Only a few more months until Sony unleashes the PS3 to the gaming populace.
While they have not officially announced anything, its pretty safe to assume that Sony HAS to release soon in order to keep up with the XBOX 360 and the pending Nintendo Revolution.
Back at E3 2005, Sony has shown nothing but tech demos and CGI movies of their upcoming PS3 games. Actual gameplay shots and footages have been rare despite the fact that nearly a year has passed since the announcement of the console. But what bothers me, as a gamer, was what Sony has been trying to push for the last year with regard to the PS3. And they haven’t pushed gaming that much at all. Instead we get a hefty news about Blu-Ray, the Cell Processor and other what not.
I’m not going to go into detail about Blu-Ray or the Cell but the only thing I can say about it is that they’re both relatively new hardware. Blu-Ray is meant to be the next-generation movie disk format. While the Cell is a chip built to be able to do several functions related to multi-media. To top it all off, Sony has entrusted their graphics chip to Nvidia who gave them the top of the line model of 2005. Sony has also boasted of having a hard disk to be attached to the PS3 that runs on Linux and capable of serving common desktop applications.
All those things sound great…but where are the games Sony? Those additional bundled in features of the PS3, whether I will use them or not, will serve to add costs to the console…costs that Sony can no longer subsidize and will have to pass on to the gamers. On top of that, there has been no clear roadmap as to how those devices will actually further gaming in particular.
Right now all I see is an overemphasis on the other features of the PS3…features that may or may not even take off. It’s quite obvious that Sony is putting a lot of its eggs in its most profitable product, the Playstation but only time will tell if it pays off. As for me, the features are not enough to sell the pricey PS3. I’m not about to let go of my current DVD collection and convert them all to Blu-Ray. I have no intention of making my PS3 run word applications because in the end, I buy a console in order to play games and nothing else. Extras are appreciated but the focus should always be about the games and the gaming experience.
This is not the first time Sony has embarked on this kind of marketing. Technically they did the same thing with the PS2 by selling it off as a cheap DVD player and many people felt secure in their purchase of having a multi-purpose machine powered by the silly catch phrase ‘Emotion Engine’. But it makes me wonder just how many people actually used the Playstation’s DVD player feature a lot more.
To be honest, I am quite disappointed with Sony. I’ve been with them since their glory PS1 days where what was advertised was not the fact that the PS1 can be used to play your music CDs or play a VCD…but the fact that the PS1 had great set of diverse games that any gamer can choose from. And from the success of the PS1, Sony rebounded with the PS2 but shifting focus into making an all-in-one entertainment gateway. While its competitors, such as the XBOX 360, is not shying away from the entertainment hub challenge, their focus has been about the games and gamer experience much more than its other features.
In an effort to save Sony, the Playstation 3 has transformed from a simple gaming machine to a monster entertainment center deemed to take over the living room. The PS3 is no longer just about gaming, its about everything Sony has at the moment. The hopes and dreams of every single consumer electronics division now lies with the success of the PS3. No doubt that they are gambling such a big thing in the console war, whether or not it pays off in the long run remains to be seen.
Right now Sony wants everyone to think that the PS3 will be everything and anything you need for your multimedia experience. But somehow a part of me thinks that if I believe that, I'll be in a world of disappointment.
