Well THAT'S disappointing...

[seawasp]

The responses to my prior post on videogame consoles has revealed that Sony, apparently, has decided to shoot itself in the foot again; having created the PS3 with backwards compatibility, they've now removed all or much of that capability.

This means that I will almost certainly NOT be getting a PS3, or at least not in the near future, unless I happen across one of the first-generation systems with full hardware compatibility.

And alas the Wii appears to be hard to get indeed.

Comments

[xyzzysqrl]

Considered a 360?

[kjn]

Not unless his mind does two U-turns.

I haven't heard...

[seawasp]

... of too many decent RPGs for it, and that being my primary gaming interest I didn't give it too much consideration.

The Wii has some additional features which are unique and attractive.

Re: I haven't heard...

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

It's true, there aren't a huge number of decent RPGs on the 360; but if Sony continues to bungle the PS3 the RPGs have to go somewhere -- right? Right? -- so I think it's worth keeping an eye on the 360 RPG offerings in the future.

Speaking of XBox/XBox 360 RPGs, though, KOTOR rocked. It's one of my favorite RPGs of all time. I know there's a PC version of it, I don't know if it ever came out for any other consoles... but if you haven't played it, it's well worth begging or borrowing someone's old XBox just for that. The sequel wasn't as good, unfortunately, but it was still eminently playable.

Re: I haven't heard...

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

If you liked KotOR you may like Mass Effect.
There's also Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata out now.
That's actually one more decent RPG on the '360 than on PS3 (if Mass effect counts :).
PSP and DS are where the RPGs are right now, mostly.

Re: I haven't heard...

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

I just got Mass Effect and played it for an hour or so last night... and there, sadly, it will have to stay until at least next week, because I have papers to write over this weekend and other stuff filling the evenings until then. But so far it looks very promising. I really like the conversation system -- you don't pick from a menu of responses, so much as choose a direction in which to steer the conversation.

Eternal Sonata looks like it has potential. Enchanted Arms was a quite serviceable game. I haven't seen Blue Dragon.

Unfortunately for me, I'm also kind of a graphics whore; so I prefer playing a good RPG on a full-fledged console where I can see all the pretty lights and cut-scenes on a big screen, rather than on a hand-held system like the PSP or DS.

What are the good, or even semi-decent, RPGs on the PS3 now anyway? I haven't checked recently.

Re: I haven't heard...

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

There aren't any.
There is one PS3 semi-exclusive RPG available: Untold Legends, and that's an "update" to a PSP port. And the PSP version stinks. The PS3 version is worse. Everything else is either cross-platform (Elder Scrolls IV and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance) or Xbox 360 ports (Eternal Sonata and Enchanted Arms).
And that's it. No, really, that's the entire PS3 RPG library (in English) right now.

As of a week ago, Atlus USA (the guys who specialize in bringing over niche titles from Japan like the Persona series) is officially a third party Xbox 360 publisher. That's good news for RPG fans although their first two '360 titles are going to be strategy RPGs (Operation Darkness and Spectral Force 3) rather than "true" RPGs.

Re: I haven't heard...

[seawasp]

Probably I'm misremembering, but I seem to remember hearing that the PSP was sort of a shrunk original Playstation with integrated display and controls? If so, could a PS original or PS2 play PSP games?

Re: I haven't heard...

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

No. Different media. PSP uses an updated version of MiniDisc called UMD and there are no readers for really anything but PSP right now. Yay, Sony and its proprietary formats.

PSP lies somewhere between the original PlayStation and the PS2. You can't play PSP games on either PS1 or PS2 but you can run original PS games on PSP. To do so requires either (re)purchasing them from Sony's (limited) on-line store and download to a big Memory Stick (again, yay with the proprietary formats) or installing a custom firmware that uses Sony's POPS PlayStation emulator to play games from images ripped from your own discs and copied (you guessed it) to a big Memory Stick. The one big problem is that POPS does not understand multi-disc games so games like Lunar that do not save before swapping discs leave you stuck.

[howardtayler.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I was reading some industry analyses of the video-game market, and it began to look more and more like Sony was misstepping their way from a #1 position to a #3 position.

Nintendo made a brilliant move, going after new customers with a message of "video games can be for everyone." They also kept their price low.

Microsoft was similarly brilliant, wooing current gamers with the promise of better resolution, better performance, and more realism in what they play. That and the raft of connected options.

Sony blew it. They tried to do both, mimicing the Wii controller, and offering a high-end system, but they were late to market and didn't put enough product out to meet demand. Then they struggled with the fact that their price-point was a lot higher than Nintendo's. This meant that for gamers who wanted to have more than one system, but could not afford all three, the PS3 was going to be the console they did NOT buy (instead of, as Sony hoped, the ONLY console they bought.)

And now Sony's biggest selling point -- the massive library of PS1 and PS2 titles, and full backwards compatibility -- is being done away with? That's nails in the coffin, right there.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

What I've heard isn't quite that bad. They are shooting themselves in the foot with a .22 instead of a 30-06. From what I've been hearing the software emulation is up to speed for 90% instead of the 99% that the hardware allowed. So you only have access to 900 out of a thousand games instead of 990 out of a thousand.

If there are specific PS2 games that you are interested in you might look to see if there are any reports of how they run before writing the PS3 off entirely.

[denubis.livejournal.com]

Sony seems to be quite good at going "Huh, I've got a shotgun. Huh, that seems to be my foot. Why am I in pain, George?" What with their horrible handling of the "rootkit" the fact that they're competing against themselves (Sony Entertainment for anti-piracy, Sony electronics for "We just sell hardware that's incompatible with everything. Buy our stuff! And pirate stuff!" etc...

I think the corporate culture there needs cleaning.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Microsoft also got the 360 out there a year before the PS3 and the Wii. But my impression is that the other thing that solidified the 360 as a contender is that Microsoft figured out their niche -- action/FPS games, primarily -- and claimed it with games like the Halo series. Nintendo also has had a pretty clear market segment in mind with the Wii, and has been very successful targeting it.

Sony seemed to think that all console gaming belonged to them by right, so they thought they could get away with releasing a console that cost way more than everyone else and didn't have any particularly compelling launch titles. The fact that game companies persist in cranking out perfectly good PS2 games doesn't help.

Unfortunately for me, the game genre I personally like -- RPGs -- has tended to be largely a PlayStation specialty. The good RPG offerings on the XBox or XBox 360 are slim (although there are a few.) Fortunately, I have my 60GB PS3 and can play the good PS2 RPGs, of which there are lots. Or rather, I could play them if I had any time, which I mostly don't. Alas.

This...

[seawasp]

... is basically my position too. The RPG market is BY FAR my main interest. But apparently new RPGs for the PS2 are basically over; Persona 3 was one of the last.

[denubis.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm moving to aussy land in 3 months, and I've got a wii, quite a few games, and controllers. Interested?

Certainly...

[seawasp]

... I am, but why get rid of it? Do the Aussies prevent you from playing videogames (after all, there's enough adventure in the outback, mate!)?

Re: Certainly...

[denubis.livejournal.com]

Incompatible TV and voltages. And I can't afford to ship my PoS american TV for only this purpose. I plan on travelling *incredibly* light.

Re: Certainly...

[denubis.livejournal.com]

And rather most to the point: incompatible regions on the Wii. I can't buy aussie Wii games for my american wii.

I also will be doing a Ph.D. in 3 years, so I can't really afford that kind of distraction.

Re: Certainly...

[seawasp]

So what games do you have, and how much do you want for me to save your weight budget and potentially your entire academic career? :)

Re: Certainly...

[denubis.livejournal.com]

Still haven't been home yet, so I can't get you a real list. Sorry. What e-mail addy should I use?

Re: Certainly...

[seawasp]

My email is seawaspobvious@sgeobviousinc.com.

Remove the obvious to send, of course. :)

[chuk-g.livejournal.com]

Is the Wii shortage a regional thing? I'm up in Canada (BC), and when we wanted one a few months ago, we just ordered it online from Costco (a decent bundle with an extra remote and a game we would have bought anyway, for about $10 less than the retail would have been). A friend works at Toys-backwards R- Us and he says they've got some in -- they do go out fast, though.