An interesting thread started yesterday in our forum concerning fanboyism, in particular in relation to the recent, scattered and rather disjointed pricing announcements of both the PlayStation Move and Kinect, and the subsequent squabbling that followed. In the first post, Chris claims that although we’ve managed to nurture and grow a community here that doesn’t run around shouting “PS3 SUX!11” we are all a little guilty of being a fanboy, even, as he calls it, the “mild kind” of fanboy.
“When we make a purchase of something like a computer, mobile phone or a games consoles we often invest a certain amount of time in thinking about a purchase and plump for either PC or Mac, iPhone, Nokia, Android or whatever, and of course, a 360 or a PS3,” says Chris. “The purchase also costs money so the investment is more of a commitment and this commitment can cause us to try and justify stuff, both to ourselves and on the internet, and I’ve been thinking about this recently and its kind of come to a conclusion.”
Chris then lists the two sets of prices for both Move and Kinect, assuming you want a full experience with two players. £204.97 for the Move (1 Move bundle, 3 additional controllers for 2 handed 2 player gaming and 2 subcontrollers which obviously can’t be used at the same as the two main controllers, but worth factoring in) and in comparison, £129.99 for the full Kinect experience. Putting aside the games and the tech for a moment, Chris says that both companies are “100% correct” in their pricing.
However, both here and on countless other sites around the web, communities from both sides have tried to disprove the Kinect pricing, saying that in theory the Move components can be built up as needed, and thus given certain circumstances the Move set up (already have a PlayStation Eye, don’t want subcontrollers, etc) can actually be cheaper.
The fact is that Kinect includes everything you need for multiplayer gaming right out of the box for that £129. Move, says Chris, enables gamers to “compromise” on the full 2 player experience so you can buy less if required. “Despite Move’s much heralded accuracy,” says Chris, “some people seem happy with balancing a DS3 whilst operating it with one hand, keeping in mind the Navi analogue trigger will be mapped to the L2 button I’ve found usable for about 2 minutes.”
“This approach in the gaming arena has of course been seen before with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, only then it was the other way round,” continues Chris. “Sony produced a fact sheet which showed that a 60GB PS3, although more expensive upfront was cheaper than the 360 plus the hard drive plus the WiFi adapter, plus the Live subscription…” Xbox owners said it was good that these things were optional and you could build the package up to suit yourself, but Sony owners more or less pointed and laughed.
“How is it that now the shoe is on the other foot, with both sides of the fence now arguing the exact opposing thing they’ve been arguing about for the past 3 years?” asks Chris. “I think it highlights better than anything just how we justify stuff though manipulating points to suit our side argument, if the upfront all inclusive aspect of the PS3 was better than build your own package Xbox 360… then why is the opposite now true, just because Sony release a basic package that will probably need adding to?”
TSA Reader TheShockWave said that “with Move, you don’t have to spend the £205. If, for example, you only wanted Move to play single player, like Sorcery, Killzone and SOCOM, you only need to buy one Move controller and a [subcontroller], thus being cheaper.” He also said despite only having 2 DualShock controllers this doesn’t stop him playing 4 player local games – “I get my friends to bring their controllers, I don’t have to go out and buy two more for them to play,” he said. “The same can be said for Move.”
Other comments on the thread were based around the types of games for the Move, the accuracy, the tech, which in my opinion far outweigh anything Microsoft have shown yet and it’s really, at the end of the day, all about the games and the experience. But that’s not the point here – Chris was raising the issue that the tables have now turned, and with potentially a bigger initial outlay for the PlayStation Move (if you want to get the full multiplayer thing going on) than Kinect, is the fanboy in all of us starting to creep out?
We welcome your thoughts, as ever.