Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have great visions for their consoles, they all strive to stand out from their competitors. Nintendo’s key initiative is to get non-gamers on board and provide the world with something a little different while Microsoft’s concept is to get a 360 into the hands of all gamers and build a huge community. Sony’s selling point? Graphics.
When it comes to standing out amongst the other consoles, Sony cannot compete with the Wii‘s quirky cuteness and Xbox 360‘s one-year lead on sales, games and overall functionality. They were late to the game because of technological advances in Blu-Ray and overall graphic horsepower. They’re providing a console that will still look “teh awesomes” ten years down the road, similar to the attack plan of the PS2 product which still sells today.
Sony’s Scott Steinberg, Vice President of Product Marketing for SCEA had nothing but great things to say about the console he’s marketing…
“I think that we’re seeing, graphically, PS3 games starting to create some distance and some of the other competitors are going to feel that they’re getting long in the tooth, looking quite dated, because they haven’t created that ten-year vision from a horsepower standpoint” (psu.com)
Really? Does anyone look at the Xbox 360 and say “this thing looks dated.” Each new title release continues to look more advanced and more graphically appealing than the last. Sure, Resistance 2 looked graphically epic, but the title isn’t on the shelves yet. As a matter of fact, very few PS3 titles are on the shelves when it comes to graphically appealing titles everyone wants.
As Nintendo has proven, it’s not always about the advanced graphics but the fun value and access to many titles across many genre’s of gaming. We’re happy about a nice 10-year vision but there is a reason classic games like Pac-Man, Missile Command and Galaga are still talked about and played by gamers: simple and fun.
Microsoft may not have a ten year vision, this is true, but I’d rather have a hot console I can play for the next six years than own a more expensive console with few games until its third year of life. The PlayStation 3 has been beating the Xbox 360 sales in 2008, is this too surprising given the fact that the Xbox 360 was out a year ahead? Sales aren’t always going to be rosy and over the top (unless it’s the Wii).
Rather than concentrate on how many more consoles the PS3 has sold compared to the 360, look at how many Wii consoles have sold to the graphically superior PS3. Perhaps Sony should speak less to the gamers about how awesome their console is and speak more to the developers so we can get titles worth buying for the console. Gamers only win when a console has games for them to play.
You know why I hate Windows sometimes? Because it decides to do a reboot and a system update while I’m in the middle of writing a comment on a podcast episode…
Anyway, let’s cut to the chase. I will keep it brief because I don’t feel like writing an elaborate post again after what just happened.
1. I got the T-shirt, thanks a lot! It fits perfectly and the cotton quality is excellent. Great gift.
2. X-bone launch date. It will not launch in Poland and some of the neighboring countries so it makes me care even less about the console that I did previously. Because of the limited launch range, the date hase everything to do with Black Friday and nothing to do with the PS4 double release date. We sort of have some sales like this before Christmas and people do get trampled over in stores but still it’s not as crazy as over there. Thankfully, there’s always Amazon and Cyber Monday so I’m going to stock up on stuff then. Also, we didn’t have labor weekend or anything like that last week 😉
3. PS4 controllers. Do they mean 4 Dualshock 4s or 4 controller of any kind? Maybe it’s the former which would mean that the console will support more RockBand or Buzz controllers? That would make little sense, though. Still, I don’t care that much. The last time I played couch co-op was maybe two years ago when I played NHL 3-on-3 Arcade with two of my friends. Other than that, I don’t remember what else I played. I use my second controller while the other one is charging and that’s it.
For move games you usually don’t have enough space in the room to fit 3 or 4 people playing so it’s 2 people time 2 controllers = 4 total and that’s enough.
4. External hard drives. This is unclear to me. Do they mean media storage as well, i.e. movies and music on an external hard drive? This wouldn’t make sense, again. It shouldn’t be that hard to support an external USB drive in the OS so maybe they do mean games and game data.
500 GB is not that much if you count all the games you download with PS+. I own a 120 GB PS3 and I need to cycle my games constantly, which is not convenient. I’m getting a 1 TB disk soon and I wanted to put it in the PS4 and move the 500 GB into the PS3. I’m not sure the warranty is void if you do it, to be honest, since Sony encourages the disks to be exchanged (see, the 12 GB Flash iteration of the PS3)
5. FF XIV – I believe the only reason they’re continuing to realease new games is to learn the Roman numerals…
6. QOTW – If it ain’t broke, I’m not getting a new one – that’s my way of thinking. And since I’ve never had a console break, I’ve never exchanged one. To be fair, I only owned an NES, a PS3 and a Vita (I’m not counting some old, old TV consoles that played Pong…), so my experience is limited. Maybe it will change with the PS4 which I will get at launch. The chances that it will last for 6-8 years are slim, I guess but hopefully I’m wrong.
7. @Jordan – have you played Killzone: Mercenary on your Vita? That’s a AAA exclusive you’ve been waiting for. I’m not a huge FPS fan and I’m not that good at them, especially online, but I really like this game and it plays extremely well on the handheld.
8. I’m going off the grid for over a week so I will miss the next episode. You will probably talk about the new Vita model. Have you noticed that the mysterious connector has disappeared from it? The one next to the game slot on top of the device? Any ideas what that was supposed to do anyway? 🙂