How sony has forsaken the customers…
I bought a PS3 over the weekend. much to arguing and hooplah against my wife’s wishes…
So here is what I think about this whole console war thing….. a little history if you will first…
In the days of nintendo, the famicom, sega genesis, and atari… the producers of video games were 1st party. basically… if you had a famicom/nintendo system… then the only company making games for you was… NINTENDO.
Sega had a brilliant idea… why not let other companies make games!?!?! so… the sega genesis started kicking ass. all these companies made games and in 1 year there were more games available for one system than nintendo had for their system in 10 years!
then… sega made the dreamcast. a phenomenal system. a system so technically advanced and marvellous… and even cheap to build… that it blew all competition out of the water. cept for one thing… IT WAS TOO FRIGGIN HARD TO program software for it!!! it was soooo complex, that no one knew what to do. meanwhile… sony came in with the playstation 1… and said… hey… we will GIVE you the code to our system… we will HELP you develop games…. and while it may not be as strong and futuristic as the SEGA DREAMCAST… you will make GOOD games… and they will be plenty … so sony outsold the Sega dreamcast so much that in 1 year time… Sega’s video game console was no longer made.
Then playstation 2 came along. it was big. it continued to grow on the same platform…. lots and lots of software.
Microsoft comes in with the xbox in the late 90s and says…. hey, you know what? on top of letting anyone develop games for it… we will OPEN UP THE SYSTEM, MAKE IT OPENSOURCE, TEACH YOU HOW TO PROGRAM FOR IT, AND PAY YOU TO MAKE SOFTWARE! at first it was like… so what… by producing a game for PS2, a software developer could make more money than what Microsoft was offering.
THEN in 2005 came the Xbox 360… the next xbox console. sony WANTED to make the Playstation 3 at the same time… but nooooo they wanted to make their system a SUPER computer…. so… microsoft takes the ball… and starts running. They provide TOTAL 3rd party support… allow developers to make software easily, and EVEN CREATE AN APPLICATION that lets REGULAR HOME USERS at their computer make games at home on their computer and put them on DVDS to run as xbox360 games!!!! in essence, they made a system anyone could use, user friendly, well built for online communities, and while not super strong… an all around good quality build…
2007 comes along, and sony FINALLY releases the playstation 3. Oh it’s a monster. its like a computer that has not been developed yet. it runs linux. it has 7 cores (as opposed to the best PCs now having a max of 4 cores), it has fast graphics… wireless internet, bluetooth.. a 60 gb hard drive…… etc and the list goes on. it also costs sony $800 a piece to make!!! no one pays that for a VIDEO game system. so what do they do to at least get people to buy it? sell it at $600. and hope that enough people buy it to raise brand awareness. doesn’t happen. then they hope they get exclusive games so that people will want it… doesn’t happen. developers left and right see that its TOO futuristic to make games for(same thing that i just mentioned about the SEGA DREAMCAST). the marketing sucks… everything… except the system itself sucks. Much like the dreamcast… this system is doomed.
my poor poor little sony. in the past year… you have had your batteries explode, you’ve been cocky and gotten smacked for it, you got caught lying, then you got sued over and over again… and now your ONLY means of making money … video games… is failing miserably.
I do hope you get better. really. Why? cause no matter what happens to you, my little Sony… I love you.