Katherine Hannaford writes...
Contrary to popular belief, this blog hasn't suddenly evolved into a PS3-obsessed website over the last few days. Oh no, that's what our squeaky-clean and shiny PSPSPS.tv blog is for, which just launched yesterday. Understandably there are many different stories floating around about whether you should or shouldn't invest £425 in one of these next-gen consoles, but what's the real story? Well, I've spent the last 5 months or so attending press demonstrations and conferences getting hands-on with Sony's latest offering (even meeting the man himself, Phil Harrison), and have created a list of pros and cons to help you make your mind up, on this, the eve of The Official European Launch. Don't worry, fanboys and girls, I've tried to be as unbiased as possible, even though I write for WiiWii.tv - it killed me doing so though, I must admit. Today, it's the list of reasons why you should refrain from dropping some serious cash on the big black shiny waffle iron, and tomorrow I'll look at reasons why you should invest. Now, It's time for me to go confess all my sins to Lord Shigeru Miyamoto now and do several Hail Peaches, sob...!
Cons - why you shouldn't buy a Sony PS3
1.) Backwards compatibility - Many of the PS2 games cannot be played on the PS3 due to 'minor' or 'noticeable' issues, with only 12 out of the 50 most popular games in Europe working properly. This means your favourites, like Resident Evil 4, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Guitar Hero I and II won't work, so you better hold off on pawning your PS2 on eBay.
2.) HDMI cables - Sony incredibly don't include HDMI cables with the console, meaning that high-def viewing you were looking forward to? Yeh, you'll have to fork out even more on a cable just to get it. But make sure it's a Sony cable, because if you play the stingy route and get a generic branded cable, uh-oh, your PS3 warranty is void. Oops!
3.) US failure - It's safe to say that Sony have failed to make a splash in the US pool, with figures from February's console sales reporting the PS3 as having only sold 127,000 units. Compare that to the Wii at 335,000 or the Xbox 360, which has been available for 16 months in the US, at 228,000, and it really does appear that the general public of America has spoken - perhaps its unpopularity is deserving?
4.) Too expensive - £425 for the console, plus £24.99 for the HDMI cable, games cost £39.99 each, if you want more than the one Sixaxis wireless controller which comes with the console, that's another £39.99...In the US, the PS3 retails for $599 which really should be £304, not the £425 we're being lambasted with instead. Quite frankly, for the money you're paying, you really should be getting more, not simply a few good-looking games already available on the Xbox 360 for a whole lot less dosh.
5.) Sony unsupportive of developers - Surely if you're releasing a games console, you'll want all the games you can get for your launch line-up? Not according to Sony, who are now notorious for not supporting developers by refusing to give them 'dev kits', the units which developers use to test their works-in-progress games on. According to Tech Digest, this is why many companies are shying away from releasing games on the PS3. Put simply, there's no back-scratching going on between Sony or developers, thus no joy for consumers.
6.) Lack of original games - There are 30 games available for the European launch, and many of those are either already available on the Xbox 360 (Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Call of Duty 3, Fight Night Round 3, anyone?), or are the usual sports/racing/army games churned out every year that just have another number appearing in the title - the typical EA games. In fact, many of the games are already available on the PS2, albeit are simply an earlier edition. Where's your innovation? Your creativity? Let's see some more Katamari Damacy, Okami and Killer 7-style risk-taking with the PS3, please.
7.) Format wars - Sony are obviously touting Blu-ray as being DVD's successor, however HD-DVD is looking like the potential champion in the format war. If you intended on buying a PS3 simply for the Blu-ray technology, you'd have to be pretty confident of its success. And if it flops, that means within a few years films will stop being produced on that format, meaning you're stuck with only Casino Royale et al for company.
8.) Downloadable music and films - Obviously part of the PS3 home entertainment system experience, when the rumured online service launches fully you'll be able to purchase music tracks and films for download. But for now...nothing. Where is it, Sony? Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 Live Video Marketplace launched last year, where you can get TV shows and films for as little as $2 each.
Keep your eyes glued to your monitor, and your fingers firmly pressed on 'control' and 'F5', because tomorrow I'll be giving you eight - yes, eight, I won't scrimp - reasons why you should purchase a PS3. In the meantime, if you've read the aforementioned eight reasons and still want to go ahead and splash your £425 on one, I'll see you at the official London launch at Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street, tonight!
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What a total load of nonsense. I thought this was supposed to be UNBIASED...
1/ The FACTS about PS3 EU backwards compatability: (not the nonsense posted here)
BC PS1 and PS2
Total Games: 5,021
Total games working: 2,826 (56.29% of all games)
No known issues: 1792 (63.41% of working games)
Minor issues: 473 (16.74% of working games)
Noticeable issues: 561 (19.85% of working games)
2/ You don't invalidate your PS3 warranty by using non-Sony cables, you can use any cable you want. Decent HDMI Cables are £10. Is this really number 2 on your list. Good grief..
3/PS3 is actually outselling the 360 when you compare the same point in the consoles life. Months 1-4, Ps3 has sold MORE units than 360 did in months 1-4..
4/ PS3 is £360 when you exclude VAT ($599 US is also exclusive of VAT to lets compare like for like to be fair). The extras you mention on the 360 also cost money, more infact. 360 games are £10 MORE each (£49.99), My SixAxis was £29.99, dunno where you got your £10 extra from...
5/ The Playstation brand is the biggest and most successfull brand there is, why is this? because Sony know how to treat developers.... There is no shortage of developers onboard for PS3. yes they have lost some exclusies, but there games are still coming...
6/ And most of those games look and play MUCH better on the PS3? Oblivion, better grahics, much faster load times... Fight Night Round 3, much better graphics.. £10 less, did I mention that?
7/ Blu-Ray has already won, it's outselling HD-DVD 3:1, and virtually every movie studio is backing it, there is little doubt that Blu-Ray is going anywhere but up.. www.thedvdwars.com
8/Downloadable music and films are HERE TODAY, when was the last time you looked??
Frankly, I have never seen such a uninformed, biased review EVER....
PS3 is an all round entertainment system. PS3 games are cheaper than xbox 360. Sixaxis is only £27.99 on amazon. PS3 don't mess up all the time, i've heard bad stuff about the xbox messing up. xbl accounts are getting hacked. Home looks good.. blu ray is included, xbox addons work out dearer than ps3. Why include hd cables when hardly anyone has hd tv's? Motion sensing is a new way forward recognised by sony. Backwards compatability will get better with updates. You can cure cancer.. if you want.
There are alot of ups and alot of downs.. so it should balance out.
So how much are they paying you at Sony, Deano? You can post any numbers you like. The reality is the PS3 is failing in America. I'm in the game industry and I know word of mouth and people who own a PS3 and many who haven't even bought one. There's almost no interest for anything on PS3. You know what's in? The Wii and Xbox live. That's all the rage right now. Now that being said, there might potenial for PS3 in the future, but if it remains at $600 dollars. Very few will think it's worth it. I mean people say $600, but it's actually near $700. When you consider Tax and the fact you're gonna buy it with a game. $700 to play Motorstorm!? No thanks and with Sony losing franchises to 360 left and right. DMC4, Ace Combat. Tekken and MGS4 can't be far behind.
ahahhahahaa i like ps3 long life ps3 i like this comment
What a total load of nonsense. I thought this was supposed to be UNBIASED...
1/ The FACTS about PS3 EU backwards compatability: (not the nonsense posted here)
BC PS1 and PS2
Total Games: 5,021
Total games working: 2,826 (56.29% of all games)
No known issues: 1792 (63.41% of working games)
Minor issues: 473 (16.74% of working games)
Noticeable issues: 561 (19.85% of working games)
2/ You don't invalidate your PS3 warranty by using non-Sony cables, you can use any cable you want. Decent HDMI Cables are £10. Is this really number 2 on your list. Good grief..
3/PS3 is actually outselling the 360 when you compare the same point in the consoles life. Months 1-4, Ps3 has sold MORE units than 360 did in months 1-4..
4/ PS3 is £360 when you exclude VAT ($599 US is also exclusive of VAT to lets compare like for like to be fair). The extras you mention on the 360 also cost money, more infact. 360 games are £10 MORE each (£49.99), My SixAxis was £29.99, dunno where you got your £10 extra from...
5/ The Playstation brand is the biggest and most successfull brand there is, why is this? because Sony know how to treat developers.... There is no shortage of developers onboard for PS3. yes they have lost some exclusies, but there games are still coming...
6/ And most of those games look and play MUCH better on the PS3? Oblivion, better grahics, much faster load times... Fight Night Round 3, much better graphics.. £10 less, did I mention that?
7/ Blu-Ray has already won, it's outselling HD-DVD 3:1, and virtually every movie studio is backing it, there is little doubt that Blu-Ray is going anywhere but up.. www.thedvdwars.com
8/Downloadable music and films are HERE TODAY, when was the last time you looked??
Frankly, I have never seen such a uninformed, biased review EVER....
Posted by: Mark | March 22, 2007 6:35 PM
PS3 is an all round entertainment system. PS3 games are cheaper than xbox 360. Sixaxis is only £27.99 on amazon. PS3 don't mess up all the time, i've heard bad stuff about the xbox messing up. xbl accounts are getting hacked. Home looks good.. blu ray is included, xbox addons work out dearer than ps3. Why include hd cables when hardly anyone has hd tv's? Motion sensing is a new way forward recognised by sony. Backwards compatability will get better with updates. You can cure cancer.. if you want.
There are alot of ups and alot of downs.. so it should balance out.
Posted by: Deano | March 22, 2007 6:46 PM
"7.) Format wars - Sony are obviously touting Blu-ray as being DVD's successor, however HD-DVD is looking like the potential champion in the format war."
LMFAO! Is this lady smoking crack?? Blu-ray is killing HD-DVD in America and Japan. It's only a matter of time it will be the same in Europe especially after the PS3 launches.
This lady is obviously a XBOX 360 fanboy and it's obvious this article is biased as hell...
Katherine hannaford obviously is not a gamer. Her only game is probably dressing up and going to parties. I dont care about fanboyism etc etc, but this woman is totally unqualified to write such a post. I wonder what ann coulter would say about such women. hmmmm?
Kath you are fit but you don't half write a load of tosh! Ps3 will wipe the floor with xbox360 because its loads better FACT.
Everyone needs to chill a bit, this is part one of a 2 part review. just hold your words untill youve read the next half tomorrow... my my the sony fanboys are ravenous tonight! shouldnt you all be waiting in line at Virgin megastore?
Few things for some of the comments left here.
A. Firstly, in overall market sale, neither Blu Ray nor HD-DVD is winning in the US. Yes, Blu Ray is selling a lot more units, mostly thanks to the PS3, but overall, the amount of owners of either format account for less than 2% of America. The majority of us are very happy with regular DVD format still. Some people here just recently jumped onto the DVD bandwagon, they will have no intention of buying something NEW for a long while
B. Playstation is not the biggest nor most successful brand there is in videogames. Despite Nintendo's past issues with N64 and Gamecube, they still are the single most influential and most successful name in the industry....and no Im not waving a fanboy flag here. Personally, I'd like to take ALL the fanboys and fangirls and send them off in a rocket to the sun ;) BUT I digress. The point is, Nintendo has the most successful franchises, whether in recognition or sales. If you take all the Mario games, Zelda games and Donkey Kong games, you'll not be able to match that popularity or number of copies sold to the big exclusive franchishes on either XBOX or Playstation series.
C. Stop trying to compare the console sales to "what it would have been like for XB360 in the same point in its launch life. Sales numbers are sales numbers, and they only correlate to what is being purchased now. Just suck up the fact that the PS3 isnt selling so hot right now and move on.
D. Due to point C, a lot of developers are on the fence about making PS3 games. Ultimately, its all about market share. How much of a percentage of the game audience owning the system. Gamecube lost or never acquired a lot of development support due to its low market share. PS2 was king of that generation, thus why almost every game came out on PS2. This generation is still early yet, but from the first 4 month glance of all systems being out in the US and Japan, the PS3 got off to a bad start. Some developers see this as just bad luck and the PS3 will rebound, some see it as a proverbial tar pit that Sony wont be able to get out of. So, some developers are making PS3 games, and some have decided to be frontrunners and go with XB360 and an evergrowing amount are making Wii games.
Finally, the closing point is this. We wont really be able to determine which console(s) have been a success until this time next year. So, just go out, buy whatever system has the games you like, and go play them. If the games really are so awesome, why are you wasting time posting on news comments? ;)
Ooh- thanks Raze, you said some of the things I wanted to say.
Firstly- I work in the games industry- no-one I work with is getting a PS3 at launch. In terms of initial launch buzz, it's a lot more low-key than either the 360 or the Wii (in fact a lot of talk is about how much Sony are making a mess of it).
Secondly- HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray: One of the best recent quotes I've seen recently is (roughly) "When the PS2 was launched, people were ready to move on from VHS, people aren't yet ready to move on from DVD". I don't think it's a deciding factor yet.
Thirdly: The PS3 itself- yes it is more powerful than anything else at the moment (unless you have a lot of money for a really top-end PC), but there aren't really the games to show it off yet.
At the moment- too expensive, and the USPs aren't worth enough to make it worthwhile, but it'll take time to tell whether it'll become dominant.
I like this line, from one of the above posters
" Why include hd cables when hardly anyone has hd tv's"
......................
And why include the capability to play blu ray films ,when ,as you pointed out, that hardly any one has a hi def tv to play them on.
360 gives you the choice of buying a peripheral for watching hd movies,if you happen to have a hd tv, sony on the other hand doesn't give the consumer this choice ,instead, you have for sale a very high priced computer ,(sonys words ,not mine )of which most people will only get to use 50% of it's features( lack of a 1080p lcd/plasma makes the blu ray player side a pointless ,useless ,costly extra),without it , the ps3 would have had a price point close to what the 360 sells for .
But to me ,both of these formats have launched far too early,as dvd will be the consumers movie format of choice for years to come, or until there is a much bigger take up of hd panels.
And to all the people saying that the ps3 versions of the games ,are much better than the same 360s version,take a look at these screen shots,showing armoured core 4 for 360 and ps3.
http://kotaku.com/gaming/ps3/comparing-ac4-for-xbox-360-and-ps3-243722.php
The finished ps3 version has a fraction less detail than the unfinished 360 demo version.
Also ,both machines are nearly identical in power,which means you'll be hard pushed to spot any major differences in the two consoles games,fact.
So ,for the time being, i'm sticking with my laptop ,ps2 and my wii until the ps3 comes way down in price and has more exclusive games,not inferior ports of 360 games.
Here is a link to one of the major ps3 launch events in australia
http://kotaku.com/gaming/ps3-launch/australian-ps3-launch-shindig-246437.php
Where just about everyone stayed away.
Odd that someone who isn't a techie has decided to write something like this. Is she being controversial to generate traffic? I checked traffic rank and on Alexa which is down 5,148 places so this may just be a wind up.
http://kotaku.com/gaming/clips/clip-360-ps3-oblivion-showdown-246506.php
That, is a link to a video that compares the differences between ps3 and 360 versions of oblivion.
And guess what ,they look nigh on identical,unlike what one of the above posters reckons,
" And most of those games look and play MUCH better on the PS3? Oblivion, better grahics, much faster load times... Fight Night Round 3, much better graphics "
based on him/her/it not having seen any game comparisons before.
Well written piece. Thoroughly undeserving of the bile in some of the comments. It would appear the Playstation owners are following the quasi-religious path of Apple Mac owners.
I've owned pretty much every console that's ever come out. Wound up giving my PS2 away because I never played on it and nothing I've seen about the PS3 suggests that I'll want one anytime soon. I am having a great time playing Crackdown on my 360 and Rayman on my Wii though.
Another point about the format wars. Blu-ray will lose that for the same reason that Betamax lost the video war. Namely: pornography. The porn industry has thrown its weight behind HD-DVD much like it threw its weight behind VHS. Just a thought ;-)
I'm not sure I want to watch porn in high-definition though, ew...
Wow, look at all the PS3 fanboys. Christ guys get a life.
The truth is the PS3 isn't doing as well as Sony hoped.
The truth is they ARE losing exclusive titles to the 360
The truth is HD-DVD is better than Blu-Ray and will soon outsell it, once all the cash in coupons for free BR films that ship with PS3's stop/get used.
The truth is that backwards compatibility has been hit hard.
And finally the truth is the XBL service is miles better than the PS3 - the whole 360 dashboard is far more inovative than the PSP styleesque PS3 one.
I must admit, the PS3 does look pretty cool though. Shame the controllers are such tat mind.
360's games are not real 49.99 ,better you post straight facts
Just wanted to stop by and check how pissed all the losers get over a fucking piece of plastic (It sort of serves as an entertaining distraction during the work day). It's so funny that in the next piece (pros), you get a whole new slew of losers freaking out. I know the internet is anonymous and all, but I would still be so embarassed to see my own words posted so passionate and heated, about a video game system! Whats funny is the astounding lack of originality in the posts. e.g. you work for sony, you work for ms etc, etc, etc. I'm beinning to think the same pale, obese, and socially retarded goup of individuals tirelessly search and post on all the sites I happen across just trying to find a little news. Anyway, thanks for the article. You go, girl.