PS3 Ranting

I am upset - so upset that I waited till days after the news to post anything. At first I thought I would sell my PS3, but now I am more or less resigned to possibly having to add an XBox to my repertoire of game consoles. Why add an XBox you ask? After all, FF13 is still coming to the PS3. The answer is simple: FF13 on the XBox 360 is an admission of defeat. An admission by both Sony and Square. A lot of people think M$ paid Square a ton of money to make FF13 come to their console. I don't think that was the only factor. M$ know Japan is an RPG market. They have been desperately trying to crack it. If they were paying, Japan would not be getting an exclusive FF13 for PS3. No, partly at least this is simply a realization on Square's part that things are simply not working out for the PS3. Others will soon follow suit. Ergo my assertion that soon I will have to buy an XBox 360. I am not saying Sony is not trying; just that they are not trying hard enough. Having won 2 generations of the console wars mostly on luck and 3rd party exclusives, up against a serious contender, they simply seem to lack the will to fight. At first they seemed to believe that their brand name was all that they would require to help them win the race, once that illusion crumbled, all the fight seems to have gone out of them.

Oh they are releasing this and that action games - action games are not system sellers. A first generation IP is not a system seller. Final Fantasy is a system seller. GTA is a system seller. All of these are third part games that used to be at least timed exclusives in the previous generation that have now gone multi-platform or worse, entirely to other consoles. What make things more ridiculous is Sony execs making statements saying the "playing field" has changed, it's now too expensive to program only for one system. This is a nonsense chicken and egg statement. If you don't have exclusives, you are not going to be the market leader. If you aren't the market leader, you will not be worth making exclusives for.

The other nonsense statement is that the hardware and software teams weren't working together... I am sorry what kind of unprofessional idiotic team management do you guys have? Your "hardware" team created a console so expensive that subsidizing the hardware left you with no money to secure exclusives, and even then the console was overpriced. Saying that the console was then given to the software team to "make software for it" implies that you are pretending to operate in some sort of vacuum where your internal teams are the only ones developing games for the system. Oh well... at least you guys are getting what you wanted...

So while the XBox's cost is going down further, Sony is giving you the privilege of helping improve their "profitability". Great guys! Have you thought that if I have to choose between one megalomaniac corporation and another, I might choose the one which actually seems to have a plan rather than one which is attempting to win a format war by destroying their loyal fan base - and a pyrrhic victory it turns out in the end, what with most people simply opting to legally or illegally download movies rather than buy blu-rays.

I am an RPG gamer. If I go out to buy games today, Sony has one good RPG: Oblivion. XBox: A lot more. I know what RPG games are coming out for the XBox (or I have some idea). M$ is developing new IPs for the XBox. Sony - zilch... nada... no exclusives RPGs... None... Oh wait... We still have FF13 Vs. Regarding that, how many people are willing to bet that M$ and Square's big announcement at the next E3 will be FF13 Vs for XBox? Hell, considering this news item, and the way things are going, we may even have an exclusive FF7 remake for the XBox... M$'s console is now the best current gen one for RPGs. Who would have believed it?

Considering the nightmarish quality issues with the XBox 360 hardware, the PS brand name and fan base, it shouldn't have been this way. But then of course, a commitment to gaming is required for this and Sony it seems cannot decide whether they were selling a media device with gaming capabilities or a game console which can also play some media. They still seem confused. Consider the biggest announcement in E3: a region-locked video store, which won't even hit Europe till next year and god only knows when it will hit the rest of the world... Oh wait... I want to play GAMES on it... What about anything other than God of War? I can watch videos very well on my PC, thank you very much... Sigh...

Penny Arcade as usual strikes a chord...

As far as I am concerned, right now, the PS3 is a bigger failure than Vista is. It fails on various levels to achieve what I feel it is meant to be - a game console, above all other corporate objectives Sony may want to attach to it. Much like Vista, whether it makes a profit or not, and what market share it garners, has little to do with this fact. Unlike Vista, the reasons for failure are not technical, but simple mismanagement, lack of foresight and an unwillingness to adapt at Sony's end. Way to go guys! At this rate, there may never be a PS4