That's eight with the 20 GB hard drive and 12 with the more expensive 60 GBs. Those folks at the end of the line won't be happy campers.
The predicament is much the same outside every electronics store in the country. The slow production of the PS3's Blu-ray optical disc drive has forced Sony to reduce its nationwide launch numbers to less than half a million. They'll be lucky if they can double that by Christmas. It's a slow start for PlayStation 3, but the console's debut can't be viewed as anything but a success, since within an hour of launch, every unit in America will be spoken for.
Back outside, I find a young man named Manuel securely shrouded in a sleeping bag at the head of the line.
"Looks like you're gonna be one of the first people in Las Vegas to get your hands on a PS3," I say, before adding jokingly, "Are you getting it for yourself, or are you just planning to sell it on eBay?" Without hesitation, he answers, "EBay. I'll get my own next year, once they've gotten all the bugs out."
I get the same response from nearly everyone I ask. The line is almost entirely composed of technology scalpers. Not a bad investment, either. Having checked online, I already know that PS3s are going for around $2,000 on eBay. I'd initially scoffed at the $600 price tag on the console, but the reality is even more frightening. The people who actually want to play PlayStation 3 this winter will probably have to dish out two grand. Is it worth it?
Although I've yet to get my own, I've had several chances to play the PS3 since it first appeared at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) last May, and without a doubt, the graphics are gorgeous. In Gran Turismo HD, the reflections on the windows of the racing vehicles are rendered in real time, and from a distance, it looks like it could be video footage of real cars racing, provided you have a widescreen HDTV with 1,080i resolution.
Manuel says he plans to eventually get his own PlayStation 3 because it has the best games, but this isn't necessarily true anymore. Now that Microsoft has forged alliances with third-party publishers like Square Enix and Rockstar Games—creators of the Final Fantasy and Grand Theft Auto franchises, respectively—console exclusivity is becoming a thing of the past. Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, insists that these games will eventually look better on PS3 than Xbox 360 because of the PS3's touted "supercomputer-like processing speed." The way he talks about the technology, you'd expect the console to become self-aware, create an army of cyborgs and enslave the human race. And for $600, it ought to be able to. But right now, the system's cell processor only amounts to pretty graphics, comparable to the cheaper Xbox 360.
So why's it so expensive? A lot of the cost comes from the pricey Blu-ray technology. For those who don't know, Blu-ray may be the next evolution of DVDs, and Blu-ray players presently cost about $1,000, making the PS3 a bargain. To demonstrate the quality of the PS3's Blu-ray discs, Sony reps showed me the difference between the movie A Knight's Tale on DVD and Blu-ray. The image was noticeably crisper on the latter. (In both formats, the movie still sucked.)
The problem is that Blu-ray is not yet a universally accepted format. In fact, it's in the midst of a format war with Toshiba's HD-DVD. And considering how new both formats are, it seems less likely that Sony is using Blu-ray to sell us on the idea of PlayStation 3 than that they're using PlayStation 3 to sell us on Blu-ray. And aside from the cleaner picture, PS3 doesn't seem to offer anything groundbreaking. The games play much as they always have. The console also plays movies, is online-enabled and can show you a slide show of your photos, but the same goes for competing consoles. Its controller does have a motion sensor that can track six degrees of movement, but that feature just seems like a cheap imitation of Nintendo's new console.
Speaking of which ...
"Do you have any interest in the Wii?" I ask Manuel, who's already told me he has an Xbox 360.
"Ummm ... no, not really."
This is disappointing, though not especially surprising. In a bid to bring nongamers into the interactive entertainment flock, Nintendo has taken the Wii console in a bold new direction with its innovative motion-sensing controller. Unfortunately, at first glance, the bizarre apparatus doesn't instill nongamers with a great deal of confidence. At the same time, it leaves traditional gamers dubious. The odd name, frequently mispronounced (it's actually "we"), doesn't help. I got to spend about 20 minutes with it at E3, and I remained dubious. But when I received my own about a week ago, I found that it takes about 30 minutes to grow accustomed to the new interface.
And I love it.
Forget the odd look of the Wii controller. When you think about it, analog thumb-sticks—the standard method of video-game control—are exceptionally odd. Using micro-thumb movements to guide your gun's reticule to a target or drive a car is completely unnatural. For better or worse, we're couch potatoes, so the remote-control shape is immediately intuitive. In first-person shooters, you can aim the remote directly at your target. In racing games, you can hold either end of it and turn it like a steering wheel. The control is seamless and, after a brief period of adjustment, becomes second nature.
Imagine for a moment that you're playing the Wii's brand-new Zelda, locking swords with a mighty foe. He's just dealt you two irritating blows, and you're pissed off. This is where you'd normally mash buttons until your thumbs throbbed, but instead, you thrust the nunchuck attachment in your left hand forward, knocking him off balance with your shield! Then you swing the Wii remote with your right, slashing him! And again! One more satisfying swipe, and he falls to his knees, vanquished. You're no longer controlling the hero with button commands. You are the hero.
To put the console to the test, I handed the remote over to my girlfriend, a nongamer who initially laughed at the strange device, and my brother, a particularly dubious traditional gamer. They each took a crack at Wii Sports, which technically has the distinction of being the first free game packaged with a new console since the Super Nintendo era, although it's essentially just a glorified demo designed to familiarize you with the Wii controller.
Not only did my girlfriend take to Wii Tennis with shocking enthusiasm, but her real-life tennis expertise made her immediately good at it—she beat me. (I'll never hear the end of that.) My brother, on the other hand, took longer to win over. He fixated on the graphics, and that's the Wii's greatest weakness. It doesn't even compare to PS3 and Xbox 360.
So, the verdict? It depends on what's personally important to you in a gaming experience. Some will prefer PS3's superior graphics. Some will prefer Wii's innovative game play (not to mention its superior $250 price tag). As for myself, I take one last glance at the people huddled in the cold who value graphics most (or who are counting on eBay bidders to value graphics most), and then I head back to the warmth of my apartment to save Princess Zelda. The land of Hyrule doesn't look as good as it would on PlayStation 3, but then, I didn't come to look. I came to play.