Sony would make a fantastic 3rd Party Developer/Publisher

[-tkf-]

Sony was given a hard time for the price at first, but what's hurting the PS3 now is that Sony launched it a year after 360 with a significantly weaker GPU and less memory / less freely usable memory.

Last gen, the PS2 had weaker graphics performance than the XBox, but it was cheaper and it had more games.

This gen, the PS3 has weaker graphics performance than the 360, but it is more expensive and it has fewer games.

That's a very poor combination for Sony. Perhaps they'll be able to get it cheaper than it is now, maybe even they'll try for parity with the 360, but they'll still have weaker graphics and fewer games, unless they pull a Wii and release a step-up PS3 with more memory or GPU and try to convince developers to write for a divided user base.

Sony has nothing but fumbled the ball this round.
Exceptional bad PR only surpassed by their arrogance.
A total lack of understanding on the viral power of nerds all over the world.
Promising a launch that was impossible at a price point that never was backed by the needed PR. The cheap version was NEVER mentioned in the price comparisons, the free LIVE GOLD, the added value from the BR. It was never hammered through the skull of the potential buyers.

Poor development tools and ever worse developers made for some crue ports which added more bad PR.

It´s only now that the true potential is showing it´s head with some of the best looking games this generation and that is why that this:

This gen, the PS3 has weaker graphics performance than the 360, but it is more expensive and it has fewer games.

Is just plain wrong and borders on flamebait.

 

[jonabbey]

Sony has nothing but fumbled the ball this round.
Exceptional bad PR only surpassed by their arrogance.
A total lack of understanding on the viral power of nerds all over the world.
Promising a launch that was impossible at a price point that never was backed by the needed PR. The cheap version was NEVER mentioned in the price comparisons, the free LIVE GOLD, the added value from the BR. It was never hammered through the skull of the potential buyers.

Poor development tools and ever worse developers made for some crue ports which added more bad PR.

It´s only now that the true potential is showing it´s head with some of the best looking games this generation and that is why that this:

This gen, the PS3 has weaker graphics performance than the 360, but it is more expensive and it has fewer games.

Is just plain wrong and borders on flamebait.

I did not intend flamebait, I was just feeling frustrated with seeing so many multiplat games (Ghostbusters most recently) looking so much worse on the PS3.

I suppose a more nuanced statement would have been 'This gen, the PS3 is much harder to extract graphical performance out of than the 360, it is more expensive, and it has fewer games'?

I think I'd best shut up now.

 

[Nesh]

I did not intend flamebait, I was just feeling frustrated with seeing so many multiplat games (Ghostbusters most recently) looking so much worse on the PS3.

I suppose a more nuanced statement would have been 'This gen, the PS3 is much harder to extract graphical performance out of than the 360, it is more expensive, and it has fewer games'?

I think I'd best shut up now.

More games dont mean anything. The difference isnt large enough to matter. And a large portion of games that the 360 has and the PS3 doesnt dont matter today.

The 360 had the advantage of being released one year earlier. A ton of these games are obsolete.

It has also being a long time since the PS3 got a game that look considerably worse than its 360 counterpart. It is a rarity these days

That said, in terms of money you do get more and and the best looking exclusive games on the PS3. An important part you are ignoring and prefer to get stuck on multiplatform games as if they are the only games available for the console.

 

[jonabbey]

More games dont mean anything. The difference isnt large enough to matter. And a large portion of games that the 360 has and the PS3 doesnt dont matter today.

The 360 had the advantage of being released one year earlier. A ton of these games are obsolete.

It has also being a long time since the PS3 got a game that look considerably worse than its 360 counterpart. It is a rarity these days

That said, in terms of money you do get more and and the best looking exclusive games on the PS3. An important part you are ignoring and prefer to get stuck on multiplatform games as if they are the only games available for the console.

The reason I think these things are significant is the network effect. A console platform is more valuable the more people have it, and a console that gets ahead in the market will be boosted by the network effect, and the minority console or consoles will get impeded.

A new gamer looking to buy a console will be influenced by these factors, just as he was by the PS2's library last generation.. even if he never played one thousandth of the games on offer.

 

[Nesh]

The reason I think these things are significant is the network effect. A console platform is more valuable the more people have it, and a console that gets ahead in the market will be boosted by the network effect, and the minority console or consoles will get impeded.

A new gamer looking to buy a console will be influenced by these factors, just as he was by the PS2's library last generation.. even if he never played one thousandth of the games on offer.

The PS2 was helped by much more factors than just quantity of games. But lets use this arguement for the sake of the discussion. The library partially helped not because people simply saw thousands of titles, but because they saw many games they cared for. The number of games released since its life time alone isnt enough. People dont even know about the existence of probably 80% of the games released. They go by what they can find on shelf space. Thats what they can see. Also because the PS2 in each time period had many new good games more and more potential consumers joined.

Perfect Dark Zero, Fifa 2007, COD2 for example dont cut it today.

Currently when I go to a store I see equal amount of games for both consoles of which the majority are the same. This is no 2006 anymore.

Besides if we talk exclusively about money value which is where this started, your old argument is irrelevant since for the new consumer, value does not exist for 2005 games he doesnt care about. It is the current games, price of console and adoption by people around him that affect his purchasing decision. Thats where the "network" part comes in. And the PS3 currently gets almost anything the 360 gets, with minimal performance difference in most cases and lots of high quality exclusives that are some of the best visually in the industry. So you cant say that with the PS3 you pay more and get less.

And to finish this, the difference between the PS3 and the XBOX360's library is no large enough to be considered such a contributing factor. This is unlike the PS2 vs the XBOX's library in terms of quantity and the performance difference of multiplatform games isnt at all as large.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I did not intend flamebait, I was just feeling frustrated with seeing so many multiplat games (Ghostbusters most recently) looking so much worse on the PS3.

"So much worse" is in the eye of the beholder. Rememember, to the kind of person who posts on B3D, the PS2 version of a game almost always looked "so much worse" than the Xbox or Cube version. To Average Joe, it wasn't noticeable. Your average person doesn't spent $700 to get both consoles and $120 to get both versions of a game and spend his weekend comparing the two. He's not going to pay attention to an IGN head-to-head comparison, and he's not a member of any gaming forums. In short, he isn't going to notice anything unless it's objectively bad (i.e. bad frame rate), or it looks so much better on the 360 that he notices when he sees the game on his friend's Xbox.

 

[assurdum]

I think this is fair game. The same was said of Nintendo last gen; only fair Sony get dealt the 'give up' card now that they're on the back foot

Wise man

 

[draconian]

Personally, I feel many Sony 1st party games are overrated.
Last guardian will be great, but won't sell gangbuster.
Resistance is fun but way overrated by the Sony fans.
Gran Turismo is great, but it is neck and neck with Forza and would probably sell horribly on the xbox.
Killzone, Warhawk, Uncharted would do well on the xbox.

Sony is cushioned by the fact that they pay a license fee to themselves. If they were a 3rd party publisher, the economic pressures would be totally different. Risk taking would probably have prevented the release of MAG and LastGuardian.

In the end, Sony would not be an EA or Activison. More like a THQ.

As I've said in other threads, if sony went 3rd party, there better be another company that steps up to make a platform or gaming in general would suffer. Maybe Nvidia? Maybe apple? Maybe Intel?

 

[Nesh]

Personally, I feel many Sony 1st party games are overrated.
Last guardian will be great, but won't sell gangbuster.
Resistance is fun but way overrated by the Sony fans.
Gran Turismo is great, but it is neck and neck with Forza and would probably sell horribly on the xbox.
Killzone, Warhawk, Uncharted would do well on the xbox.

Sony is cushioned by the fact that they pay a license fee to themselves. If they were a 3rd party publisher, the economic pressures would be totally different. Risk taking would probably have prevented the release of MAG and LastGuardian.

In the end, Sony would not be an EA or Activison. More like a THQ.

As I've said in other threads, if sony went 3rd party, there better be another company that steps up to make a platform or gaming in general would suffer. Maybe Nvidia? Maybe apple? Maybe Intel?

I diagree totally about some games being overrated. I believe the opposite

For example Last Guardian is expected not to sell much. But just like ICO thats because it will be underappreciated.

Forza would probably sell horribly on the PS3 too. Someone might say that Forza is overappreciated on the XBOX since it is an exclusive and the closest thing as an answer to Gran Turismo on the console. I also believe that Resistance 2 competes well to Halo 3 and I think it deserved much more than the sales it got. Halo 3 in my book is overrated for the extreme praise it gets.

Killzone 2 and Uncharted are also games that are underappreciated. Uncharted deserved much more praise when it was released.

 

[assurdum]

I diagree totally about some games being overrated. I believe the opposite

For example Last Guardian is expected not to sell much. But just like ICO thats because it will be underappreciated.

Forza would probably sell horribly on the PS3 too. Someone might say that Forza is overappreciated on the XBOX since it is an exclusive and the closest thing as an answer to Gran Turismo on the console. I also believe that Resistance 2 competes well to Halo 3 and I think it deserved much more than the sales it got. Halo 3 in my book is overrated for the extreme praise it gets.

Killzone 2 and Uncharted are also games that are underappreciated. Uncharted deserved much more praise when it was released.

Same opinion. The first parties are totally underrated of the ps3 users, a real shame. Resistance 2 a part. I found the gameplay really horrible.

 

[Akumajou]

In the end Sony would not be and EA... more like a THQ

Only THQ never had their own console so we would gain wisdom on their 1st party capabilities.

Just look and read my post on Sega and keep in mind that Dreamcast was NOT their only game console.

 

[cbarcus]

Last gen, the PS2 had weaker graphics performance than the XBox, but it was cheaper and it had more games.

I would say that the PS2 generally had weaker performance with regards to lighting, shading, and texture resolution (which are of course important visual metrics), but was on par or exceeded the 360 (which had twice the memory) in other areas (I believe the PS2 had more sustained throughput). I seem to recall that exclusive games like GT4, Tourist Trophy, and God of War compared favorably to the best Xbox games according to some reviewers. The PS2 was priced at the same level as the Xbox throughout that generation, but cost considerably less to produce. In fact, Microsoft lost billions producing the Xbox (due to not owning the essential IP), and dumped it soon after releasing the 360.

This gen, the PS3 has weaker graphics performance than the 360, but it is more expensive and it has fewer games.

The PS3 most definitely does not have weaker graphics performance when considering exclusive titles. As far as I am aware, the 360 has yet to produce a title that approaches Uncharted: Drake's Fortune or Killzone 2, to say nothing of what we will be seeing with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, God of War 3, GT5, The Last Guardian, etc.

Currently the PS3 is priced about 30% more than a comparable Xbox machine, but an Xbox Live Gold membership is $50/year. If one were to factor in reliability and the quality of the peripherals (GT Driving Force wheel vs Xbox wheel, or PSEye vs Xbox Live vision, Singstar wireless microphones (not in NA yet)), I'd say that we're at least in the same ballpark in terms of value. Both systems have some extraordinary games, and I believe a gaming enthusiast would have no problem enjoying both platforms.

That's a very poor combination for Sony. Perhaps they'll be able to get it cheaper than it is now, maybe even they'll try for parity with the 360, but they'll still have weaker graphics and fewer games, unless they pull a Wii and release a step-up PS3 with more memory or GPU and try to convince developers to write for a divided user base.

I believe Sony has made the right technology choices, and that we'll be looking at significant evolutions of the current technology for future systems. We'll also be seeing cheaper "slimmed" consoles that will appeal to the cost-conscious. The 5-year console cycle is coming up, and we will probably hear about the next PS4 and/or Xbox at E3 next year. Sony is a great hardware designer and manufacturer that have pushed the envelope for what is possible with electronic entertainment, and they have demonstrated their vision by building a machine around generalizing stream processing (Cell processor). The efficiency of this architecture is unrivaled in this market.