03.24.07
ps3 launches; what next?
I’ve got console launch fatigue. The arrival of the Xbox 360 was exciting, and dragged me out for a midnight launch; the emergence of the Wii saw me stranded up in Newcastle, of all places, but was still somewhat thrilling thanks to the pre-orders myself and plenty of my friends had placed.
PS3 came out this week, and I’ve never been more “meh” about a hardware launch in my life. Strangely, this isn’t actually Sony’s fault - I’m simply worn out from a year and a half of fanboy arguments. It’s a sad fact that teenagers and insane people with vast amounts of time on their hands will always win Internet Arguments against more well-reasoned people armed only with such things as Facts, Knowledge and Logic. Constant barrages of nonsense from platform fanboys (one side is as bad as the other, although at least the Sony kids have been quieter of late) wears you down.
Not, of course, that Sony has done themselves any favours in the last 18 months. I’ve enthused about Home on this blog already, but while I maintain that it’s a great move for them, it’s a bit sad that it’s one great move all out on its own, surrounded by a sea of utterly baffling decisions.
Or at least, baffling to a degree. I’m not daft enough to believe that Sony has a Great Fantastic Gameplan which they’re keeping secret from us, but I do think that they can see a little bit further with PS3 than people are giving them credit for. I laid out some of the arguments for that in an editorial for GamesIndustry.biz this week (which you can also read on Eurogamer.net if you fancy the version that supports reader comments), and I think it makes sense to some extent, at least. There’s a puzzle here regarding pricing which few people have mentioned, and Blu-Ray is the key to it, I believe.
Or at least, I hope for Sony’s sake that this is the case. There are a lot of “ifs” involved here. In an ideal world, one could see Blu-Ray player prices tumbling by early 2008, with PS3 following the drops closely to bring it down to a more reasonable price point. However, that relies on Blu-Ray being successful; which in turn relies on a vast number of uncertain factors, ranging from consumer attitudes to High-Def (I might write more on that shortly) through to the actual ability of the companies behind the BD-ROM standard to deliver cost benefits to consumers rapidly.
On the other hand, I could be allowing Sony a bit too much credit here. Someone accused me of thinking this through more deeply than Sony themselves have, which seems like quite a funny statement, but it gave me pause for thought at the same time. If I’m wrong, then Sony could end up in a situation where the PS3 is vastly, vastly more expensive than entry level Blu-Ray players. It will be open to competition from every angle, and will be a high-end, high-quality, but ultimately extremely niche product, leaving Microsoft and Nintendo to hoover up the mass-market.
So here’s another prediction, hedging my bets a little - if my prediction on the price of the system turns out not to be true, Howard Stringer will be kicked out as head of Sony within two years, and replaced with a nice “safe” Japanese executive who will be more palatable to the Nikkei’s tastes. It won’t be Kutaragi, either. He’ll be put out to pasture long before then - in an even more remote field than the one in which he’s currently chewing the cud. He will never hold a truly senior and influential role at Sony again.
Either way, it’s going to be a very, very interesting few years for PlayStation.
By the way, I reviewed a couple of the PS3 launch titles for Eurogamer. Virtua Fighter 5 gets a princely 9/10, for being extremely good albeit still not exactly my kinda thing; Genji: Days of the Blade however is exactly my sort of thing, but sadly very flawed in its execution and ultimately mediocre. At least it’s better than Full Auto 2, which was shit. Not genuinely awful and shit, but still shitty enough that you shouldn’t buy it unless you really like shit. As in, like it quite a lot.
Keith Andrew said,
March 24, 2007 at 10:49 pm
I think it’ll certainly be an ‘interesting’ time. But if you suggest to many people that any Sony format will be anything less than totally dominant, then suddenly you’re “mad” or a fanboy yourself.
I think it’s a generation thing. Not that I’m ancient, but I think a lot of the seemingly blind confidence some people have in Sony - no matter what their mistakes - has to do with the fact that for many people, their first experience of gaming was with a PlayStation. Sony being on top is all they’ve ever known, and so - without sounding patronising - they don’t seem to be able to grasp the idea that things can, and usually do, change.
However, the most depressing part of all this is that, like you point out, any ‘downfall’ is likely to be caused by Sony itself. How Sega would have loved to have seen its rival stumble from one mistake to another at the turn of the century. Then again, it’s my view that Sony probably did make just as many mistakes back then - the only difference is, there weren’t 2,000 websites around to jump on said slip-ups and amplify them.
It’s likely I’ll have to shell out for a PS3 myself at some point in the future. The exclusives seem to be waning, but there’s one that hasn’t made the leap to 360 yet.
50p if you can guess which one it is.
Wrestlevania said,
March 26, 2007 at 8:38 am
I definitely agree with you on the corporate headchopping front. Stringer would appear to be a deeply unpopular all round, still, and seems incapable of making tough decisions. I think you’re probably about right on the time frame, but maybe a little over-optimistic in the maximum; the European PS3 launch has been too controversial - and just too flat - for heads not to begin rolling in the next few months.
And Kutaragi needs to go ASAP, simply because he’s madder than a sack of blancmange and doing the brand or company image no favours whatsoever.