Sony Is Retarded

There...I said it. Sony is, without a doubt in my warped from too much metal and video games mind, retarded. It's absolutely mind boggling to watch the clear winner of the last few eras of the console wars, consistently screw up this time around with the PS3 and consistently be completely arrogant and ignorant about just how badly they've messed up. If I've already lost you...let me go back and start from the beginning...

A long, long time ago...an insidious company named Sony released a device which took control of and also destroyed many people’s lives - a device called the "Playstation". After years of industry dominance and leaving all competitors in the dust, the Playstation had a son...or maybe it was his brother...actually, I'm not sure what familial terms to put this in...soooo...lets just move on. Regardless of all that, the Playstation eventually passed on it's cape and scepter to the Playstation 2, which continued to utterly decimate everything that stood in its path.

But, like all great empires in the history of the world...the Playstation brand faltered. Though the Playstation 2 seemed like it could do no wrong and it thoroughly had its way with all its competition...things took a turn.

As the next generation of the console wars loomed on the horizon, the world waited anxiously to see just what Sony would do next. The Playstation 1 and 2 were major successes of earth shattering proportions and people expected Sony to literally blow our asses off again with the Playstation 3.

But things went awry.

Microsoft struck the first, and perhaps fatal, blow in this round of the console wars by releasing their system, the Xbox 360, almost a year before Sony planned to drop their new hardware. Though, as the Dreamcast proved, being first doesn't always guarantee victory.

Unfortunately, years of being on top had made Sony arrogant to the fact that they were not perfect and far from untouchable in the video game market. Sony assumed that they had a veritable stranglehold on the casual gaming market while still having enough games and features to sate even the most hardcore of gamers.

When the PS3 was first announced, speculation ran rampant all over the internet as fanboys and haters literally wet themselves in anticipation of Sonys new console. How much would it cost? What features would come "stock", so to speak, on the PS3? What would their line up of launch titles look like? What was going to be Sony's online strategy? As time went on and these questions were answered...support for Sony began to drop lower and lower.

Once Sony started to release information about the PS3, things only seemed to get worse. It almost felt like Sony was trying as hard as they could to ruin their storied video game franchise. And after hearing of most of these facts...I started to wonder if I'd even bother with the Playstation 3.

First off and probably most importantly, the price tag was crazy. $600? Really? That thing better know the meaning of life or be made out of gold and encrusted with jewels for that kinda price. But seriously, for that price tag it must have some amazing features. But as you probably could've guessed by now...the PS3 didn't have so much of a "wow" factor as it had a "meh" factor.

So the console is $600...what exactly are gamers getting? Well first of all they are getting graphics which hardly look better, if not exactly the same, as graphics that can be found on the Xbox 360. Secondly, Sony created a a new wireless controller for the PS3, named the SIXAXIS, which sounded great at first...until it was found out that Sony was ditching rumble functions in this new controller in favor of motion sensing capabilities similar to that of the Nintendo Wii controller. Now, this might not sound like such a horrible idea to some but it wasn't so much the fact that Sony didn't include the rumble feature, it was the way in which they handled not including the rumble feature. At the time, Sony claimed that including the rumble feature in their wireless controller would be too difficult...even though its something that the 360 seems to pull off rather easily. Plus, the SIXAXIS just doesn't feel as solid as the old Dual Shocks do. They feel flimsy, some of the shoulder buttons are slippery and just all around feel more like a third party controller than a first party, Sony made product.

So its expensive and the controller's worse? Why's it so expensive then, you ask? The answer to that lies in a decision that Sony has decided to back %100. Every now and then new, similar technologies come out almost simultaneously and eventually one wins out over the other and becomes the dominant form of media. It happened with beta and VHS, DVD and laser disc, mini disc and MP3 and now it's Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Sony has decided to back Blu-Ray technology and included it in the PS3. From a strictly financial standpoint, buying a $600 PS3 for the Blu-Ray player is a steal considering that a stand alone Blu-Ray player starts retailing at $1000.(Even though it appears Sony may be releasing a cheaper, stand alone Blu-Ray player...buts that niether here nor there in my argument) But the 360 also has an HD-DVD perhipheral that, even at an extra $200, may prove to be more worth the buy than the PS3.

But as an avid gamer, the most important part of the PS3 puzzle is its game library. And as time went on...you can probably guess whats coming...things didn't look so good for Sony. As the days passed, Sony began to lose more and more exclusive titles. The first and foremost important title being Grand Theft Auto 4 releasing on both consoles on the same day...which is absolutely huge for Microsoft and horrible for Sony. The GTA series has sold plenty of Playstations on its own and when gamers are faced with the choice of playing GTA 4 for $400 or for $600 - I think the choice is pretty obvious. But not only GTA 4 but other games such as Assassins Creed and possibly even Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots could be coming to the 360. In my honest opinion, a console with a weak exclusive game library that has a price tag of $600 just is not worth it. I'll admit, some of Sony's upcoming games look interesting (especially Heavenly Sword and Lair) but as it stands right now, Sony's PS3 game library is seriously lacking considering that most of the PS3 library are multiplatform games that can be found on the 360 as well.

Combine all these hardware/software concerns together with the fact that Sony's PS3 online community doesn't look like it is shaping up to be nearly as strong as Xbox Live Marketplace and you have all the makings of another Dreamcast or Saturn (pardon me for picking on poor ol' Sega). And as if this wasn't enough, I wouldn't plan on seeing a PS3 price drop for quite some time, and by that I mean at the very least a year.

Oh but wait...the shenanigans don't stop there. Just to give you an idea of the kind of people who are in charge at Sony...in a recent interview with EGM magazine, Jack Tretton, Sony Computer Entertainment America's president, Tretton offered anybody who could find and take a picture of a PS3 sitting on the shelf, unbought, $1,200. I'll say that again for those of you who perhaps aren't following as closely...Jack Tretton offered anyone who could find a PS3 on a store shelf in America $1,200 for it. In fact, the fine gentlemen at Penny Arcade took Mr. Tretton up on his challenge and, surprise surprise, found many an unsold PS3 sitting lonely on store shelves. They found so many, within minutes of starting out on their quest, that if Tretton were to actually own up to his challenge he would be paying Penny Arcade over $13,000. (To see the comic of which I'm speaking, follow this URL: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/02/10 )

Mr. Tretton, along with the rest of Sony, also seem to suffer from the collective illusion that PS3s are selling like hot cakes and that Sony is having problems keeping them on the shelves. According to many video game retailors, there are plenty of PS3s to be had but Sony apparently doesn't think so. In an article I found from GWN.com, Tretton seems to think that PS3s are selling so well that they won't be able to completely restock stores until "April or May." (http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/11467/
Sony_Denies_PS3_Is_Readily_Available.html )
In fact, it appears that less than half of all PS3s shipped have been sold. The importance here being that shipped only means sold to stores whereas the number of consoles sold is the actual number of consoles bought by consumers. According to VGcharts.com, somewhere around 4 million PS3s have shipped to America and Japan, but only around 1.8 million has been sold - with less than a million sold in Japan, a market which Sony usually dominates. (http://www.vgcharts.org/news/news.php?id=111)

To be honest, in writing this post I kinda feel like I'm stabbing an old friend in the back and then twisting the knife a little because over the years, my PS1 and PS2 have given me more good times than I can count. I honestly really, really, really hope that Sony can get their act together and salvage their product. I do, I really do. But Sony has just dug themselves such a deep hole and then refused to acknowledge just how deep that hole is...I don't know when or if they can get themselves out of it.