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

[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.