With the ps3, especially the older SKU's you dont have to buy anything to make it complete unlike the 360. Next their gonna say that their "live Service" generates the most revenue, when Sony dont actually charge you anything. For the 360 you may have to buy a HDD, HD DVD add-on (if ur crazy), Wi-Fi Adapter, Batteries & cable for ur controller, Etc,Etc. Of course they are gonna sell more Accessories, cos you dont get any in the box.

MCV mods - don't just ban this person. Also kill them. Please.

Its true, no other current console has as many addons as the 360.. and none charge the insane prices either, the Wifi, 120 gig harddrive are extortionate and the HDDVD drive is a joke.

At the end of the day having lots of accessories and add-ons is important look at the iPod for example and how many things are available to add to it like casing, protection screens better earphones etc when you dont really need any of that unless you want to 'enhance it'

Its nice to see many items available for the 360 since the Xbox 360 is a games console its nice to add to it like a hard drive, memory card, wireless adaptor if you need them.

the 360 has been out over a year longer so it should have a years worth of money more spent on it - that's just common sense.

He doesn't mention how it compares per year. Nintendo make porfit off the actual console where Microsoft and Sony don't so they don't need to make money through selling addons.

"He doesn't mention how it compares per year. Nintendo make porfit off the actual console where Microsoft and Sony don't so they don't need to make money through selling addons"

So, Xbox 360 has a larger attach rate than PS3 or Wii.That's a fact. If you don't include console sales, instead just looking at software and accessories, then 360 wins in Japan & Europe - per year. It simply has a larger active installed base. Wii and PS3 are gaining, though, so the exclusives and multi-format 360 lead titles need to keep coming to sustain this.

When I hear about Mircosoft's X-Box 360 attach rate, I wish everybody would think about how long the 360 and PS3 have each been on the market?

If a console (the 360) is on the market for for twice as long as another console (the PS3), of course the attach rate will be higher on the 360 since they have also been adding games to their collection for twice as long. I'm sure that we'll all see that "attach rate" differiential between the 2 consoles start closing by this year's end, at which point Microsoft will have nothing left to TRY to brag about.

Give your heads a shake and think about Microsoft's so called superior 'attach rate'. Get Real.

Attach rate is important because of the profit for game makers comes from software licensing and sales. Nintendo makes a profit on their hardware, but they are having other difficulties besides keeping up with demand. When you look at the attach rate for the Wii it looks pretty good considering how long it's been on the market and how hard it is to get one, but when get into the details you see that the attach rate for the Wii consists mainly of Nintendo's own games. Third party games are really struggling on the Wii and there are a lot of $19.99 budget games out for the Wii that aren't out for other consoles. Wii is becoming another N64 in that it is getting most of it's quality games from Nintendo itself. There are some third party games that are selling well enough like Resident Evil, but most of what you see on the wall at Gamestop for the Wii is crap and Nintendo's attach rate will top out early and then fall off once everyone owns all the Nintendo titles unless they get more high quality games from more developers other than themselves. Sony's picture doesn't look much better. All the supposedly great games that were supposed to be PS3 exclusives turned out either so-so or bombed. We still haven't seen a complete version of Gran Turismo for Christ's sake. That should have been out as a launch title. The only decent game out for the PS3 launch was Resistance, and that's looking pretty old by now. Lair sucked. Heavenly Sword came and went without much fanfare, as did Motorstorm. Motorstorm is even being given away free when you buy a PS3. You don't just give away your killer titles. That would be like Microsoft giving away a free copy of Halo 3 with every unit sold. It's great for consumers, but you don't make any money that way.

Sony is also in the unenviable position of having to make a console that outperforms the PS3 when the next generation starts. Having the most expensive hardware in this generation is going to bite them hard next generation when they are trying to figure out how to do better without being the highest priced again. It will be easier for Microsoft engineers because they use mostly readily available parts. The hardware in the PS3 is so specialized or custom made just for the PS3 that keeping prices low is going to be a challenge. Nintendo doesn't have to worry as much either because by setting the bar lower than the others this time, they don't have to aim as high next time to make a replacement for the Wii, plus they are making money on the Wii so they will have a lot of money to use to design their next machine. Watch out for Nintendo, I think they will have the monster hardware next generation.

Joe

I've seen countless retailers offering Halo 3 as a freebie when buying the premium system.
As for AAA titles for Sony on launch, what were Microsofts offerings on launch?
The line-up in full:

* Amped 3 (2K Sports)
* Call of Duty 2 (Activision)
* Condemned (Sega)
* FIFA '06: Road to FIFA World Cup (Electronic Arts)
* Gun (Activision)
* Kameo: Elements of Power (Microsoft)
* Madden NFL '06 (Electronic Arts)
* NBA Live '06 (Electronic Arts)
* Need for Speed: Most Wanted (Electronic Arts)
* Perfect Dark Zero (Microsoft)

Nothing to really shout about is there? I got Perfect Dark, NFS-MW and Call Of Duty 2 and after a couple of months I was bored. I'm happy I've stuck with it though. It's like every console at launch. Takes a while for a killer title to appear. GT3 on PS2 came out about 1/2 after launch and I don't think Sony issued any kind of statement saying GT5 will be a launch title. The only on I see as a gimmick at the moment is the Wii. How many AAA titles has that had?
The only two that comes to mind is Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3.
Resident Evil 4 (appeared on TWO previous formats)
Super Paper Mario (not much change from N64)
Zelda - Twilight Princess (originally a Gamecube title, just mirrored).
They're only starting to get the good stuff out now with Smash Bros, Wii Fit and Mario Kart (thats when I'll get one, happy days). Same with every console launch mate, takes time for the good stuff to appear.

come on now, im a retialer and all we get is customers asking why do we have to pay £60 for a network adaptor when its built into a ps3, why buy a play n charge kit, you get a lead for this free with ps3, just look at the price of a 360 120 gig HD £129.99 WTF !! you can buy a 120 gig hard drive for ps3 for £70 !!! its a joke. Its just clever marketing, sell the arcade pack for £199.99 then make the customer buy all the extras and coin it in !!
Sony have extra six axis pads and a remote,these are the only official Sony extras for PS3.
Wii are also clever and extra £45 for 2 player games !!!
I tell ya now the parents i serve were not expecting that!!

@10 - Absolutely agree.

What I'm worried about is that MS have recently been releasing a lot of press releases defending and bigging up the 360 to a degree that we've not had from them before, and I think it's because they are seriously worried about the competition to a far bigger degree than before. They're bashing both other consoles which at present seem to be outselling the 360 constantly and have done since before Xmas.

The last time we heard comments of a similar nature was by Toshiba shortly before the demise of HD-DVD. MS are on the back foot now and the wallet share comments are a cheap shot. It's almost like a clever bit of spin hiding the fact that they know they rushed out the 360 in order to get a head start in this gen's console race and released it without all the extras and accessories that the competitiors have built in. Especially when they must have known what features wouls be required for next gen games - i.e. wi-fi, hard drive and large optical disk format... If these had been included from the off, then yes the price would have been affected drastically, so it may well have been worthwhile delaying the launch of the 360 to get the price down and more importantly get the reliability sorted. But it was their desire to try and get one over the Japanese which is starting to backfire on them now.

Also, I don't think larger wallet share is the sort of thing consumers want to read about, especially when you consider the amount of problems that the 360 has with its hardware and how notoriously greedy and consumer unfriendly MS have been over the years. After all they've been releasing buggy software from their beginnings, they now release an unreliable console. Their attitude isn't to go about and fix the problems, they just either offer patches for software and then after a while just force you to buy a later version when they no longer support the older version (even though it's still not bug free after all the patches), the same with the console - they're not fixing your consoles, they just offer an extended warranty to allow you to change you console until the point comes that they release the Xbox 720 or 1080 or whatever it's going to be called. But when that comes along, I really question whether consumers are going to be happy about buying their 3rd different Xbox in 7 year.

MS scrambling because they know the end is nigh!! Surely retailers' own insight and Information Systems will tell them what console gives the best lifetime share of wallet.

Another example of MS manufacturing consent!