The past week was the "New E3". Not the "look at how much money we've got to spend on our booths" show of the past but a scaled down version that was open to the public (for the low-low price of $100).
Now there were tons of announcements made in the days leading up to and during the event. The two I want to focus on are the announcement by Peter Moore, VP Microsoft for Xbox, and the Sony price cut.
If you missed it, all Peter Moore announced that all Xbox 360s will now have an extended warranty and I quote "Microsoft will repair the console free of charge—including shipping—for three years from the console’s purchase date." Having just been a victim of the "3 rings of death" and having had Microsoft customer service tell me just a week prior to this announcement that I'd have to pay to have my console fixed I was ecstatic!! So I never thought I'd see myself saying this but 'YAY!" to Microsoft. There was a problem, you listened to your customers (some might say you took a little too long to listen to your customers) and you fixed it. If I'm gonna spend $400 on a console and $50 bucks a pop on a game that's the kind of response I'd expect.
That leads right into the next thing, Sony's announcement that they're going to cut the price of the PS3 by $100! Talk about spending a ton of money of a console and games and getting crapped on! Sony is hoping that the move will boost the console's lackluster sales. Wanna know what'll boost sales? How about some fricking content? We spent $599 on this thing ($20 more than the most expensive version of Microsoft's Xbox 360 by the way) and all we got was a Blu-Ray DVD player and MAYBE 1 or 2 games worth a crap. So to recap, I was an early adopter of the PS3 (yes I drank the kool-aid) and was treated to crap games and crap movies for my effort and now EVERYONE else is getting a price break? What the hell?
Here on one hand you have the company owned by the evil overlord Bill Gates doing the right thing in extending warranties on his consoles and Kaz Hirai and his lackeys at Sony sitting high on their horse thinking they can do no wrong and a price cut makes everything better (such a "let them eat cake" move). BS! I'm sick of having paid for this console when the library of the 360 is better, Xbox live is 1000 times better than the Playstation Store, and the upconverted regular DVDs (read the $4-$10 used one I by compared to the $30 Blu Ray ones) look just as good on my 360.
Hey, anyone want to by a brand new barely played Sony PS3?
