The PlayStation 3 is the slow seller in the United States but Sony still holds belief in their “10 year plan.” Many of us consider this to be the same style of plan Sony used with the PS2, sell your console through multiple generations and own the market share. The PS2‘s launch was much more graceful when compared to its 7th generation counterpart. Perhaps the PS3 has a different destiny… perhaps they want to remove all other media boxes from your living room.
Imagine a life without a cable box or Tivo and you’re probably envisioning Sony’s road map for a media distribution empire. First, remove Tivo from the situation with a DVR style box using their PlayTV technologies, wired up to the PlayStation 3 using a USB connection. The United States hasn’t seen a launch of PlayTV, more than likely because the PS3 isn’t a huge console here yet and Tivo is partnered with many cable and satellite providers already.
Senior director of the PlayStation Network, Susan Panico said Sony “looks aspirationally at HBO, the way they have Sex and the City and other shows” (gamespot) after admitting Sony wants to replace cable boxes in the home. Tivo has already done a great job removing the need for a cable box, allowing you to rent a “cable card” to insert into a Tivo and gain access to all their content for your DVR needs. DirectTV offers (or has in the past) a Tivo or Tivo-like DVR solution. Cable and DirectTV offer the ability to rent their DVR or offer a solution to purchase your own at a retail outlet What if Sony decides to partner with one or more of these providers to offer an all-in-one solution. PS3 owners wouldn’t have to purchase additional equipment and could be up and running immediately with hard disks big enough to handle HD content.
Sony could offer you a graphically appealing gaming experience, a high definition BluRay solution, media distribution for renting movies, an iTunes style online store for purchasing and playing music all wrapped up in a DVR solution. All this content for a $400 price tag is a value when all the offers are combined into one tiny black box.
Looking at today’s Tivo Series3 HD DVR you’ll notice the ability to play music directly from iTunes, browse and play Youtube shows, watch Disney offerings and even high definition NetFlix playback. The Tivo DVR’s can also talk with other DVR’s in the household making it easy to share TV records across systems. The only thing missing in the Tivo solution is a high definition gaming platform and the BluRay hardware.
We’re all sitting here poking fun at the small PS3 game library and telling people that BluRay is going to lose out to HD downloads yet we may be missing the bigger picture: an all-in-one media empire solution. The PS3 may not carry the largest game library compared to the Xbox 360 or the sales records of the Wii but if Sony finds a way to become a reliable and required media set top box they may realize their true “10 year plan.”
@electroshock headset: Why? I can’t fathom why anyone would pay $100 to do this on purpose.
@VR horror survival: I think this is a good idea, and I thought DayZ was a survivor horror game. I do tend to get jumpy with various mobs from different games so having it VR would be even worse.
I wanted to give my impressions of E3, I have to say that Bethesda just knocked it out of the park day one. I was admittedly on the fence about Fallout 4, I wasn’t sure I wanted to even look at it. Then Todd Howard took to the stage and converted me to a rabid fanatic of Fallout 4. He did a fantastic job of building up and revealing the various features of the game. Showing the great detail of character creation, adding that you can play as a woman (to be fair you can do so in all Fallout games). Then the sheer amount of vibrant color which goes a long way to look better than the drab colors of Fallout 3. Then he went into the sheer amount of weapon customization and then stated “oh and you can build settlements” at which point I lost it and had to have this game. Then he revealed you can have a real freaking Pip boy!
After that presentation everything else just felt lack luster. Even the lovely rendered Doom just failed to impress me. When Adam Sessler asked what’s different about this Doom? They then stated that it was speed and weapons, which to me is what every FPS has or aspires to have. FPS in general just doesn’t make me happy, building does and adding THAT to Fallout 4 is like making it an entirely different game.
I will most likely be building settlements across the wasteland like I’m building a new Civilization. I may end up forgetting the main story entirely as I will be busying acting like I’m playing a modded Civ game to look like Fallout.
I saw the Hololens which is a great concept and idea, but it seemed like the control of it was a little rough there. I’ve been told this game is 2x the size of Skyrim, one developer spent 4oo hours exploring and was still finding new things. So I suspect Jonah may not want to play this.
I do like when you guys have Genre talk like the D&D, Vampire Masquerade, and Dr Who.
QotW: I think I prefer a voiced character, someone who has an identity. The blank slate is nice but I feel like I need a complete story and knowing that my character never says anything can feel kind of gimmicky at times, especially when other characters are basically having to be your voice.