Kevin's Watch

www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=2606

Gamefaqs is a pretty popular site, and represents gamer opinion fairly well as best I can judge. During the reign of the PS1 and 2 its members generally backed those systems. However, according to this poll, over 60% of its members, 46000 people, thought that Sony managed a bad or terrible launch.

The Wii and XBox 360 haven't really boomed in popularity as much as one might expect either, but both have certainly managed pretty well.

Is Sony seriously losing grip on its power in the video game market? Before I would've discounted this as too important because of its power in the electronics market outside of gaming, (much like fans of the Xbox did despite low sales, knowing microsoft had ample funds)...but from what I remember hearing it has started to slip in sales in its other markets as well.

I kinda have mixed feelings. The PS2 had some great games and the best controller for any system IMO, but it also was subject to more hardware problems than the other problems, was pretty weak graphically, and other stuff. I like a lot of devs who work on the PS2, but they might just move onto the 360 or wii if the PS went into a serious decline. So I'm not sure if I really mind.

Console launches are always tough. Give it a year. These things are impossible to predict.

Also,

but it also was subject to more hardware problems than the other problems, was pretty weak graphically

I'd like to go ahead and disagree- working in a game store, I saw returns and exchanges on Xbox more than any other console. That's saying a lot when our store sold considerably more PS2's than Box's.

Also, "pretty weak graphically"?? Compared to what? The xbox that came out a year later? The PS2 had great capabilities graphically, and I honestly believe that if game developers kept working with the system, the would be able to go above what they have currently done. I don't think the system's potential was ever reached.... graphics were still getting better and better on it when I stopped paying attention to consoles early this year.

Anyway, that's all I got.

Spoiled gamers bitching over a friggin' launch? Oh, please, go cry me a river. I agree with Waddley. The poll is merely about the launch of the system, not about the quality of the machine itself, so it doesn't hold much weight for me. I had heard about people complaining about the launch of the Xbox 360, too, but gee, people are still buying the thing. If I had the available funds, I'd get myself a shiny new Xbox 360 or PS3 right now, too.

Yay! MM agrees with me!

I love you, Matrixman!!

(That said, I'd sell my lungs for a PS3. Yes, both of them. The sheer awesomeness of the console would be enough to force air into my body without the vital organs.)

Spoiled gamers bitching over a friggin' launch?

Haha, what else is new?? You should have seen the mob we had at the WoW launch. Made me be ashamed to be a gamer...
(One more reason EQ2>WoW: the player base)

Hmm, what to do, what to do? Sell my soul to Microsoft or sell my lungs to Sony? Well, I could do both and become a lung machine-dependent zombie gamer. Just not sure what Sony would do with my lungs, though. (My guess as to what Microsoft does with all the souls it buys: they're reincarnated as customer service representatives. Nooooooo...)

If I also sold an arm to Nintendo for a Wii, I'd have all 3 systems...

I think Sony have made a lot of mistakes like with the hude price. Look what happened to the first Xbox when they brought it out with a high price(well it happened here in Britain). Xbox360 and Wii are already out which will be a problem. The one thing, though, that will keep the PS3 alive in the large amount of games people want are coming out on it. Xbox360 and Wii look good(and cheaper) but I can't see games I want on it. PS3 will have:
Metal Gear Solid 4
Resident Evil 5
Half Life 2(plus all the other series(and with good graphics unlike like the Xbox))
Burnout 5
Devil May Cry 4
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Final Fantasy XIII and Versus XIII
Gran Turismo 5
Grand Theft Auto IV
Medal of Honour: Airborne
Resistance: Fall of Man
Tekken 6
Unreal Tournament 2007

I think this is a big enough reason to get a PS3.

Queeaqueg wrote:I think Sony have made a lot of mistakes like with the hude price. Look what happened to the first Xbox when they brought it out with a high price(well it happened here in Britain). Xbox360 and Wii are already out which will be a problem. The one thing, though, that will keep the PS3 alive in the large amount of games people want are coming out on it. Xbox360 and Wii look good(and cheaper) but I can't see games I want on it. PS3 will have:
Metal Gear Solid 4
Resident Evil 5
Half Life 2(plus all the other series(and with good graphics unlike like the Xbox))
Burnout 5
Devil May Cry 4
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Final Fantasy XIII and Versus XIII
Gran Turismo 5
Grand Theft Auto IV
Medal of Honour: Airborne
Resistance: Fall of Man
Tekken 6
Unreal Tournament 2007

I think this is a big enough reason to get a PS3.

...and every single one of them is a sequel. This distresses me.

I do think Sony has made an error with the launch price, but launch prices are fleeting things. It's not over yet.

While I am distressed by the sequel-filled nature of the PS3's game selection, they are mostly establishes franchises that people will buy. As Queeaqueg pointed out, people will want those games and that, if nothing else, will likely guarantee the PS3's survival.

$600 price + No launch games I care about = I'll pass on PS3.

Sign me up for a Wii. At least it's only $250 and has Zelda.

I'll wait on PS3 until it comes down in price and until FF13 comes out.-jay

CovenantJr wrote:...and every single one of them is a sequel. This distresses me.

This is a phenomenon that has been worrying me for a few years now. Games are becoming so expensive to make that publishers want to be reassured that they will make a return on their investment, this in turn creates an emphasis on these game franchises. The whole process is sapping a lot of the industry's originality. Maybe gamers will start to turn away from sequels in the same way as the music market has rejected manufactured, 'plastic' pop (to an extent), and more wonderful little games like Introversion's Darwinia will make it through.

Personally, I'm loving the pig's ear Sony have made of the development and launch of the PS3. Twice now they have won crushing sales victories and on both occasions with a machine inferior to its competition and a catalogue of games that smacked of quantity over quality. The Sony marketing machine is all powerful and although they have clearly lost ground to Microsoft and Nintendo, I have no doubt that they will use all of that power to drag their market share back upwards.

I've actually told myself that I'm not going to participate in this round of the console wars. Of the three contenders, I am quite taken with the Wii but I'm not sure that developers will be able to match Nintendo's ambition for a while yet. My gut feeling is that there will be a dip in the quality of the games after the launch titles, until developers really learn how to take advantage of the Wii's novel capabilities (of course, the quality Nintendo's own titles will remain high I'm sure). The 360 doesn't really appeal for some reason. I see some games for it I'd like, but they always seem to be the ones I could get for the PC anyway, which renders it moot really. All along, I've been impressed at the technology Sony are putting into the PS3 and I'll be watching how things unfold with interest. My overriding impression is that they've pushed too far, too fast with it and now they have a potentially incredible machine that's bloody expensive and liable to teething problems. I'm almost as interested to see how they are going to market it; they've been quite offbeat with the PSP and it hasn't been especially effective.