Sony’s got its PR department working overtime pushing their new network for PS3, something called Home.
To be honest I’m not a partisan in the console game wars. Handheld is DS, sure; settop is a 360* and I plan to acquire a Wii eventually. But I don’t care about who makes the unit half as much as I care about the quality of the titles available and the engineering of the device. That’s what really matters, not the name on the shell.
So if I go the PS route at all, at this point it’s still gonna be limited to a PS2. Why? Well, a few reasons.
- Economics. A PS2 costs $150. A PS3 costs $650 — and that’s Sony’s below-cost price. When they get realistic about costs of manufacturing, you can expect the console’s price tag to launch somewhere toward the stratosphere.
- Practicality. For online gaming I have the Xbox, the DS and (eventually) the Wii. I don’t think I need yet-another-network-service to make my gaming more or better or bla bla bla.
- Technical realism. The PS2 game library is thousands of titles deep (and still growing!) and most of the software should be fairly well debugged by now. PS3 won’t be near that for years.
But the biggest problem I have with Sony is that they’re panicking, and that is simply not a good sign. Panicked companies don’t release products that have been rigorously tested. Panicked companies don’t release products that have good support. Panicked companies release products that most consumers regret purchasing.
Remember the Sega DreamCast? Hell — remember Sega?
The PS3 was undeniably released far too soon in its development cycle. It has essentially no network support now … and until Home is online, it will continue to fail offering an integrated experience a la its MS and Nintendo competition.
How much longer will that take? Home is scheduled for rollout in Fall of 2007.
Given Sony’s recent track record, I think we can be sure it’ll be another premature release.
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* It causes me physical pain to admit that Microsoft released a product which doesn’t totally suck donkey balls, but there it is. The 360 is a damned good game console.
8:54 on March 8th, 2007
I recently got my youngest daughter a Gamecube (it’s what she wanted) and will be getting my oldest daughter a PS2 in May…(maybe I can talk my son into wanting an XBox now?)
They aren’t even *interested* in a PS3 or an XBox 360 at this point (THANKFULLY!) because they like the titles out there for the GC and PS2 just fine…and I am happy with not having to pay six-hundred and fifty-fracking-dollars(!!!) for something so I can get access to a few extra titles (*that* I haven’t heard really good reviews about) and a BluRay player in the PS3 that I likely won’t ever use, when I can pay a mere $150.00 for a PS2 and get access to all the titles the want?
(At least until TPB figure this out and discontinue the older models hoping that we’ll but the newer, expensive ones…which I expect to happen any month now…)
We likely will get a Wii around X-mas…it’s at least priced *kinda* within reason…
Anyway, and even if I drop a whopping $650 for a 360 or whatever for a PS3, and another gods-knows-what for some games, AND BluRay disks, at like fifty bucks a pop, then (from what I have seen in the video game isle, especially for the 360) the expect me to buy another four hundred buck worth of accessories and add-on’s (a remote memory card, extra controller, - all which should be included if you ask me - a toaster, camera, surround sound speakers, a controller *holder*, a cooler, microphone, headphones, etc, etc, etc…)
And now they want me to buy a “Home” network whatever as well…
And where is this money tree growing???
9:04 on March 8th, 2007
You’ll be pleased to know that a Wii will play GameCube games as well.
Your litany of PS3 issues just points more solidly to the 360. (But the price on a high-end 360 is currently about $400, not $650.) The loaded version comes with the HD and a wireless controller. Memory units are necessary only if you want to tote your account info elsewhere, like to a friend’s house; they’re not necessary if you have the 360 with the HD.
The 360 is already HDTV compatible and plays DVDs nicely; it also has a fine music rip/visualizer and will even accept MP3 players in its USB slots.
It’s just a better-engineered system than the PS3.
(Ouch. That still hurts to say. My non-god, it’s a Microsoft product!)