you were to keep the price of aprox. $420, which is already low considering the specs we know now, you'd have a $100+ loss per unit.

It's more profitable for Sony to sell PS3's separately at +/- $250 that "bundled into the PS3" at -$100 - is that logical enough?

IF the PS4 has a slow launch as most $350+ consoles seem to have, they would post consistent losses all across the board.

 

[retKHAAAN]

My evidence of the huge rise of sales is based on the huge negative feedback from multiple gaming sites and social media. What evidence is there to suggest otherwise? How subsequently do you know it will not cover the costs? You're not providing any logical reasoning as to why the huge increase in demand would not offset the increase in manufacturing costs. You're just stating it. Give me a logical reason.

Besides my main argument is, is that it's silly to automatically assume that backwards compatibility can't be easily covered and that it will most likely increase sales drastically. I'm not arguing that they absolutely must implement backwards compatibility, I'm just trying to stop people being so narrow-minded about the different options Sony could have taken.

The PS3 had backward compatibility and that resulted in a HUGELY successful launch...oh, wait...

 

[Foxi4]

The PS3 had backward compatibility and that resulted in a HUGELY successful launch...oh, wait...

Indeed.

That's because:

1. Backwards Compatibility actually made the games look worse than they have on their native hardware
2. People prefered to buy cheaper PS2's than expensive PS3's when they had PS2 games in mind
3. Everybody and their dog had a PS2 at this point and the PS3's Backwards Compatibility was weak incentive - even if people would trade in their PS2's, it was old hardware and they wouldn't get much in return, so that hardly "lowered" the entry price for their new console

All in all, it turned out to be so useless and unpopular that it got removed - that says a lot.

 

[Deleted-185407]

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