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History To Repeat Itself With PS3?
Dr. Eggman writes to mention a 1up article looking at the way things were when the PS2 launched vs. next week's PlayStation 3 launch. The question: can history repeat itself? From the article: "PS2: Released one year after the lower priced Dreamcast, lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service. PS3: Releasing one year after the lower priced Xbox 360, lauded for its great games, ease of development, and superior online service. PS2: Competition from Nintendo: A smaller, cheaper 'family friendly' console with a 'focus on gameplay.' PS3: Competition from Nintendo: A smaller, cheaper 'family friendly' console with a 'focus on gameplay.'" The article also looks at how things have changed for Sony since the last time around.
Wow. That is such a logical argument. In fact, let's follow that argument to its logical conclusion. So a movie format based on a console that sells millions of units is a guaranteed success, right? Well, that means UMD must be a raging success because its player has sold millions. And since there aren't many games (at least ones people want to play) for the PSP, people will buy movies to get some use out of their overpriced game console. So UMDs must be flying off the shelves, right?
P.S. The PS2 succeeded because Sony duped enough developers (like EA) into not supporting the Dreamcast by telling them the PS2 was going to cause a rift in space and time because it was so powerful. By the time developers realized Sony had conned them, it was too late. They won't make that mistake again (just like Universal refused to support Blu-ray after losing a ton of money on UMD). Witness EA cancelling NBA Live 07 for the PS3. No third-party developers are killing themselves to get stuff out for the PS3 launch(no online in Tony Hawk, etc.) like they did for the PS2. Developers are taking the path of least resistance- develop on the 360, port to the PS3 and spend a bare minimum of engineering time optimizing. Again, look at the poor framerate in Tony Hawk and the warmed over ports passed off as "exclusive sequels" in Ridge Racer 7 and Full Auto 2.
Instant gratification? The 360 has a crappy library and the systems are usually faulty. I hardly call that instant gratification. Most people see it as an expensive piece of crap.