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.
Severn2j
Although, Im not really interested in any either of these products after having my finger burnt with the Wii, I do find myself wanting the Move to succeed.. Mostly this stems from a love of Playstation in general, but also an inbuilt disapproval of all things Microsoft (mostly because of them dominating the PC market). So I guess I am a fanboy to a certain extent, but I don’t let it influence my purchasing decisions.. I still bought a 360 after all.
beeje13
It’s funny how a few years back, the 360 fanboys were touting ‘sales’ all the time, now theres only a few million units in it, plus how many had to buy a new 360 when theirs broke out of warranty?
I try to be impartial, and i certainly respect and admire products that i don’t own.
Jackarseboyz
Casual gamers arent fanboys. Thats all that really needs to be said. How often do nintendo kids go about saying “PS3 HAS NO GAME” or “XBOX SUX!”. Its because they are too young to know about these fanboy allegiances that yes, majority of hardcore gamers have in some aspect
Charmed_Fanatic
This will go on for decades …
Severn2j
It already has been going on for decades, since before the Speccy/C64.. To paraphrase a great videogame quote:-
.
“Fanboyism. Fanboyism never changes..”
OneShotWook
I don’t really fully understand what the term fanboyism means(it seems to vary greatly on who is saying it),so it gets mentally filed under ‘useless Americanism that’ll dissapear in time’,along with terms such as player,hater etc.Terms which appear everywhere when popular and require my interpretation and reaction which i just cba with during day to day stuff.
I see motion sensor ‘games’ as a minor distraction which borders on sillyness.I know i shouldn’t but watching the ‘dancing bear’ style parading of pensioners on the local news everytime a new breakthrough in wobbly gaming occurs it really does give me a Laugh.
Btw is Bing any good?:)
OneShotWook
Oops sorry Severn2j meant to post a general response not one directed at your post,but seeing as i did speccy all the way mate:).
retro_
One small point. What exactly are we getting phyically for our money? If you set aside the number of players argument, what’s left? I’ll tell you, Kinect wise you have a camera and microphone and er…that’s it! With Move you get clever controllers with gyroscopes and motors as well as glowing balls, buttons and best of all, you get a few of them.
So, If you take the hardware quantity and factor that into the equation, you are getting a lot of extra hardware for your money.
cc_star
A product costs, its costs + a bit
Most of Kinect is a high tech (for the commercial arena) camera which carries a certain amount of expense + a whole lot of intellectual property and at the moment only MS know what all of that development cost.
In retail, you can always lower the price but you can’t put it up… Sony don’t have much room to manoeuvre if Move doesn’t fly off the shelves (although I’m sure it will as they are doing a whole lot of work ‘selling’ it to their existing customer base)
An Xbox 360 with Kinect costs £249 – the same price as a PS3 on its own. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what going to be happening in GAME stores up down the country in Oct-Dec for Crimbo
Juelz345
So…”a lot of extra hardware” equals better?
Quinlank
“Hey! For the same price as that PS3 with a couple of games I’ve heard are good bundled with it I can buy an Xbox with no hard drive and a motion camera with no games worth a damn for it available.”
It’s true, I can see this very scenario playing out everywhere this christmas.
Sony might as well cancel PS3 production now.
Juelz345
The two complaints thatpeople keep saying that think are borderline retarted are:
1) Move is just Wii 2.0 and 2) Kinect is just eyetoy 2.0
So…the complaint is that the newer technology is just a better verion of the older technology??? And that’s a bad thing, how?
It’s like when a friend of mine came over and messed around with my iPad. the first thing he says is, “it’s JUST a big iPod Touch”…i was like “yeah, isn’t it wonderful!”.
Taking something good and making it better is how just about every industy operates, especially the gaming industry.
Spoiler alert: The PS4 is just going to be a better PS3!
jikomanzoku
You’re absolutely right, sneering fanboyism is born of nothing more than the insecurities of people desperate to feel justified in their purchasing choices – and is retarded in the truest sense of the word.
Pointless tribalism.
PriceKitty
Neither.
I play video games to sit and relax.
Move and Kinect will be the same thing as Wii,
except with different controllers and more accurate.
It’s been done before, and it is an unnecessary waste of money.
Juelz345
Video games in general are unnecessary.
Pretty much every game you play and controller you use has been done before.
And a lot of people play games to have fun, and that’s something that the wii (and hopefully move and kinect) has been quite successful at, once you avoid the shovel wear.
Quinlank
Have to say this strikes me as a completely unnecessary “article” that seems to be setting out just to stir the pot a bit more.
As for some of the comments in it about hypocrisy about the piece meal nature of Move versus Sony fans arguing against the piece meal nature of most of the 360’s worthwhile features that come as standard on PS3… I actually guffawed a little there.
I’ve lost count of the number of U-turns I’ve seen Xbots make on some of their arguments over the years, to a far greater degree than I’ve ever witnessed Nintendo or Sony fans do. Most recent example of course being that countless Xboxers are at this very moment on forums across the world telling anyone who will listen that Kinect might be expensive and have no games yet but it’s the future of gaming and has so much potential and yadda yadda basically backtracking on everything they were arguing against about the PS3 for years.
What is it that makes this particular brand of hypocrisy more acceptable than the one certain people seem to be stamping their feet about in this article?
I’ve never tried to pretend to be an unbiased individual, but it’s rare I’m shocked by some of the things that get passed off as somehow ‘newsworthy’ these days.
Not your finest hour fellas.