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Sony Playstation 2 North America Launch
trazom28 writes: "According to ZDNet, Sony has announced the release of the Playstation 2 in North America on Oct. 26. MSRP is $299 with an 8 meg memory card, controller and multiport for $34 extra. Predicted software prices will be $49. Can you say drool? :-) " [Updated 18:20 GMT by timothy] According to dairypope, the price of $299 will not include the 8-meg card, but rather "only an AV cable, power cable, and one Dual Shock controller, as reported by DailyRadar."
I'm trying not to be biased. I've loved gaming on computers and consoles since the C64, Apple ][ and NES. Like many people, I've played most of the great hits that came out on such systems ever since Wizball and Paradroid were released.
When the Playstation 1 came out, I was a Saturn owner, and naturally felt threatened by the huge company called Sony entering the games market. But after a while I got used to the new player and saw the Saturn face certain death, despite all the great and innovative titles available for the system. Sony crushed Sega. First through huge price drops, then by seducing all sorts of highly acclaimed developers to develop for the PSX. I bought a PlayStation and watched it catch dust. There were NO good games. Nothing innovative. Sure, Metal Gear Solid was nice and seeing all the transparency effects in Wipeout had something cool to it, but the games lacked substance. They were geared towards a new crowd: the "Casual Gamer".
That was the day when I started analyzing the new games. What makes a game good or bad etc. I discovered that lots of my friends, who weren't gamers before, suddenly bought PlayStations and loved games that I'd never touch (Parappa The Rapper anyone?). These games had nothing in common with what I was used to. They lacked quality and tried hiding that behind glitzy graphics. Look at Tekken. Some would argue that it's the best fighting game ever created, but in the end it's a very primitive button basher. Even Super Street Fighter II had more depth.
Since history repeats itself, I expect to see something similar on the PlayStation 2. More games for casual gamers, and less games for hardcore gamers. And slowly, without anyone noticing, you'll see the PS2 turn into a private little marketing machine for Sony. Keep in mind that Sony is not a games company. They also offer music and movies, for example. If the PS2 catches on, they'll be like the Microsoft of entertainment. They could potentially control what you view and listen to on your PS2, and they'd automatically control what you're playing.
The Dreamcast, on the other hand, is one of my favorite consoles ever created. It has style, it's innovative, and with Bleemcast you might even be able to play PlayStation games on it. The two or three of them that are interesting, at least. There have been quite a few games on it that are novel and old-school (as in: for hardcore gamers) at the same time. That's something that seems to be very hard to accomplish in this new "casual gamer" market Sony created with the PSX.
So, before you buy your PS2, take a look at the $149 Dreamcast. You might get much more entertainment from it, and you'd know that there's a games company behind it, not a media and electronics giant.