Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (18366)	2/21/2000 11:07:00 PM
From: Mihaela	Respond to of 54805

Mike, The Sony Playstation is ~$90 with no DVD and the new Sony Playstation II with DVD, very fast Rambus RDRAM and DSL/Cable Internet access capable (Q1 2001 should have available interactive game titles and Internet access) is ~$360 in Japan. The software games are ~$50 each. Here is a list of games available. The Playstation games will play on a Sony PS II: playstation.com

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (18366)	2/22/2000 2:41:00 PM
From: Zirdu	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

As I see it, what Sony is planning for the Playstation II is for it to become a cheap internet access device, and DVD player, as well as a game machine. One very smart move was to make the PSXII "backwards compatible", so that it plays all the existing games written for the Playstation. (with a few minor exceptions for very old games.) This makes it much more likely that current Playstation owners will buy a Playstation II, rather than switch to a competing "new generation" system by Sega, Nintendo, (or maybe Microsoft, if they ever come out with the rumoured "X-Box") Video games, in and of themselves, are becoming a big industry. I have read that they now equal the movie industry in gross sales. Sony also makes it's own game software that is exclusive to the Playstation. They try to come up with hot "must have" games, which of course can only be played on the Sony machine. Of course Nintendo tries to to the same. (You will never see a Pokemon game for the Sony Playstation, for example, since that is a Nintendo product.) Finally, Sony lisences out to all reputable independent software developers the right to make games for the Playstation. (i.e. ERTS, ATVI, THQI, etc.) They want as much software written for their machine as possible, of course. One reason being that they get a royalty from ERTS, ATVI, THQI, etc. on every game they sell for the Playstation. The lifetime of the typical game, by the way, is only a few months. Game players buy the latest and hottest games, play them for a while, then tire of them and have to have the next one. It is unusual for any video game to stay atop the best seller charts for as long as 3 months. Finally, the demographics of the video game industry is sort of interesting. Older persons (such as myself), who never grew up playing video games, typically hate them and never play them. People who did grow up playing video games still play them as they get older and older, however. So now you have 35 year old video game addicts. And then you have a constant stream of new players as childern grow old enough to play.