Still A Rough Road Ahead for the PlayStation 3

TobyToadstool writes "Despite the good news out of GDC last week, it still seems like Sony's new console has some image management to do. CNET says that the PlayStation 3 is 'the most unwanted console in recent memory' and asks 'why is the PS3 so undesirable?' They specifically question the company's wisdom in emphasizing the power of the console. Their impression is that this invites developers to neglect gameplay, in favour of investing in graphics. Likewise, Gamespot is running a piece suggesting ten ways to make the PS3 worth buying. A lower price is just one of the suggestions with exclusives, and the need for online standardization, following close behind. Looks like Sony still has its work cut out."

It's about games...

[eison]

Get us a game worth playing, and we'll want to buy it.
Should be a no-brainer.
Maybe Sony should try to hire some people from Nintendo. Nintendo has to have somebody with a clue who thinks that powerful hardware would be nice to run a good game on.

Re:well, duh

[Lithos]

Had to reply to this.. I own all 3 systems and I hate it when people assume they know what they're talking about.

The price, frankly, is retardedly high. Without anything new or awesome games, a console that's 50% higher than its nearest competitor isn't going to sell.

Well there's two problems with this thinking. 1st, it's only $100 more than a 360, if you want to compare what the systems actually include, assuming you're not interested in playing Blu-Ray discs or HD-DVD discs, otherwise, it's $100 cheaper than a 360. Why is this? Because the 360 only comes with a 20 GB HD and no 802.11g support. Let's try and just compare apples to apples.

One more food for thought item... I realize that the 360 has better online options right now.. but is it $50/yr better? Or $200 - $250 over the life of the console better? That also needs to be figured in the total cost of ownership of either system. The way I see it, total cost of ownership for my 360 (having gotten it on launch day) is $850. $250 for 5 years worth of XBox Live (assuming I keep it for the life of the system) and $200 for the HD-DVD player (because I really do think high def movies are better) and $400 for the console. Whereas the total cost of ownership for my PS3 (having gotten it on launch day) is still only $600.

I have all 3 systems, and play all 3 systems regularly. I couldn't/didn't want to choose one or two out of the three because I knew it would be torture 1-2 years down the road, once the big exclusives come out. But once I got all 3 and started looking at this objectively, I started feeling more and more like Sony actually does know what they're doing. Now if only someone could send a message to their marketing folk that the PS3 would be cheaper than a similarly decked out 360 and play off of that, maybe their sales would start taking off.

Re:Right. Being a happy PS3 owner isn't unusual.

[oGMo]

The PS3 is probably used only slightly less than my cable box. It's a fantastic DVD player, media player, Blu-ray player, and game console. Once I got over the price, I took the plunge and grabbed it. It's on for a few hours every night, in either linux or crossbar.

Yeah same. Plus it's nice to sit across the room and play PS2 games wirelessly on the big screen, and without worrying about memcards. But these are just perks.

What's really ironic is that Sony has made the most open console, and no one seems to want to mention this. If it weren't so expensive, we'd see an incredible surge of hack activity on the product.

What's funny is it's not really the most expensive. It's a lot more expensive than the Wii, yes: but Nintendo is off in their own playground with the Wii. Compare:

• Premium 360: $399
• 360 HD-DVD: $199
• Total: $598

That's what a 60G PS3 (with memcard readers, wifi, bluetooth, and gigabit ethernet) costs, but with 20G PS3 specs. And games only run off DVDs, so it lacks the capacity for the big HD assets (models, textures, maps, etc).

Also compare this to a PC: just to run Oblivion, I'd need a new HDD, new video card, more RAM, and a WinXP license. With conservative upgrades (i.e. not the latest stuff), that's about $500 right there. So for the price of a new PS3, I could upgrade my box to play a single game, and likely not support anything really new. Or I could buy a PS3, have it run Linux, and know it's going to play every new game for the next 5+ years.

What's most frustrating about being a PS3 owner is that everyone immediately assumes you've wasted your money. If you explain that the PS3 has been a terrific experience, they immediate assume you either: a) Don't have a Wii and are bitter or b) are a Sony shill.

Sadly most people are shills for whatever the media tells them. This is often especially true for media writers, who seem to love propagating Sony-Is-Dead stories. It's in, it's cool, you get to say nasty things about a big industry player, and people love you for it.

That doesn't mean it's true.

You will note how people will immediately turn their story around [penny-arcade.com] when the tide begins to change. And it isn't the first time [penny-arcade.com], either (scroll down, second posting).

I hope with the upcoming price drop and Home (and Little Big World) on the way, Sony will get the PS3 back on track, because there really is a lot to like about it.

Yeah. I want to see this, not because I have any great love for Sony (does anyone, really?) or the Playstation brand. It's because one, Nintendo doesn't have a console that can deliver all the sorts of games I want to play (large-scale RPGs, other next-gen interactive-world stuff). And because I don't want to see Microsoft come out anywhere near the top: if you don't understand why, just look at the state of any market in which they have come out on top.

If Sega came back, that'd be cool.

Re:Seriously

[5c11]

Ask yourself why there are so many relatively high quality games for the X-Box platform (original and 360) and why there are relatively fewer games for the PS3

Um, the Xbox came out in November of 2001. The 360 came out in November of 2005. The PS3 has been out for 4 months. From what I've heard you're right about development being easier on the Xbox and the 360, but I should think that the one and five year leads have more to do with the number of games than the SDKs.