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http://www.gamespot.com/news/6285498.ht ... Btitle%3B6

Just an interesting survey I found Gamespot. Apparently the majority of PS3 users only use the PS3 for playing games less than half the time they use it for other activities. This is interesting because it's kind of heading towards a theory a lot of people have about the future of consoles. That they are essentially absorbing the jobs of other players and systems to basically become a centralized digital media center. This is a similar direction lots of small hand held devices are heading towards with Smart Phones.

I'm open to the idea their may be a bit of bias in the research here. Since it doesn't take into account what the Xbox's user base is doing. Such as how frequent game play vs. other activities are on that console.

I have a PS3 that I mostly use for Bluray and console exclusives, because I bought the 360 first. So the 360 gets more use overall. (The 360 I use almost exclusively for games.)

PS3 retains the advantage of blue-ray. And the fact that Blueray was a big deal when it launched and an even bigger deal when HD-DVD lost the format war and consumers looked to retail shelves for their next player and saw that a stand-alone Blueray player cost 500$ for early adopters... or they could get a PS3 for the same price. It's the reason why my Uncle owns a PS3 despite never using it to play a game.

My PS3 is 95 percent of the time a machine for watching movies, or NetFlix.

CaptHawkeye wrote:http://www.gamespot.com/news/6285498.ht ... Btitle%3B6

Just an interesting survey I found Gamespot. Apparently the majority of PS3 users only use the PS3 for playing games less than half the time they use it for other activities. This is interesting because it's kind of heading towards a theory a lot of people have about the future of consoles. That they are essentially absorbing the jobs of other players and systems to basically become a centralized digital media center. This is a similar direction lots of small hand held devices are heading towards with Smart Phones.

I'm open to the idea their may be a bit of bias in the research here. Since it doesn't take into account what the Xbox's user base is doing. Such as how frequent game play vs. other activities are on that console.

At 49% it's still mostly used for games, unless blu-ray is 51%.

Nit and I watch more BluRay movies on the PS3. That will change after DragonAGe 2 comes out... but it will get back to "Movie Player" again.

Our is mainly used for Blu-Rays and as a media centre, hooked up to the house network.

Funny, I thought I remembered the PS3 was advertised as a media center from the beginning. This doesn't seem to be really new.

You don't see anything important in a console not being primarily used as a console? That's like saying there's nothing interesting in a car not being primarily used as a mode of transport, but a media center.

Stark wrote:You don't see anything important in a console not being primarily used as a console? That's like saying there's nothing interesting in a car not being primarily used as a mode of transport, but a media center.

A better comparison would be a new sports car finding more common use as a excellent backyard grill.

The PS3 is in essence just a PC media center with a snazzy (For the time) video card and an odd processor. The first console that could be used as a media center (The Xbox) was mostly unintuitive despite MS's best efforts and their own fault for restricting what standards it could read. The PS3 by contrast was aimed as such so it's design was much more streamline to act as such. And both makers have noticed and there are rumblings on both sides of some really bizarre things like the next Xbox/PS might not only be a media center but also a cable/satellite box. When you come down to it, nothing hardware wise would stop Sony for slapping a daughter card into the PS4 to handle all transcribing and decryption as well as also being a PVR as well.

Hell of a method of getting a PS4 or Xbox 720(whatever) into every house, you can have a regular cable box for free from Comcast or buy the special bundled PS4 for Comcast with a two year agreement for 300$ or buy one brand new for 500$

Stark wrote:You don't see anything important in a console not being primarily used as a console? That's like saying there's nothing interesting in a car not being primarily used as a mode of transport, but a media center.

You know I seem to recall a format war involving Blu-Ray.

And that is relevant... how?

Bean, MS is already trying to sell cable access through the 360 in Australia. I will not be at all surprised if the PS4 or Xbox 361 includes the hardware you mention; if they time it right, they could even be the first 'big brand' in the PVR space, which would be pretty funny stuff.

I use my PS3 primarily for movies, but I do play video games when I have friends over. I should have got a PS3 a long time ago for the bluray player alone because I have never had any problem playing bluray movies on it. Prior to buying my PS3 I purchased a $400.00 Sony Bluray player, and the first bluray I had (POTC - At Worlds End) did not work.

I checked online and found that you had to update the firmware so I did that and POTC worked. I then rented another bluray movie and again the movie failed to load and that time I had the latest firmware so I wanted until the next firmware upgrade came out, and then that movie worked . I struggled with this problem on and off for a year until I got fed up and just bought the PS3...best decision I made when it comes to home entertainment.

Stark wrote:And that is relevant... how?

Bean, MS is already trying to sell cable access through the 360 in Australia. I will not be at all surprised if the PS4 or Xbox 361 includes the hardware you mention; if they time it right, they could even be the first 'big brand' in the PVR space, which would be pretty funny stuff.

From their prospective it makes perfect sense. After all if a console can do everything in the entire house (Coming soon PS5 now with smart house functionality!) the appeal of non-gamers buying one goes up tremendously. I would not be surprised to see the Xbox 4/PS4 list of features include the following.

1. Media center
2. Cable/Satellite Box
3. Full PVR playback as a service through their cable box (With hard drive prices nothing stopping them from throwing 2 terabyte drives into their consoles)
4. 802.11n wireless networking, possibly even full router functionality by daughter carding in actual router
5. Perhaps even AT&T Uverse style wireless phone support
This one takes a bit of explaining but over here in the states you can go to AT&T in and area were we have Fiber internet and get AT&T U-Verse which is one of those Internet/Cable/Phone/Cell Phone all in one bundles. The U-Verse box also happens to be a powerful phone receiver/transmitter so along with the box they give you 1-4 wireless phones that can be used to make Skype style calls but no computer involved and to the consumer it just looks like they get a free home phoneline and free phones for an extra 10$ a month that they can talk as much as they like for that 10$ a month.

*Edit
Oh yeah
6. It also plays games

Stark wrote:And that is relevant... how?

I'm not sure myself but I think it has to do with all the movies coming out on Blu-Ray these days. Hmmmmm.

Soontir C'boath wrote:

Stark wrote:And that is relevant... how?

I'm not sure myself but I think it has to do with all the movies coming out on Blu-Ray these days. Hmmmmm.

I'm not sure that logic follows when you look at the PS2, which was largely boosted thanks to its ability to play DVDs. But it still had a vastly more expansive games library than the PS3 does today at roughly the same point in its lifespan.

Not sure if you're actually agreeing with me or not. Neither does an expansive library necessarily indicate a greater gaming percentage.

Being sarcastic aside. The reason why I brought it up is because it was the carrier and reason why Blu-Ray won the format wars when the PS3 itself sold 10 million units compared to 1 million HD DVD players including the Xbox. BBC

So among all the other things it could do besides gaming, it was a great platform to watch movies and as the survey posted above reported:

The largest share of nongaming time was accounted for by watching movies on DVD or Blu-ray (27 percent), with downloaded and streaming movie watching accounting for another 13 percent.

Soontir C'boath wrote:Not sure if you're actually agreeing with me or not.

Being sarcastic aside. The reason why I brought it up is because it was the carrier and reason why Blu-Ray won the format wars when the PS3 itself sold 10 million units compared to 1 million HD DVD players including the Xbox. BBC

So among all the other things it could do besides gaming, it was a great platform to watch movies and as the survey posted above reported:

The largest share of nongaming time was accounted for by watching movies on DVD or Blu-ray (27 percent), with downloaded and streaming movie watching accounting for another 13 percent.

Which doesn't mean that it's related to the fact that people hardly play games on it, considering the they did the same thing with the PS2 as a DVD player. I'm sure I could point out any number of other blunders that lead to people using it as a gaming device second, like the high price point that didn't drop for years, the fact that all sorts of exclusive titles jumped ship and were suddenly multi platform, etc.

General Zod wrote:Which doesn't mean that it's related to the fact that people hardly play games on it, considering the they did the same thing with the PS2 as a DVD player. I'm sure I could point out any number of other blunders that lead to people using it as a gaming device second, like the high price point that didn't drop for years, the fact that all sorts of exclusive titles jumped ship and were suddenly multi platform, etc.

I'll repeat this again since it came after your post: Neither does an expansive library necessarily indicate a greater gaming percentage.

Plus what do you mean by hardly? The survey itself reported it is being used to play games 49% of the time.

In other words, PS3 has become a PC but without the office package?

Soontir C'boath wrote:

Stark wrote:And that is relevant... how?

I'm not sure myself but I think it has to do with all the movies coming out on Blu-Ray these days. Hmmmmm.

No, fuckstick, what does hurf durf format war have to do with dismissing the changing market position of consoles as uninteresting. Some people in this thread actually know what they're talking about.

Bean, I can't wait for the useless Xbox Spotlight to have cable, youtube, and recently recorded stuff from TV. Hardware-wise much of this functionality wouldn't be hard, and if they were really lazy they could just licence it. I mean, my TV can use youtube already.

Stark wrote:

Soontir C'boath wrote:

Stark wrote:And that is relevant... how?

I'm not sure myself but I think it has to do with all the movies coming out on Blu-Ray these days. Hmmmmm.

No, fuckstick, what does hurf durf format war have to do with dismissing the changing market position of consoles as uninteresting. Some people in this thread actually know what they're talking about.

Blu-Ray's inclusion with the PS3 is, if I may stress, one of the things on it that has change what consoles will be used for. It wasn't just going to be a new format just to put the games on but for movies as well in which people will and have used the PS3 for. The survey just confirms it.

If you didn't see this coming from the get go then I can see why you find it interesting. It's not like gaming was just one part of the main menu after all.

And... how is that relevant to a format war? The only way this could be relevant is if the BD format had lost.

Pull the dick out of your ass for five seconds. No shit consoles are sold as multi-use items and Sony and MS have been pushing for lounge room penetration - the OP even says this. There is now evidence that they are succeeding, and (at least MS) are rolling out even further into this space. You have, thus far, contributed absolutely nothing to this discussion beyond 'netflix is on the menu, obviously people use it, who cares what the ratios of time are, hurf durf'.

Stark wrote:And... how is that relevant to a format war? The only way this could be relevant is if the BD format had lost.

I don't know what you're thinking along this line.

Pull the dick out of your ass for five seconds. No shit consoles are sold as multi-use items and Sony and MS have been pushing for lounge room penetration - the OP even says this. There is now evidence that they are succeeding, and (at least MS) are rolling out even further into this space. You have, thus far, contributed absolutely nothing to this discussion beyond 'netflix is on the menu, obviously people use it, who cares what the ratios of time are, hurf durf'.

Well then I'm sorry but I have no idea what the fuck is your problem.

How about 'you're an idiot who thinks being smug is contributing'? Following your stupid logic, the PS2 had a DVD drive and could play DVDs; people using PS2 primarily for this function isn't worth noting. It was on the menu, after all.

The changing position of consoles in the lounge isn't made less noteworthy because of intent. If you wanted to be a smug cunt to shitpost the thread, you really should have just said that it's for PS3, and it has no good games anyway. The study is also daft because 360 has more non-game functions anyway. Console manufactures have tried to access these non-gaming markets for ages, and may actually be succeeding now.

But I hear that nobody should be interested (certainly not investors, lol) that these non-gaming uses have actually pushed gaming into a minority of use time - this couldn't be relevant to marketing or positioning at all. I mean, they were already on the menu, right???