Because of what I have written on here about Sony I have been accused many times of being a Nintendo or a Microsoft fanboy. Nothing could be further from the truth. I only report what I see. And what I see is a Sony that has lost its way.
The facts are very, very simple. In the Playstation one generation Sony had massive global domination, nobody came anywhere near them. In the Playstation two generation Sony were hugely dominant again. Nintendo and Microsoft were minnows in comparison. Then we come to the Playstation three (PS3) generation and suddenly the wheels fall off. Sony are running third and it very much looks like it is going to stay that way. Analysts and fanboys continually promise or hope that a revival in fortunes is just around the corner, but it never comes. So what went wrong:
- The cell processor, this was a huge mistake in many ways. Firstly it cost a fortune in development and putting into production, which is money that needs to be recovered. Secondly it delayed getting the PS3 to market, giving away huge competitive advantage. Thirdly, whilst very powerful, it is a very long way from being optimised for the job of running a console. Overall they would have been better buying an off the shelf generalised processor as they did for previous models and as their competitors did.
- The graphics processor is a lot less powerful than the one in it’s main competitor’s machine. This effectively limits what the PS3 can do, no matter what the CPU and memory are doing. Fanboys blame the developers for being lazy and not putting enough work into PS3 games when the reality is that it is the machine itself that is holding the games back.
- BluRay. The Playstation 3 was used as a Trojan horse to get this technology standard accepted by the world. And at this it has succeeded. But at a terrible cost. It forced the price of the PS3 up sufficiently to stifle consumer demand whilst forcing Sony to absorb massive losses. It is strange that Sony nearly bet the company on this at a time when physical delivery of content is in steep decline. AÂ phyrric victory indeed. If this were not enough, difficulties in putting BluRay into production contributed to the delays in getting PS3 to market.
- The complex architecture of the PS3 makes it very difficult to develop content for. A lot more difficult than for it’s main competitors. This wasn’t helped by Sony releasing development tools that were also greatly weaker than those from its competitors. A double whammy that caused huge problems for games developers worldwide. Many games were delayed because the problems were so great, costing the game developers a fortune and depriving the marketplace of product.
- Sony totally misread the way the market was going. They have clung to their hardcore gamer base and squandered the lead in casual gaming that they had with EyeToy and SingStar. Nintendo have come along with a simpler machine that has massively outsold the Sony PS3 with the simple tactic of providing entertainment that is accessible to a lot more people. With hindsight it looks so obvious, but Sony missed it completely. As a result Nintendo made a fortune and Sony lost a fortune.
- Sony have been stretched for cash. They have made losses. The technology in the PS3 has cost a fortune and they are almost certainly still making a loss on every machine sold. They have been forced to raise new capital and to sell off bits of the company. So they have little room to manoeuvre. They cannot throw money at the PS3 problem. This whilst their two main competitors are rolling in money which they are both using to reinforce their positions.
- Lack of exclusive content. Both competing machines have a lot more exclusive AAAÂ content. This is a massive USP when the reason for buying these machines is to play content on them. Microsoft have invested heavily into a very impressive catalogue of exclusives and have managed to seduce some former major Sony exclusives into becoming cross platform. This alone has caused an immense shift in competitive advantage.
- Sony have messed up very badly with online. This is a real killer and comes from them being a hardware company whilst Microsoft is a software company. So Microsoft understood the importance of online and invested massively in Live. And that investment is paying them back enormously. So they continue to invest and Live is becoming one of the biggest phenomenons ever in gaming. Giving customers a massive USP whilst generating a lot of revenue for Microsoft. And it is growing with almost unbelievable impetus, both in content and in users. The Sony competitor, Home, is still not released after multiple delays and is now several years behind. It will be nearly impossible for Sony to pull back such a huge lead.
- Sony have huge, world class, divisions in many areas. Telephones, Film making, Portable Music (they invented this) and Console Gaming. Yet these divisions appear not to talk to each other. So a potential huge strength has become a weakness. The film division isn’t used to place all their unique IP on the consoles for instance. And outsiders who are less constrained can enter Sony’s markets and win. Hence the iPhone which could and should have been a Sony product yet instead has come from a company, Apple, that just a few years earlier had no stake whatsoever in consumer electronics.
With all that against them it is amazing that Sony have sold as many PS3s as they have. The reason they have done so is because of the impetus of the brand and the loyalty of a large section of their user base. The majority of console users have yet to upgrade to this generation, there is still a huge untapped market of non console households and we have yet to reach the $199 sweet spot when the bulk of sales occur. So there is still hope for Sony, which is what the analysts are grasping for. The problem for Sony now is that the sheer weight of USPs is against them. A gulf that further widened this E3 where Nintendo and Microsoft forged ahead whilst Sony were distinctly lacklustre.
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I wont resort to name-calling, I think any open minded person reading this blog can make their own mind up where your loyalties lie.
Given that “I only report what I see”, 6 of your 8 reference links direct straight back to your own blog. To me it raises the question of if these criticisms are so universal, why are there no links to reputable sources to back up these claims?
Also, when of the other two links, one points to a Wikipedia page which doesn’t back up the assertion you make of it, and the final one points to an article from 19 months prior to the PS3s release, which also predicts a sales price of $900, it suggests that perhaps the pickings were slim indeed.
Concluding that analysts (professionals who are held in high regard for being able to predict the way markets will evolve) are “grasping for hope” as an explanation of why they disagree with you, is not the sort of thing which would back up the claim that “I only report what I see.”
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Not just that – Sony has a terrible attitude to both their fans and the developers alike, as is illustrated by their ex-CEO’s statements (see http://www.joystiq.com/2006/05/17/kutaragi-playstation-3-is-too-cheap/ if you don’t mind an off-site link Bruce). And their attitude to developers stank too. Sony are electronics guys, and they never understood software. Developers were forced to develop for the PS2 because there simply wasn’t any real alternative. The installed user base was massive – games *had* to be done for the PS2. But Sony’s tools & support was almost archaic. It was a software engineer’s nightmare. Contrast this with Microsoft – a company coming from a software background. Their tool support and API shames Sony – its simply fantastic.
Sony made the classic mistake of believing their own hype, and as a software engineer in the games industry I really relish their downfall with glee 🙂 Good riddance to awful rubbish. Come back in a few years maybe when you understand what ‘API’ means.
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Bruce, thanks for this post — at least I have a better idea of where your anti-Sony sentiment comes from now. I won’t debate the individual points, other than to say that most of them seem quite a bit dated to me (and the points on technology are strangely skewed). But what has always struck me as confusing about your references to Sony is the lack of a pros and cons perspective. Are we to actually believe that you see nothing good in Sony’s approach to this generation of gaming?
I think the general point that Sony did not recognize the potential of the casual market is valid. Of course, one could make the argument that Sony missed this market because they actually listened to their core customer base and delivered a PS3 feature set which was what that hardcore customer base was asking for in nearly every last-generation survey I have seen.
In my opinion, Sony’s biggest failure this generation has been in their marketing strategy. For anyone who values the features packed into the PS3, that console has always offered what is perhaps the best bang for the buck of this generation. However, Sony has never really done a good job of clearly presenting this value advantage of the PS3. The advantages of features such as a built-in hard drive, WiFi, Blu Ray player, and Cell processor are becoming obvious to customers now, and perhaps explains why PS3 sales are expanding worldwide. But those features were always a huge advantage to the PS3, and Sony should have been more clever in touting them earlier.
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I think Nick hit it right on the head 100% with this one.
This is pretty sad to see, worse so because quite a few people are like this.
Last time i checked, RSX wasn’t “just a PC processor”, it was designed to work with Cell, based ON the processor.
There is NO difference between a PC game and console games graphics requirements, prove me wrong and i will gladly eat that up.
Yes, the Xenos has a slight edge, mainly due to the daughter die and the “free AA” it can do. (which was gimped from the get-go, proof MS really didn’t care about full HD)
Let me guess, do you also believe that stupid graph that Major Nelson posted years back that showed Xbox360 had massively more bandwidth than Cell did? Ha, damn he is an idiot.
I don’t even need to go anymore into the RSX link from your OWN site, since it is mostly all rubbish and you certainly never researched it enough.
Also, nice one on posting links for backing up the “complex architecture” section.
Cell is not that harder that PS2 was, all the developers who got over the initial hurdle with Cell are loving it.
There are some great tools out now to make it much easier to code on the SPEs for the developers who don’t know much about them.
In fact, i pretty much don’t need to go into anything else since it is PLAINLY obvious you are a Sony hater (not fanboy)
“Waah waah, PS3 sux.”
I bet you have probably never even touched a PS3, or read anything on it other than stupid blogs trying to attract attention and more click-through. (just like you are trying to do here)
Hell, you even admit that they have sold more than they possibly could with all the odds “against them”, which proves your rubbish-talk wrong.
Yes, Sony did screw up to an extent, and that was mainly waiting on trying to create a hybrid disc with those idiots Toshiba.
This cost them valuable time, not the processor.
Oh, and wow, Sony totally whipped Toshiba over HD DVD, oh my, so much for odds against them.
Also, PSN is a fantastic service, much better than Live (and i don’t even need to mention Wii… almost like PS2s “service” compared to Live)
The only annoying thing is the silly regional update differences.
Also, i just heard recently that XBL arcade has advertisements on them? Yeah, screw paying for Live.
Go research yourself next time, rather than using idiotic sites trying to gain attention by posting outrageous opinions.
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I disagree almost completely with this post, I think the PS3 is the best purchase I have made this year. The IBM Cell processor is an incredible CPU which is ideal for this type of application… once the developers make the paradigm shift to take advantage of it. The Blu-Ray was not a Trojan horse, it is a superior choice of technology to both DVD and HD-DVD and is clearly the choice for any type of HD equipment. The only point that we are in any sort of agreement with is the content point. Sony has had difficulty bringing in developers to produce content that takes advantage of the superior platform. I have never liked Sony in the past but in my opinion they really have a winner with the PS3.
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To me, one thing exemplifies what is wrong with Sony: The lack of backward compatibility in the “common” PS3. This is a complete flip-off to the user. They can do it for free with software emulation. But they don’t include the software! Unbelievable. Why not? Because they don’t care at all about what the users need. They must think they will get people to re-buy the PS2 software as downloads later.
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Don’t shot the messenger guys! You know there has to be a problem with Sony otherwise why would a lot of their fans (me included) buy a xbox360? For one it cost too much! Most of the big sellers ARE on 360. Want a outside link? Wikipedia has a list of 1 miliion sellers. About 10 for Sony and about 30 for Microsoft. Now FFXIII was the second biggest seller after GTA (Which already went multi with exclusive content going to 360 only). Now FFXIII? The third biggest is god of war which is safe, then MGS which has already shipped and helped but not significant. Want proof of the graphics problems? LOOK AT THE GAMES!!! GTAIV compare to the 360 version(after launch comparisons). ALL of the sports games usually twice the frame rate on the 360. Assasins creed frame rate and AI. COD4 Frame rate and textures. They hype them up on ps3 but once released they look better on 360 with few exceptions (usually because of a year later translation). Even Sony can’t get games done near on time, and they MADE the machine. You cant deny these things! Delays, graphics, price. How can you jump the messenger? He is not the only one telling you this! Its every major multiplatform site (except maybe N4g LOL). If Sony comes out with a exclusive Xenosaga, or any other great RPG that I have to have I will get it…..or if they drop the price.
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I just bought a PS3 for the blu-ray and am giving one to my father for his birthday. I love using it as a media center and have Tversity installed on my main home computer so I can listen to all the music and see all the movies I have stored there without transferring them to the PS3. I just wanted a blu-ray player, but what I received astounded me! I can surf the web, listen to my music, see my videos and even play games all from the comfort of my living room sofa. Best buy I’ve made in a long time.
Oh, and I’m planning on upgrading my disk to 160 gigs and putting Linux on it just to see what all the fuss is about. Man, this is one fun toy! I am a bit disappointed in the game controls and will stick with my PC to play games. FPS console games are a joke.
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Corndog, i’d love to see this video of GTAIV being better on 360.
Every video i have seen have shown massive graphical glitches on 360 (sometimes entire sections of roads missing, and once, an entire bridge)
This mainly being down to it having to read of disc, rather than HDD (Microsoft were stupid to have made it optional, that was what made Xbox so good)
There is a little difference between the 360 and PS3, and that is that 360s is more colorful, but PS3s had a sharper and “cleaner” image (or in other words, more realistic)
And for the love of god, if you post the Gametrailers one, then please don’t bother clicking submit, that site is laughable with their lies (like using the same video to try put down PS3 and show how “better” the 360 version was by using a PS3 video!)
I’ll give you the others though.
Sony were also very stupid to have split the RAM up into system and video, but there is a connection to directly access system RAM from RSX, but not many developers have used it from what i can see.
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This is ridiculous.
Clearly, with all the things mentioned here in mind, the PS3 has disproved each and every single one.
-The best lookign games come on PS3. Uncharted, Gram Turismo, and soon Killzone 2. Even multiplatform games look better and better on it. Mirror’s Edge, Prince of Persia and Dead Space all lead on the PS3. As do many many more, as seen at E3. CoD4, GTAIV and Burnout look better on the PS3.
-PS3 has outsold the 360 this year thus-far, it’s install base is bigger in Japan, and Europe, and now they are catchign up in America
-Loss of last-gen exclusives mean very little. DMC, GTAIV and FFXIII, are all multiplatform, so they won’t cause a surge in sales for either.
-You can bet Sony’s huge first party will be the ones to hit on the ‘big thing’ this generation, and then Microsoft will be clamouring to catch up.
-RSX is weaker doesn’t explain why even 360 exclsuives don’t look as good as PS3 exclusives.
-Sony didn’t incorrectly predict where the market was going. Casual was soemthign they introduced with the PS2, and Wii had to feed off of that with a very cheap console. If it weren’t for the Wii and DS, casual gamign would still be a niche. And PS3 is catering for it anyway.
-The PS3 is too big a userbase to miss out on now, so companies are isntead developing for the PS3 (the difficult part) then porting to the 360.
-BluRay is becomign increasingly popular, and means you can have single disk games that cost less to manufacture than multiple DVD’s and specialised cases, and are certainly the future of physical media.
-PSN is free. And it’s go no advertising and offers the same services. If not identical, then they are working to improve it, or better Live.
If you aren’t a fanboy, your a hater. Or you just enjoy beign wrong.
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You could argue that the PS3 didn’t have to bother with focusing on casual gaming, because they anticipated letting the PS2 live on a bit longer to do so. There are still loads of games coming out for it that are casual/family/kid based …mostly thanks to the focus on Wii and lots of spare PS2 kits.
Admittedly, a lot of the above is luck but I’m sure they always intended the PS2 to last well into this generation, just like the PS1.
Personally, I’m not getting either a PS3 or a 360. They are both very flawed machines. One is noisy and enjoys breaking, the other costs a bomb and doesn’t perform as well because it’s been cobbled together with little thought. I can wait until they make new slim versions.
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I’m not going to do tons of research before I make a comment, this is my opinion as a user, not as a veteran games industry marketer.
Me and my brother own a console each, he has the 360 and I have the PS3, now to start off with I could see that he was able to get more games of what he wanted which are fps’s, and really if I am honest I would say that it looked a lot more fun at the 360 than PS3 when the PS3 launched. Now I am enjoying MGS4 – Graphics are astonishing, WarHawk – Still in our family the most played game and EchoChrome – What a well thought out game + music is great aswell.
The 360 is getting more and more annoying online, with lots of teens getting their hands on one, you cannot communicate properly because someone is hissing down the mic, team-killing you, or the disc cannot be read, you get booted offline and someone gives you a bad rating because you left the game!!! Worst of all is the bad design of the internals, as we have had to return two machines since purchase and it looks like we may have to with this one as it cannot read discs and the DVD tray will not open (dust free environment). We all chipped in and got him a HD-DVD player at Christmas and he’s got three movies that he can watch, great!
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I owned a PS then PS2 and was going to automatically buy a PS3, but the launch price and shoddy games line-up put me off. So I bought a 360 and love it to bits. Excellent graphics, excellent games, good variety (has never broken once thank-you-very-much).
But both my brother-in-laws bought PS3s. They aren’t even gamers very much. They bought because of Blu-Ray, and the PS3 was a much cheaper blu-ray device than a stand-alone box, plus it could play games if they ever felt that way inclined. Since then they’ve bought Guitar Hero, Sing Star and several others and love it.
I love my 360 but I appreciate that in the long haul the PS3 is going to win. It’s just taking Sony several years longer than expected.
You seem to have a massive misconception that the 360 will win because Microsoft have so much money – this is insane. The reason MS have so much money is because they are insanely good at business, and only they will tolerate a low-profit division for so long.
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Still you can’t honestly think MS even given a damn about it’s customers. Their DRM policy stinks, the 360 is the most unreliable POS I ever owned and on top of it their dirty busniess tactics are ruining the industry. They buy their way into everything not because of consumer dedication but because they want a monopoly on yet another market. So they can eventually kill off console gaming and make everyone buy an Xbox media center which comes with Windows 8 and is not compatible with 90% of what you already own. Honestly if you deny this then your just lying to yourself or perhaps trying to justify why you spend so much time on the phone with Xbox support. I had 6 360’s and all of them broke, so I don’t want to hear all the 360 fanboys and their “Im still on my launch one” line cause thats BS. I will be the first to admit that Sony made the pile they now have to sit in but I will not go so far as to say MS is the right choice. What you also fail to realize is that past sales numbers mean nothing, and not you or any other analyst can even hope to forsee the outcome of all of this. The exact same stuff was said about the PS2, hard to work with, poor system architecture yet it some how beat everything else. You nor anyone can say what will drive consumers to make purchases and in 5 years PS3 could very well prove you wrong it could also flop. Heck the market could crash tomorrow a think how stupid we would all look talking about videogames. You make valid points but those factors will not be enough because it’s proven that early leads (Dreamcast anyone) don’t hold up.
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great read, thanks. I think Sony killed their chances of winning the console war when they bet the farm on blu-ray. I don’t think they have much money left to save their console now. I’m pretty sure nothing about that console is making them money. That has to be a horrible feeling.
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RE: Evan: “In my opinion, Sony’s biggest failure this generation has been in their marketing strategy.”
I completely agree with this, and ironically, if Bruce had written this article on that point alone, there could have been little argument – especially as it’s his area of expertise.
It is clear from the article that understanding or working with console technology is *not* his area of expertise, so regurgitating arguments from anti-PS3 websites and forums (most of which are little more than FUD) destroys the article’s credibility rather than enhancing it.
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Nick, I agree with you. You know, I really don’t care if someone likes or dislikes Sony (or any other company), but I just want to know the real reason behind the feeling. Somehow, it strikes me that the items on Bruce’s list are rationalizations put forth to prop up an already-formed perception — the items are simply too easily refuted for me to believe that Bruce is actually basing his opinion of the PS3 on them.
I find Codemaster’s post more refreshing — he said he does not like Sony’s past “attitude” and software tools. I personally would not base my choice of a console on those criteria, but at least I understand what is actually driving Codemaster’s anti-Sony sentiment. It is certainly fine to be anti-Sony, even for non-analytical reasons, but it sures helps when people are open about what is really driving their attitude.
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I had to double-check the date on this article, because most of the points that Bruce brings up are either dated or been proven outright not to be true. Anyone who comes right out and accuses people who don’t share his POV on a console ‘fanboys’, should look in the mirror. When reading Bruce’s comments on Microsoft I see ‘the glass is half-full’ perspective bubbling over. With Sony, it’s a perpetual ‘glass is half-empty’ outlook despite Sony’s expectation that the PS3 will be profitable by next year. Didn’t Microsoft just announce that the XBox console (including the original) has become profitable for them, after nearly 7 years of production? Why does MS get the free pass, while Sony gets put to task for the very same thing? Except that Sony still has a very profitable PS2 on the market as well….MS has long since abandoned the original XBox.
Please Bruce…try to present a fair and balanced picture of the reality of the situation, instead of regurgitating FUD that was true last year but no longer holds water.
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All Sony fanboys, would you please go to the exit? Wake up and smell the ashes. Every metric seems to point that Sony is losing.
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Guys, when refuting Bruce’s arguments for lack of evidence, provide evidence yourself (more than “I personally find it to look/play better”).
Signed : A developer who has to bear working on the PS3 and know for a fact that at least the technical assertions are true, but reiterates that games are not more enjoyable/good looking because they run on powerful machines, but because developers have varying degrees of talent and different constraints.
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You know this guy’s opinion is crap when he can type “A gulf that further widened this E3 where Nintendo and Microsoft forged ahead whilst Sony were distinctly lacklustre.” with a straight face.
Anyone who followed E3 knows Nintendo had the most lackluster showing of the Big Three. And Microsoft, except for the FFXIII multiplat announcment, just showed off their skills at copying rather than innovating: Avatars (Miis) and Lips (Singstar) to name a few.
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This is directed at Kyle Barrett, who claims (wrongly) that “CoD4, GTAIV and Burnout look better on the PS3.” I’m going to have to claim this as one of the most misinformed comments to follow this article.
I’m not going to comment on Burnout as I haven’t followed it, but EVERY MAJOR SITE that has compared COD4 claims that the 360 and PS3 versions of the game look IDENTICAL. They run at identical resolutions, framerates, and detail levels in every regard.
With regard to GTAIV, again we have a toss-up as to which game is better-looking. However, one fact can’t be denied: the sleuths at Beyond3D noted that while the 360 version runs at a full 720p, the PS3 version actually runs at a slightly lower resolution of 640p.
I hate to yank off your rose-colored glasses, but these are the facts. Feel free to try to prove otherwise.
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There is no ‘next gen’ battle, only a home console market place, and in that market place, its still the old PS2 which is the dominant platform. For that reason, Sony have no reason to bring the price of the PS3 down, at least not until the production process behind the PS3 has been further streamlined, and the PS2 shows signs of rapid decline, which I would imagine happening in 2009.
Sony did make a mistake with their marketing strategy. Surreal, dream-like, and abstract advertisements hinting at what was to come in future games and in high definition blu ray movies, would have been better showing in more concrete terms what the machine is capable of.
Sony also made a mistake in fighting the Immersion copyright over the rumble technology. Perhaps not though. There seem to be a number of ruthless companies that create IP, bury it, then lay in wait for a major company to come up with something similar, and spring a law suit on them, a parasitic business strategy that is destroying the economy and the games industry.
Sony were right to help develop the cell processor as its superior processing capabilities will ensure its much touted 10 year life span. Moreover, Sony will be able to save a great deal of R&D money when it comes to the PS4 onward buy using variations of the cell processor, rather than developing a new processor / renegotiating with an outside manufacturer to create another processor. While its almost a given that the PS4 will have cell based processor, the successor to the 360 is unlikely to use a variation of the already off the shelf 3-core IBM processor as used in the 360.
Sony’s decision to include a hard drive with every iteration of the PS3 was the right move to make, as was the decision to make access to online PS3 gaming free, access to Home free, and the clear display of actual cost for items in the Playstation Store, making the whole experience very consumer friendly.
This year will, I believe, be the last great year for the PS2, and at the same time, will mark the beginning of the PS3 march towards market domination. Sony will release a PS2 emulator for the PS3, free to download from the PS Store, ensuring the continued market viability of PS2 software. And as hard drives become larger, I imagine we’ll see PS2 titles available for download from the PS Store. Watch and see.
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Let me for a change join the fun of this discussion with some maybe interesting new info.
I don’t consider myself a Sony fanboy, though my experience with the two previous Playstations did help in choosing for the PS3 over the Xbox. Overal they are both good machines but Sony made some bad marketing choices which gave them a big delay, however not so long ago numbers of this years profits was posted and it now exceeded that of Xbox. Apparantly they catched up.
Anyway, time for the info I wanted to share. First of all I want to counter the part that says that producing for the PS3 is tougher then the Xbox. For a long time this has been true but now days a huge amount of games are being made with Unreal3. Porting a game with UT3 from Xbox to PS3 or the other way around is quite easy. Thats why you see so many games these days to come out on both platforms pretty soon after each other or even at the same time. To the PS3 there is a downside to this though. It won’t use the power of the machine and that’s a shame cause it has so much more potential. Currently I’m doing research for a game company creating PS3 exclusive games and they said we could go all crazy with physics and stuff like that. They’re making AAA games yet they have not even used half the power of this beasty. The Wii is already loosing ground and the Xbox has, after three years, already reached it max. So who knows, the PS3 might still win. I guess only time will tell.
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Here’s a bit of background for my little rant:
I was a Sega fanboy for the longest time. Grew up with a Genesis, a Sega CD, a Saturn, and a Dreamcast. Got to watch my favorite company go under because of bad marketing, and end up being what I consider now to be a “game whore,” simply recycling things that are better left in the grave. It was a good thing that we had a Playstation 2 around the same time, which became my next big thing. Better graphics, could play all my old games (because we had a Playstation somewhere along the line… I really don’t know how many Christmases it took to get all of these systems, because we were never rich by any means), etc. I became a Sony fanboy, for a while.
Years later, I was introduced to the PSP. I absolutely loved that system. I could make my own content and play Sony’s games, which were mostly mediocre at best. My PS2 was still going strong, but my PSP was like a PS2 that I could carry with me! Despite the short battery life, the mediocre official games, the fact that Sony was going to be “different” and allow homebrew programs and games on it made it have a good deal of potential. Then they patched it. And patched it again. To the point where something that wasn’t polishing Sony’s knob wouldn’t run at all, without a good hacked firmware for the thing, something that was risky and could possibly turn my beloved PSP into a brick.
I realized that Sony really didn’t want to be different, that they were (like most companies that put out systems and video games in this day and age) just in it for the money, and screw the customer. It now remains at that firmware, 3.50 OE-A, and I really haven’t touched it since. Ended up becoming a Microsoft junkie with their 360, and didn’t have any problems with it, but I feel my nostalgia of games that I spent hundreds of hours on holds me back on new consoles, where I can pay more money for less elegant games. Thats been gathering dust for a month, because I couldn’t get into online games such as Halo 3 or Left 4 Dead, and I played Fallout 3 until my thumbs were exhausted, but there aren’t that many games that really stood out to me, like Final Fantasy 7, Phantasy Star IV (the new, online ones suck), and many other games of old.
Come to think of it, this is probably one of the things that set me into a less reputable area of video games in general, because many games of today are just buggy pieces of patchwork story with good graphics that end up needing more patching after they are released. With consoles that are largely internet accessible, most developers believe they can bypass lengthy beta testing and simply push release dates for mediocre games as soon as possible. And then they wonder why people crack the protection and pirate their games more often (cough, EA, cough). Thats a discussion for another day.
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I just stumbled upon this blog and have been laughing hysterically for going on 15 minutes. Not only is your horizontal bias amusing it entirely discredits anything you say, your sales figures are fictional for christs sake. You are a joke.