Whither Sony?

Vandemar

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Nov 5, 2003
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I was talking with some of the other writers tonight and one thing we all agreed on was the total lack of interest in the Playstation 3. The Wii was definitely the prettiest girl at the party and cool 360 games were all over the place--my breaking down and buying one is only a few months off--and the PS3 was there, line wrapped around to see it and everything, but no one was talking about it. Sony's booth was a giant, hulking thing, crouching there...but I heard no chatter about it from the writers or from the other people I was hanging around. The Wii, yes, Spore, yes, an Australian MMO called Fury, yes (they had people from other companies hanging around playing their game all the time), but not a peep about the Playstation 3. Even the developers seemed to be of the "Check out all this cool stuff we're doing with the 360........oh, yea, the game is also coming out on Playstation 3." It might just be the circles I move in, but if I was Sony, I'd be worried. Anyone catch any buzz about the PS3? I'm genuinely curious and wondering if I missed something.
 

Kross

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Sep 27, 2004
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What I noticed is they were pushing the games for the PS3 a bit, but they weren't really pushing the system at all. They had the demo stations set up and looking all pretty, and always had people on every station lined up to play them, but they weren't really pushing the product to anyone who was playing.

I tried to strike up a conversation with one of the Sony peons standing around, asked him how things were going, and got the equivilent of a nod and an "alright - seems to be running smoothly". No "Hey check this out" or anything beyond smiling a bit and waiting around to handle any problems with the systems. I'm a Playstation fan, but it really hurts when their own people aren't out there actively trying to get people interested in the system and are trying to just let the demos and big screen trailers do all the buzz-generation for them.

It is interesting to see that they added the motion sensitivity to their controllers, but nobody will talk about it if they aren't actively showing off cool things [http://blog.escapistmagazine.com/blog/2006/05/13/in_which_i_pretend_to_know_something_abo] that can be done with it. Now, they may have been showing them off in their private appointments, but I wasn't privy to one, so am unsure. And on top of it all, Sony goes into E3 announcing the highest price point ever on a console system; while running an obscure and uninfomative marketing campaign that started with us wondering who "Chang 3" was and why we shouldn't fear him last year, while wondering what the hell the stupid Rock Paper Scissors banners were supposed to mean this year.

Nintendo on the other hand didn't have the dozens of public stations sitting out for everyone to play. They made everyone wait in a 3 hour line to get into a closed building, and then showed them a whole bunch of different controllers on different games doing different and intuitive things to show off the new hardware. Who's going to brave their way through that and then not even talk about it?

After saying all that, there was quite a bit of buzz (even from people who weren't fans of the series) about the new Metal Gear trailer. Which of course, was the one game not being shown on the floor (at all?) anywhere. But as most of us should know, trailers aren't representative of anything outside of "HOLY SHIT! DID YOU SEE THE MGS TRAILER WITH THE EXPLOSIONS AND THE JUMPING AND THE NINJAS AND I THOUGHT OCELOT IS DEAD AND SNAKE IS KILLING HIMSELF?!?!?!"
 

Vandemar

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Original Comment by: cibbuano
http://moviecritic.com.au
I'm all for the blacklist on Sony... they're treating us like ants to be pushed around.

Let's all give Sony the 'silent treatment' - pretend it doesn't even exist..
 

whindmarch

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I've got a major interest in Assassin's Creed, but that's the only thing right now that makes me give a damn about the PS3. Oh man, do I hope it'll come out for the 360, 'cause I'm not buying a PS3. Sony says the next generation begins when they say it does. I say it begins when people choose to pay money for it. $600 for the next generation? We'll find another next generation, Sony, but thanks anyway.
 

Vandemar

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Original Comment by: Josh Miller
http://lameazoid.livejournal.com
I was not at the show but 've been overrun with coverage. The only thing I can say that I've heard from others like myself is the PS3 is way too pricey.

I imagine that helps to stir a lot of the disinterest. Why bother looking at the thing if you know you can't/don't want to afford one.
 

Vandemar

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Original Comment by: jlaakso
http://7178.blogspot.com
Sony's been too arrogant with the PS3. They're sure that everybody and their children will buy one anyway, so people (by which I mean the hardcore which is following E3 events in the first place) are getting this "they don't care about us, so we don't care about them" attitude on. Which does describe me, too.

I wasn't at all enthusiastic about the 360 to begin with, but Microsoft's really carried themselves so much better than Sony recently (even with the double-SKU fiasco). I can see myself buying a 360 before Christmas 2006, but I have no intention of shelling out almost double the price for Sony's "it's not a console, and it's actually too cheap".

Make no mistake, it's going to sell really well. But I can see Microsoft getting a considerable piece of the cake, too.
 

Vandemar

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Yea, that was one thing I noticed when I went to my MS appointment. They had a definite swagger to them. They weren't cocky, the way Sony was when they said "You'll work more hours to buy a PS3", but they knew (or thought) they had a good product. It's going to be an interesting year.
 

Vandemar

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Original Comment by: Patrick
http://www.kingludic.blogspot.com
If you look at the historical pattern of how many cycles it takes between a console makers entry to market and their eventaul squeezing out, its typically 3. Atari had the 2600, the 5200 and the 7800 (or something) before bowing out in the wake of Nintendo. Sega had the Genesis, the Saturn and the Dreamcast before being squeezed out. Now its Sony's turn, the PS3 will be their last console. Nintendo has been the sole exception to this pattern.
 

Vandemar

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Original Comment by: John Hummel
http://www.gamerspress.com
Sony, I think, has really lost sight of a lot of things. They want thier products not to work for the customers, but to help them sell more product. Look at their initial Digital Walkman devices, which forced people to convert MP3 to Sony's format - products which bomb badly compared to the iPod, which does one thing very well: play music.

They did a good job with the PSOne and the PS2, because it offered what the customers wanted: insert game, play. Insert DVD, play.

Now, though, they seem to have lost site of that. It would have been fine if they said "Here's a PS3, costs $300, and plays games and Blueray DVD movies - and we have the kick ass $600 version which plays games, downloads them from the Internet, polishes your shoes, plays your movies, and blah, blah, blah".

The 360 is also doing the same thing - "Don't just play games - get trailers and other stuff!", and I would say that both have plans on having their consoles be digital hubs in the home. And then they have interviews where they tell people they want to capture the "mainstream" market, but the mainstream isn't looking to spend $600. Even the iPod didn't take off until they had cheaper units (the Nano, for example) on the market. Over $300 usually does not a mainstream device make.

The problem is: it's not what the consumer wants. Sure, there are some who want the whole digital experience, but they're still in the monitory - and they certainly don't want it rammed in with what should be a simple purchase of "insert game/movie, play".

I think it's something that Nintendo gets this time around. They also have the whole digital experience, but it's a) cheap, and b) you don't need it. Yes, you can add extra storage and play movies off of it, but only if you really want to. Otherwise, a Mom could buy a Wii for their kid for Christmas, and feel fine about it. A hard core gamer could get a Wii, and for the same price as a 360/PS3, go loading up with extra goodies (like the virtual game controller, DVD playback interface, etc, etc, etc).

Of course, this is just my opinion, and I could be wrong. But when my non-gamer wife sees what the Wii offers (ability to move all other units out to the garage and just one device for the kids to play/watch movies on) with a cute interface, and tells me that's what she wants for the family for Christmas, I'd say that Sony is the one who doesn't "get it".
 

Virgil

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Jun 13, 2002
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As a guy who has owned just about every console since the NES, my impressions are:

Microsoft has, so far, nailed the 'connected online experience' that the console hardcore are looking for. Their system is a really beautiful piece of technology, the connectivity is great, and when it's hooked up to a higher-end home entertainment system it's just great. Their biggest weakness is the number and types of games they'll have, and with their abysmal launch in Japan it's going to be tough to fix that.

Nintendo is going to come in at the lowest price point with the most 'friendly' games they can, because that's what Nintendo does. They won't have a ton of games, but they'll have a bunch of really interesting/entertaining ones that a lot of people are going to enjoy. For the more hardcore, if they get most of their back catalogue of games up for download they'll have a real winner. It's going to be a success, but they've had a lot of problems in their past systems getting third party support, so they might end up being the 'backup system' again.

Sony is banking way too much on Blu-Ray, and doesn't seem to realize that, for the most part, nobody cares about High-Definition DVDs. I have a high-def TV, and I still don't care - really, DVD quality is good enough, and I'm sure as hell not buying the movies I already have in another format. It's also crazy stupid ridiculous expensive, and the 'cheap' version is crippled enough to make the Xbox 360 'core' system look fine.

The catch is that Sony is really good at getting support from developers, especially in Japan. Metal Gear and Final Fantasy are the two biggest examples, and when it comes down to it, it's all about the games. For whatever anyone says, it doesn't matter as long as they keep the top franchises locked into their platform.

MS and Nintendo have a great chance to topple Sony this 'round,' but the majority are going to go where the games are, and if Sony has the big exclusives, and just about everyone else goes cross-platform, then they've still got a good reason to be arrogant.
 

Vandemar

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Original Comment by: unangbangkay

One might look at the relative silence from Sony's camp as an indicator of the company's current dominance. I mean, we already know the machine's specs, we've known since August '05. We've all speculated on the price point, and no one in his right mind would assume it would be lower than the 360's, not with that much new tech packed in and not given Sony's position, which, even now, is still at the top of the heap.

We already saw at least SOMETHING of nearly every game present at the show previously, except the extended MGS4 trailer. Delicious as caramel crumble cake is, it's unlikely that we'd scream the same way if we saw it again, even if the cake were bigger that time.

So the only really new information is the motion sensing Dual Shock (3?) and the unfortunately not-so-ridiculous (once you think on it) price point.
 

Vandemar

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Original Comment by: santos

sI've been at past E3s, but not this one. I've been a big PS fan since buying a PS1 at launch. But man, Sony is just breaking my heart. First there's the Thurston Howell price - I'm also a musician, and I can tell you there's no f'n way I'd choose the PS3 over a new guitar - but then this BS about stopping the sale of used games. Huh?? So you want to charge out the ass for your system, but also expect those poor (figurative obviously) souls to ONLY buy new games? And how much are those games going to be? $60? $70?

No thanks. I'll wait for the Wii, or go over to Microsoft if I have to. Nothing wrong with them, necessarily, but I'm emotionally attached to the design of the dual shock. Oh well. I think I'll start saving now for my PS5.
 

Vandemar

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Original Comment by: Mitch
http://www.gamingtrend.com
From what I could tell at the show, there was passing interest from the developers for the PS3. As noted above, the PS3 titles were almost an afterthought. I meant to ask the Pandemic guys about Mercenaries 2 but all I have to do is wait 8 months (or less) and it'll be out for the 360 as well.

Gaming is secondary to Sony for this generation. They absolutely are behind getting Blu-Ray as the standard for high-definition DVD so much so that they're willing to kill the golden goose to accomplish that. I don't think Sony is going anywhere during this generation though. They're far too monolithic for that. But what comes from that sheer size is a drastic resistence to change once a course has been set, and they refuse to alter their present course even though it's clearly heading right smack into an iceberg.

Personally, I think we'll wind up seeing the different regions become more segmented between Sony and Microsoft with this generation. Sony continues to hold Japan and Asia, Microsoft consolidates its power in both the US and Europe, while Nintendo kicks everyone's ass by selling the Wii out like crazy. If you were there on the floor you saw the look in people's eyes once they'd played the Wii. You saw the sheer excitement in the eyes of developers creating for the Wii. It's like someone just shot them all up with pure gaming heroin. To a one, they seemed agog at the thought of gaming being about sheer childlike wonder and fun instead of who has the best graphics.

But that's how I saw things.