Gamer’s Breed

We all know the made them, but have they learnt from them?

Everyone is talking about how the PS3 will overcome all other consoles or how it will burn into nothingness, yeah most articles provide extreme views on it’s future either way; and let’s not forget the whole “<insert year> will be THE year of the PS3”. But how did we get here? Why is Sony, whom enjoyed and still enjoys it to a certain point the success of the PS2, struggling with the PS3 in third place in most charts; behind the Xbox 360 and the Wii? Well let’s see just what the hell went wrong with the seemingly unstoppable and mighty Sony.

These in order of severity are in my opinion, the reasons why the PS3 is in third place right now.

5 – Launch price tag and weak launch line up

At $499 the 20GB PS3 at launch, was 200 hundred dollars more expensive than the basic Core Xbox 360. That combined with a weak launch line up, out of the 14 games available at launch, only Resistance: FOM and Ridge Racer 7 were hits. We know we were getting a lot for that price, after all the PS3 was one of the first and cheapest Blue Ray players; but a time Blue Ray was still off the map and HD DVD was coming up, this wasn’t much of a good thing.

4 – Removal of PS2 compatibility

I have seen people debate over this, some say it’s a feature no one will miss but I will surely help if the price is less and others actually miss it; so all I can say is that I don’t think the few dollars they saved with this move are worth the frustration many PS2 gamers felt and still feel with the new PS3. Even Jack Trenton(Sony America boss in 2007) commented on this saying that the removal of PS2 backward compatibility wasn’t “dramatically reducing Sony’s cost of manufacturing” instead it was done to ”encourage buyers of the entry-level PlayStation 3 to purchase more games designed specifically for the new system.”

3 – Marketing fiasco (overconfidence and the six axis controller)

Remember the whole bet on finding a PS3 at a retail store? Jack Trenton would pay $1200 if you brought him a PS3 soon after launch, which you had found at a retail store. Let’s just say that the PS3 did not sell as Trenton expected and many people would have gotten rich if there was any truth to that proposition. Furthermore Sony continued to expel overconfidence with the whole Six Axis controller, ditching the proven Dual Shock format at launch; thankfully they later fix that mistake by re-introducing the Dual Shock 3 as the next best thing. However the damage to Sony’s reputation had already been dealt. All this led to the PS3 being trashed all across America, with the typical Gamestop employee being an example of this; not to mention how many retail stores practically HIDE the console and it’s games.

2 – Lack of online features

Ok the PSN NOW has little if at all to envy to the XBLA, however that was not always the case. At launch and for the better part of 2007, the online features in a PS3 were practically inexistent; you couldn’t even send a message to someone in mid game, not to mention that there was no such thing as trophies. Last generation, the Xbox innovated (in consoles at least) with the Live service; that really changed gaming and brought the birth of what we dubbed the “new gamer era”. Sony’s “mistake” was focusing on making a strong console, with lots of power and stability (lower failure rate) and rather than focusing on its online interface; which now is just as important. After looking at the story of the PS3, the PSN seems almost like an afterthought or at least feels rushed.

1 – Lack of development support

But the top mistake that Sony did with the PS3, was that although it produced one of the most powerful computing devices ever, there was practically no research done on the tools needed to develop software to run in the platform. Giving the developers the PS3 to develop for was like giving a Ferrari to someone who could barely drive and one must not look further than the awful multiplatform titles released on 2007 and the better part of 2008 to realize that. Games like Burn Out Paradise and Farcry 2 really changed this, at there was practically no difference between the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. Thankfully this seems to be a thing of the past, but to some extent it will haunt the PS3 forever; even after the Killzone 2 engine is released and the alleged support network established between studios for developing PS3 exclusives.

We all know the made them, but have they learnt from them? I think that the lack of PS1 games on the PSN store, lack of media available and the poor marketing Sony is doing lately is any indication… then hell no! Someone needs to go in there and put the house of Sony in order for god’s sake! What do you think? Did I miss some other Sony/PS3 related screw up? Have they learned from them?