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A really good article to read.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121500870.html

Good piece. That CNN article was rubbish. I have a 37" 1080p television and I can tell when something is only in 720p not 1080p, let alone the difference between blu-ray and dvd.

I didn't really think CNN's article had too many good points, but honestly, what could possibly help the system gain momentum at this point?

Even if it is a sinking ship, I'll continue to buy games and have fun with them until an official announcement that its going the way of the Dreamcast. My PS3 isn't an investment, its just a nice little distraction from everyday life and one brick in my home entertainment system.

From a gamer's perspective, it's the GameCube of this gen. Last place sales but still a nice piece of hardware and a moderate success, with enough great exclusives to make a purchase worthwhile. From Sony's perspective, ouch. I can only imagine how much it's hurting their bottom line. I hope lessons are learned and the PS4 gets back on track.

It doesn't bring me any joy to write that, you know... I'm a big Sony fan and was rooting for the PS3 to succeed on the same scale as the PS2. I'll still buy one eventually-- I think the PS3 is the better machine overall, and I prefer Sony's exclusives to Microsoft's. But all the missed opportunities really sting. The ridiculous price, the yanking of features I wanted, lack of anything noteworthy going on with PSP integration, the nonentity that is Home-- Sony really bungled this thing, and at this point I'm really getting tired of hearing about the "potential." It's been two years, we should have more to talk about by now than potential.

The PS3 is here to stay. Why? Because Sony won the format war and Blu Ray reigns supreme. Considering how good the graphics look on the damn thing, I wouldnt be surprised if Sony doesn't release a PS4 by the time an Xbox 720 comes out. Disk space is larger on PS3 disks and the graphics engine has yet to reach its maximum potential.

Now if HDDVD would have won, I would definatly believe that the PS3 is a sinking ship, but that did not happen and HDDVD lost out to Blu Ray.

Uh no. This thread should be locked before it gets worse. The thing is while PS3 has not had its strongest sales in NA, it still has the lead in Japan and the PAL land. if you compare TOTAL 360 and PS3 sales this year. They are actually not that far off from each other, and PS3 didn't even cut its price (they most likely will next year, after the fiscal year is over). And some seem to forget, Sony IS on target to meet their PS3 sales expectations. They could careless if the other consoles sell it 20X. They just want to sell the amount of consoles they plan to (breaking even on the hardware or close, since Sony already lost quite a bit in their gaming division and Howard Stringer wants to see profit only) and hopefully have a profitable fiscal year overall.

Anyway, let me tell you that CNN basically took an article written by Eric Krangel. If you read many of Eric's articles, he is VERY anti Sony/PS3 and here's why:

Sony's PS3 Virtual World "Home" Plagued By Sex Fiends (Video) (SNE) Not Just The PS3: Sony's PSP Sales Stink Too (SNE) Sony's PS3 A Sinking Ship: Sales Plummet (SNE) Sony Cuts PS3 Prices By $150 -- If You Have Good Credit (SNE) (he basically bashes Sony over the PS Credit Card) The Hidden Cost Of That Videogame Machine: Electricity (Disses PS3 in a way based on electricity it uses) October Game Sales: Nintendo Wii Kicking PS3 Butt (When 360 got its butt kicked too by Wii. Only mentions PS3)

http://www.alleyinsider.com/Sony

CNN just grabbed an article by one of the most Anti-Sony people on the net. Tons of other sites start posting it (but his other articles didn't get around). I already got back at the guy leaving him a REALLY nasty blog comment.

Oh yeah, this is how the total sales are this year:

Wii - 8,001,000 Xbox 360 - 3,295,400 PlayStation 3 - 2,818,900

At the end of June 2008, PS3 did lead by just under 300k consoles. To say it's dead is very short sighted.

In terms of making money or being "#1" this gen, yeah. I dunno it PS3 is going to take the top spot this late in the game. I do like the PS3 exclusives over the 360 ones but Sony made a lot of mistakes this time around. It's not a terrible system, but it's been plagued with problems.

I didn't read the article, but commenting on what Ryuukishi had to say. I don't think Sony will ever be able to reclaim the success they had with PS2 on any other console. Nintendo did it because they innovated with the Wii, basically opening the market to every Joe Plumber and Grandma Nina in the world. I don't think gaming can evolve much at all. Graphics, physics, and sound will get better but I think we've reached a plateau at this generation when it comes to gameplay. I just hope for the sake of gaming in general with Microsoft or Sony will do something really inovated that will impove the games of next gen. I wouldn't mind keeping my PS3 only for another 10 years as long as theres the solid 6-10 titles a year I want to play as there is now.

Originally Posted by Blackout In terms of making money or being "#1" this gen, yeah. I dunno it PS3 is going to take the top spot this late in the game. I do like the PS3 exclusives over the 360 ones but Sony made a lot of mistakes this time around. It's not a terrible system, but it's been plagued with problems.

The thing is, Sony no longer really cares about being number 1. They just want to break even on hardware, and get some profit from games + accessories. That's their goal this gen, not do deep pricecuts just to be number 1.

I mean last gen, while GC was last, Nintendo was actually doing very well financially, where they were making money on GC. While Xbox got 2nd place, MS lost a lot of money on Xbox. So while GC wasn't as popular or didn't sell as much, Nintendo was kind of the winner because they made money. Sony rather be profitable than sell lots of consoles and lose money (MS is willing to do it, no doubt). If you sell the most and make a profit (like Nintendo is doing), that's excellent news.

I don't care if PS3 is number 1. I enjoy the Sony first party games and I like playing third party games best on my PS3 (because of controller, quiet/reliable console, free online, etc.). I'm sticking to PS3 no matter what.

The majority of mistakes Sony made with PS3 come down to the Cell + RSX (the main reason PS3 is costly to produce, especially the cell) and it's difficult to develop on it (Blu-ray was expensive early on, but its costs have reduced to a point it's not that much more than DVD to use).

Originally Posted by Jest I didn't read the article, but commenting on what Ryuukishi had to say. I don't think Sony will ever be able to reclaim the success they had with PS2 on any other console. Nintendo did it because they innovated with the Wii, basically opening the market to every Joe Plumber and Grandma Nina in the world. I don't think gaming can evolve much at all. Graphics, physics, and sound will get better but I think we've reached a plateau at this generation when it comes to gameplay. I just hope for the sake of gaming in general with Microsoft or Sony will do something really inovated that will impove the games of next gen. I wouldn't mind keeping my PS3 only for another 10 years as long as theres the solid 6-10 titles a year I want to play as there is now.

Almost no one will get the success again. While Wii has done well, I doubt it will be PS2 successful in the end.

Some seem to be forgetting what made PS3 so successful was going a time period with no competition. Many ignored the Dreamcast (despite its awesome launch) because too many were weary of buying Sega again (after the 32X, Saturn, and CD being killed off early), and everyone knew PS2 was coming (and PS2 was announced when the PS1 momentum was continuing to get stronger and stronger). Since Sega killed off Dreamcast a few months after PS2 came out, PS2's biggest competitor was the PS1. Nintendo killed off N64 pretty much after Christmas 2000. There was no Xbox. If anyone wanted a game console, PS2 was basically the only option if you wanted many new games in the future (it played PS1 games for those wanting a PS1). PS2 already had a very big lead and a wide selection of games out by the time GC and Xbox came out. GC had some shortages early (where stores only got two shipments after launch), while Xbox was still mostly a new brand to people (didn't really catch on fully until its first price drop). Sony had it very easy and PS2 was selling like hotcakes. However, the PS2 momentum in a way started to drop in late 2003 and 2004 especially, because I remember NPD showing that in 2004, Xbox actually outsold PS2 that year in NA (while PS2 had a crazy lead in Europe and Japan). While PS2 won last gen, its smallest marketshare was in NA and PS2 sales continued to drop year after year (I remember because Sony had very high expectations for PS2, and they weren't meeting them). By the time Sony released PS3, the PS brand was on a downward trend (compared to upward when releasing PS2. Where PS1 sales were still getting better each year). So it was kind of expected, regardless of pricing, PS3 wouldn't have as much impact in NA compared to PS2 (since PS2 started out as mass market popular, then kind of dropped).

Originally Posted by Ryuukishi It doesn't bring me any joy to write that, you know... I'm a big Sony fan and was rooting for the PS3 to succeed on the same scale as the PS2. I'll still buy one eventually-- I think the PS3 is the better machine overall, and I prefer Sony's exclusives to Microsoft's. But all the missed opportunities really sting. The ridiculous price, the yanking of features I wanted, lack of anything noteworthy going on with PSP integration, the nonentity that is Home-- Sony really bungled this thing, and at this point I'm really getting tired of hearing about the "potential." It's been two years, we should have more to talk about by now than potential.

The PSP integration is fantastic IMO, especially being able to stream PS1 games from the PS3 console onto the PSP screen.

Also, Home is actually pretty good to me; however, please understand that it's NOT intended for the hardcore gamers like those who post in most forums. It's a way to bring people together, socialize and finding others with similar interests in certain games, which is kind of does (worked for me). People who spend lots of time on forums (such as you) already know what's going on.

And like I told many people before, I understand why PS2 BC was yanked. It was a costly feature to implement. If people want it, we wouldn't be seeing a $400 PS3 right now (more so $450-$500). Once Sony figures out how to make a 100% PS2 software emulator (which may or may not happen. The struggle is emulating the GS is difficult since the RSX doesn't have as high of a fill rate as the GS), PS3 consoles will play PS2 games. Last gen Sony went to a partial software emulator, then full software emulator for the slim PS2. They were able to do that last gen since PS2 was doing very well for them and people were okay with the price. But since Sony wasn't meeting their original projections and needed to get the price down to at least $400, PS2 BC had to go. For hardcore gamers it may be a missed feature, but for most people out there it isn't an issue (they played PS2 games and are done with them. Since I got a PS3, I never want to play PS2 games again since they look so terrible on the HDTV. You gotta see it yourself).

Originally Posted by The Mana Knight The thing is, Sony no longer really cares about being number 1. They just want to break even on hardware, and get some profit from games + accessories. That's their goal this gen, not do deep pricecuts just to be number 1. I mean last gen, while GC was last, Nintendo was actually doing very well financially, where they were making money on GC. While Xbox got 2nd place, MS lost a lot of money on Xbox. So while GC wasn't as popular or didn't sell as much, Nintendo was kind of the winner because they made money. Sony rather be profitable than sell lots of consoles and lose money (MS is willing to do it, no doubt). If you sell the most and make a profit (like Nintendo is doing), that's excellent news. I don't care if PS3 is number 1. I enjoy the Sony first party games and I like playing third party games best on my PS3 (because of controller, quiet/reliable console, free online, etc.). I'm sticking to PS3 no matter what. The majority of mistakes Sony made with PS3 come down to the Cell + RSX (the main reason PS3 is costly to produce, especially the cell) and it's difficult to develop on it (Blu-ray was expensive early on, but its costs have reduced to a point it's not that much more than DVD to use).

I do like the PS3 better because of what you said...controller, free online, and all my close friends got the PS3 over the 360 so we game all the time on it. The thing is, PS3 didn't get "good" until 2.5, and is just now getting to a better point, with trophies, more social aspects, fixing online gaming, etc. Before that man just way too much crap went wrong. That price isn't helping them, but they really can't do anything about that. The buzzword for this generation is "potential". PS3 has a lot of it, but the way I feel we won't fully see it manifest until PS4. All the mistakes and things they're doing now will make for a great next gen system. Right now though it's just growing pains that I don't think is going to do much for them this time around.

Still, I'll take Resistance, Ratchet, Uncharted etc over any of the other consoles games. But man, how the mighty have fallen.

I'm mostly a casual gamer - I may get semi-hardcore now and then - but for the most part it's casual. Lately when I "crave" turning on a gaming system to play a game - now this is just talking sorta about an abstract craving if that makes any sense - I crave the ps3. I have all the current gen systems and they have all lost their newness to me. I choose all my third party titles for ps3. Wii has sorta seemed to be a gimmick that has worn off for me. Not at all like the Nintendo DS - which isn't gimmicky to me and I think is the best system since the original NES. Xbox 360 is great and I honestly can't explain why I choose the ps3 over it. I have friends on both systems. From my experience xbox has the better online gaming network because of the quality of voice chat - and I'm not a very chatty gamer either. Ps3 has the better dashboard I think - even with the nxe - I still prefer the xmb. The familiarity I get with watching blu-ray once or twice a week could play a large part in my interest in the ps3. I do wish sony could get netflix streaming like nxe has now.

Originally Posted by Blackout Still, I'll take Resistance, Ratchet, Uncharted etc over any of the other consoles games. But man, how the mighty have fallen.

If people were to say this was ONLY happening to Sony during PS3, they are kind of wrong. Ever since the original Xbox launched, especially in the year 2003 - 2005, it was cutting into the PS2 marketshare. Like I said before, Xbox actually outsold PS2 in 2004, in NA. I'm trying to talk about the downward trend that already happened. If Sony was continuing to dominate in NA for an example last gen, they wouldn't have been outsold in 2004 and would have maintained around the same lead every year, but it kept shrinking. In ways it seemed like I knew more Xbox owners than PS2 owners in 2005. The Xbox brand was gaining momentum, and MS released the 360 as the momentum was going up (just like how Sony released PS2 when PS1 was gaining momentum). Nintendo right now is kind of doing what Sony did in 1995 with PS1. Sony did well with PS1 because they targeted an older age group of people and more mass market, compared to Nintendo and Sega who mostly targeted kids or a very, very hardcore group of gamers). Sony having its appeal to a wider audience brought many new people into gaming. Nintendo has done the same thing with the Wii bringing in an older audience, young women, young girls, and many others who never played games before (and that leads to the Wii being very successful).

In Europe and Japan, PS2 was doing crazy well and the PS Brand was popular. While Wii is number 1 in those two regions, PS3 is number 2. Overall, I just say the PS Brand hasn't been as popular as it use to in just NA, but still has a strong marketshare in Europe and Japan (regardless of all the Japanese games MS tries to get, PS3 is still above it).

Originally Posted by The Mana Knight If people were to say this was ONLY happening to Sony during PS3, they are kind of wrong. Ever since the original Xbox launched, especially in the year 2003 - 2005, it was cutting into the PS2 marketshare. Like I said before, Xbox actually outsold PS2 in 2004, in NA. I'm trying to talk about the downward trend that already happened. If Sony was continuing to dominate in NA for an example last gen, they wouldn't have been outsold in 2004 and would have maintained around the same lead every year, but it kept shrinking. In ways it seemed like I knew more Xbox owners than PS2 owners in 2005. The Xbox brand was gaining momentum, and MS released the 360 as the momentum was going up (just like how Sony released PS2 when PS1 was gaining momentum). Nintendo right now is kind of doing what Sony did in 1995 with PS1. Sony did well with PS1 because they targeted an older age group of people and more mass market, compared to Nintendo and Sega who mostly targeted kids or a very, very hardcore group of gamers). Sony having its appeal to a wider audience brought many new people into gaming. Nintendo has done the same thing with the Wii bringing in an older audience, young women, young girls, and many others who never played games before (and that leads to the Wii being very successful). In Europe and Japan, PS2 was doing crazy well and the PS Brand was popular. While Wii is number 1 in those two regions, PS3 is number 2. Overall, I just say the PS Brand hasn't been as popular as it use to in just NA, but still has a strong marketshare in Europe and Japan (regardless of all the Japanese games MS tries to get, PS3 is still above it).

I'm not into the whole following console sales week by week, month by month stuff that so many people seem to be fascinated with. I'm just talking about the overall system and vibe from it. PS2 killed Xbox. It was like a 400 pound guy beating up a scrawny 90 pound kid. Xbox had very few games. The only thing it had going for it was Xbox Live, but game wise there was hardly anything there. If you would have told me back than that the next Xbox would be so huge I would have laughed. PS2 just dominated everything for me. I stand by what I say, PS4 or whatever they decide to call it is going to be great because they get to use all the screw ups and stuff to improve on next gen. Home, online, social aspect, etc etc and all the other stuff they're trying to do will reach fruition in the next round. PS3 is just a huge ass growing pain.

Originally Posted by The Mana Knight They just want to sell the amount of consoles they plan to (breaking even on the hardware or close, since Sony already lost quite a bit in their gaming division and Howard Stringer wants to see profit only) and hopefully have a profitable fiscal year overall.

Its great to see Sony Fanboys doing this complete 180 reversal. 2 years ago "THE 360 IS THE SUXXORZ! PS3 DESTROYS IT WITH EIGHT PROCESSORS!". A couple of ho-hum super-hyped releases and about 30 downloadable patches later and we see the PS3 is basically a 360, only one that is about 8 times as hard to get the power out of...and we wind up...with posts like the above.

"Hey we never wanted to be #1...we uhhh....we just want to make a buck! AND REMEMBER WE ARE IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL! Sony WILL dominate...in 2014 the PS3 will be ROCKIN!" and so on and so on.

CNN just grabbed an article by one of the most Anti-Sony people on the net. Tons of other sites start posting it (but his other articles didn't get around). I already got back at the guy leaving him a REALLY nasty blog comment. Oh yeah, this is how the total sales are this year: At the end of June 2008, PS3 did lead by just under 300k consoles. To say it's dead is very short sighted.

Sony dominated with the Ps1 and dominated with the Ps2. The Ps3 is a sinking ship in the sense that its barely surviving, its not dominating.

There are twice as many people in North America as there are in Japan, and that says something to game makers.

The 360 has sold xxx million units in North America, it has a great software attach rate, AND its been sold primarily as a game system, meaning people will buy game software for it. The system is profitable to Microsoft. Microsoft continues to be a strong company.

The PS3 has significantly less sales than the 360. It has been marketed as both a game machine AND a blu ray media player. This means that many PS3's have been sold to people who simply will not buy a PS3 game (I know 2 people like this personally, with estimates as high as 30-40% of PS3's sold will be to people who don't buy games). The PS3 is also no longer the cheapest BD player, as it was the past 2 years. This will impact sales. The PS3 is not yet profitable for Sony to produce and sell. Sony as a company is struggling with layoffs and brand recognition issues.

The Ps3 isn't a sinking ship, but its hardly the followup to the PS1 and Ps2 that Sony and its legions of fans were hoping for.

Killzone 2 and GT5 and probably God of War III may wind up being great, epic, stellar games...the fact remains that it takes more than 2 or 3 titles spread out over 2 or 3 years to really sell a system. Sonys exclusives are few and far between,a nd more often than not the games are lacking and rarely live up to expectation.

LAIR: laugh
Ratchet and Clank: Again, this isn't the kind of game that gets systems flying off shelves
Metal Gear: The closest the PS3 has come to a bona-fide hit, moved systems off the shelf....
LBP: The great hype....that arrived dead on the vine. "wow this game kicks ASS!". no...back to sleep.
SOCOM: embarassing whats happened to this franchise. Multi-only, no SP, limited maps...yawn.
WIPEOUT: became a copy of a 3 year old PSP game, only in HD. Another wasted franchise.
God of War III? Will be released "Someday"
GT5? Date slips more than Pamela Andersons nipples.....may be out in 2010, maybe 2011...hopefully by then it has a damage model thats more like 2008 than 1998, which is has now. :P

Its pretty clear to see that Sony has undoubtedly lost the edge...

Originally Posted by Blackout I'm not into the whole following console sales week by week, month by month stuff that so many people seem to be fascinated with. I'm just talking about the overall system and vibe from it. PS2 killed Xbox. It was like a 400 pound guy beating up a scrawny 90 pound kid. Xbox had very few games. The only thing it had going for it was Xbox Live, but game wise there was hardly anything there. If you would have told me back than that the next Xbox would be so huge I would have laughed. PS2 just dominated everything for me. I stand by what I say, PS4 or whatever they decide to call it is going to be great because they get to use all the screw ups and stuff to improve on next gen. Home, online, social aspect, etc etc and all the other stuff they're trying to do will reach fruition in the next round. PS3 is just a huge ass growing pain.

The FPS, Western RPGs (like KOTOR, Fable, etc.), and racers (to some extent) is what made the original Xbox popular (I wouldn't deny it had better FPS and Western RPGs compared to PS2), along with its online. While it lacked variety in areas, it did start to build up a pretty strong fanbase and I definitely figured it would be a bigger threat this generation (however, I never predicted Nintendo to do well).

Well, I am excited about PS4. Because the thing is Sony kind of already has a few foundations they've been setting with PS3:
-PlayStation Network is now up and running. They can carry over many firmware features to PS4, along with making sure the PS4 is designed around being able to handle other features they are struggling to implement on PS3 due to OS footprint being too small. They will also be able to standardize certain online features (one reason MS wanted to go to 360 was to standardize things, since it couldn't be done on Xbox). They'll probably have fantastic PSN intergration with PlayStation.com from the get go.

-Home will be more refined and they may be able to make the transitions much more seamless (and won't need to go through many betas on PS3).

-They will probably use a slightly more powerful Cell. The high R&D plus Cell development made PS3 expensive. Since the cell is out, improving it won't be expensive and will probably cost much less at PS4 launch compared to PS3 launch.

-If they use a disc, Blu-ray drives will probably be the same as DVD now in price. They'll probably be able to use an 8X or higher blu-ray drive, making loading faster.

-They will have a GPU in place that will work better with the Cell. The RSX was thrown in at the last minute due to scrapping the Cell GPU. While the RSX works, it wasn't made to work with the Cell as well as the last GPU.

-They'll probably refine the console + the way accessories are used, such as maybe making it where a headset can plug into a controller. They'll probably make it where accessories can ALL support bluetooth (so guitars, and other accessories won't need a dongle).

-HDDs will continue to get cheaper (I see them sticking to a 2.5" one).

-Making the console Software BC from the get go will be easier. If they re-use the Cell, it will probably make it easy for PS3 games to work on it. They'll probably design the PS4 architecture where it can efficiently run a PS2 emulator.

MS was able to do a lot of trial and error with Xbox, that really helped make 360 better. The same will probably happen with PS4.

Originally Posted by HeadRusch LAIR: laugh

Factor 5 wanted to make a game for PS3 and Sony went ahead and published it. Sony didn't even mention it at E3 2007 because they knew it didn't turn out good. Why do you think Sony has completely cut Factor 5 from making any more games for PS3? it's because they didn't do Lair right. If you want to talk about bombs, let me bring up MS publishing Fuzion Frenzy 2, Vampire Rain stateside, Azurik, Nightcaster, and many others.

Ratchet and Clank: Again, this isn't the kind of game that gets systems flying off shelves

Best platformer this gen. And guess what, it has sold 1 million copies worldwide.

Metal Gear: The closest the PS3 has come to a bona-fide hit, moved systems off the shelf....

It's the best game this generation. Awesome storyline.

LBP: The great hype....that arrived dead on the vine. "wow this game kicks ASS!". no...back to sleep.

The game averages 95% at Gamerankings, higher than any other game this year on next gen consoles. Media Molecule won the best developer of 2008 award on Spike. The game is fantastic.

SOCOM: embarassing whats happened to this franchise. Multi-only, no SP, limited maps...yawn.

First off, the developers changed to Slant 6, a developer of mostly PSP games. Zipper Interactive is making MAG on PS3, which looks sweet (they preferred to no longer work with SOCOM). SCEA only had a SOCOM sequel made to please JUST the SOCOM fans. The SOCOM fans wanted a game more so like the 1st/2nd, and that's how Confrontation is. The game dropped the single player since most everyone said the single player in SOCOM was boring and only played online. SOCOM Confrontation was NOT intended to be one of their big budget, main games. It was intended to be a PS3 SOCOM to please its fanbase, that's all.

Most SOCOM fans would say it's the best SOCOM since SOCOM 1/2 on PS2.

WIPEOUT: became a copy of a 3 year old PSP game, only in HD. Another wasted franchise.

Wipeout HD is a fantastic game. How dare you say bad things about it. The team at Sony Liverpool was focused on making Wipeout Pulse, then moved to Wipeout HD. They made it to boosts the amount of downloadable games. It has been rumored that they plan on a full blown retail game in the future, but Wipeout HD was made to please fans, kind of like SOCOM.

God of War III? Will be released "Someday"

God of War 1 launched in 2005. God of War II launched in 2005. Since the development team has to start from scratch designing an engine on PS3 hardware (not making a sequel to an engine already there), it's going to take a bit longer than 2 years. Right now it is slated for the end of 2009, which is a reasonable time frame. If God of War II never came out, then it would probably be out by now.

GT5? Date slips more than Pamela Andersons nipples.....may be out in 2010, maybe 2011...hopefully by then it has a damage model thats more like 2008 than 1998, which is has now. :P

Want to know why GT5 keeps slipping? On PS1, the developers stated it only took 1 day to design a car. That's why they were able to release a sequel to GT1 in only a year. On PS2, designing a car took a week or two. That's why it took longer to release GT4 after GT3. The developer is also a perfectionist when it comes to car design, and by the time you add several cars, it takes a while to release it. Due to so much resources going to car design, that explains why GT4 didn't get online. No damage was there because some car manufacturers do not want to see damage to their cars, and making a realistic damage model was going to delay the game even further.

As for GT5, designing a car on PS3 takes a few months to do. They aren't just designing the outside, but the inside too. If you played GT5P, the cars look beyond fantastic, inside and out. When you are trying to design several hundred cars, it will take a while. GT for PSP was canceled just so they could bring more development to GT5. While the developers have gotten the okay from some manufacturers to do damage modeling, there's no guarantee it will be there at launch based on how long it already takes to make a car. Most racing games just slap a car together in a few days and not try to accurately model it, unlike GT.

Sony also has many other great first party games, like Uncharted, Hot Shots Golf, makes the best baseball game around, Resistance series, Buzz! is fun, SingStar is great, MotorStorm: PR is one of the best racers all year, and several great PSN games. Killzone 2, inFAMOUS, White Knight Chronicles, etc. look great for next year.

I don't see the PS3 as the GameCube of this generation. Truthfully, it's because I really wasn't impressed with the GC at all during its lifespan. Its library was pretty pathetically first-party biased, with most buying it mainly for its Nth iteration of franchise games. The Wii's game selection hasn't shown any signs of bettering that. It was not geared towards mature gamers and it's functionality beyond playing games was close to nil (remember that at the time, many people easily justified paying more for a PS2 to play DVDs than paying for the GC, the cheapest of the 3 consoles). The only difference this time around is that Nintendo expanded its definition of games to include "stuff any easily impressed idiot can do just by waggling a controller around" and got a huge new audience that probably hadn't paid attention to a video game since Pong.

Sales-wise, it's too early in the life-cycle to say whether the PS3 will completely sink. Unfortunately public ignoranceperception is a powerful thing and just people believing the PS3 is a failure will have a severely negative effect on its marketshare. The PS3 seems more similar to the original Xbox. Hardcore gamers want it, but it has more power than the mainstream thinks they need/want to pay for. Though I doubt Sony kills it as quickly and prematurely as MS.

I've got to give major kudos to Microsoft this generation, despite their abysmal quality control when it comes to hardware. They've really done their homework, building on the original Xbox's strong points while focusing a lot of effort at shoring up the original Xbox's major weakness, the total lack of Japanese developer support. Scoring the Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy series really hit Sony where it hurts, and even smaller acquisitions like the Katamari series have helped to dispel Microsoft's "frat boys only/all FPS and sports" image.

Meanwhile Sony's entire plan seems to have been, "They will buy anything that says PlayStation on it." And when the flaws in that brilliant plan started to become exposed, they responded by axing one of their biggest selling points, backwards compatibility with the most important (and still growing) game library in existence. Plus pouring years and who knows how much money into developing what turns out to be a glorified chat room. Don't worry though, "it has potential, it's going to awesome, just wait until next year!" Which seems to be the universal PS3 refrain.

First of all im not reading the CNN article not because of the first poster(thanks for posting) but its gonna seem like its going to bash the ps3 in many ways. And all I have to say is this:
The ps3 is better in hardware, sucks at exclusive games, is behind as far as features.
Does that mean its going to sink? No, ps3 still has time to warm up and get to where the 360 is and I think they will. I own all three systems and they all have there ups and downs even though i love my 360 the most. But I don't think ps3 is sinking.
Blu Ray you say? Well its for the HD guru's and I have a 1080I set and I can tell the difference. If i really really want something to look extremly good ill grab it on blu ray. PS3 has alot going for it and it will be around for awhile before they ditch it.

But IMO i think the biggest thing to help the ps3 would be just to release a bunch of exclusive games. I don't know why they are so low on exclusives like well known ones.

Originally Posted by Ryuukishi Meanwhile Sony's entire plan seems to have been, "They will buy anything that says PlayStation on it." And when the flaws in that brilliant plan started to become exposed, they responded by axing one of their biggest selling points, backwards compatibility with the most important (and still growing) game library in existence. Plus pouring years and who knows how much money into developing what turns out to be a glorified chat room. Don't worry though, "it has potential, it's going to awesome, just wait until next year!" Which seems to be the universal PS3 refrain.

The thing is, while you continue talking about PS3, you don't actually own one. Not trying to be mean here, but PS3 is actually a lot better than what non-owners would think. I'm being quite serious, because I was a bit unsure about buying a PS3 myself, but once I got one and explored many of its features and played games over time on it, I absolutely love it. Just going by what you hear in the media/forums/etc. is NOT the same thing.

But like I said, I actually SUPPORT the decision to remove PS2 BC. If you were in Sony's position of needing to lower the pricetag to the $400 range, and removing PS2 BC was able to shave off $60-$100, I bet you would have done the same thing (It was kind of like they took a PS2 console and merged it into a PS3. Due to more power being dissipated by the PS3, components that could withstand higher wattage had to be used). I will say this over and over again, even if PS3 was NOT using Blu-ray, the price could STILL not be $400 including PS2 BC (the Cell + RSX are more than half of the PS3 manufacturing costs).

The 2nd reason why PS2 BC was removed was because Sony still takes a loss (although no where near as big as PS3 at launch) on every console sold. If someone buys a PS3 to ONLY play PS2 games (like buying used ones and such), Sony is technically losing money on that person. If someone buys a PS3 for PS3 games mostly (buying 2-3 PS3 games, especially a first party game), Sony gains. The PS2 still makes Sony a profit, so why not continue to have those people who want to play PS2 games stick to PS2 (because they make money on every PS2 console sold). Regardless, early on people will want PS2 BC because the number of games on a console is low. Right now, there are so many PS3 games I want to play, I stopped playing my PS2 and could careless about PS2 BC. I never use it and plan to buy a non-BC PS3 when I get a job.

Also, Home just isn't a chat room. It's also used to meet with friends, then together go into online games as a party. While it only has one game supporting it, throughout 2009, more games will support it. Home is technically in a beta phase, not final (where features are still being added and they are still working with the network). At the moment it may be more of a chatroom, but down the road it will most likely evolve into more. Just compare the XMB from launch until now.

There's actually a pretty good number of PS3 exclusives (MrCapcom) IMO. I made a post about what I felt about various games on another forum. They might not all appeal to you, but this is what I like:

Retail -Buzz! Quiz TV (very fun quiz game with several categories of questions) -Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice (while the graphics may be dated, fun SRPG) -Folklore (highly underated action RPG, with unique gameplay) -Formula One: CE (Pretty good F1 game, if you are into it. Only F1 game out on PS3/360) -Gran Turismo 5: Prologue (while the game isn't as big as a main GT game, the controls are VERY good and it looks really great graphically) -Heavenly Sword (while I wasn't as big into it, still a cool game if you can find cheap) -Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds (really fun golf game) -Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of Patriots (IMO, GotY this year) -MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (really good racer, although hard) -Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm (Maybe best for fans of Naruto series, but the combat is really fun and the graphics are great. Missions are all right) -Ratchet & Clank Future: ToD (Excellent platforming action game) -Resistance: Fall of Man (while it might be a little dated now, single player experience is still good) -Resistance 2 (while some might not like it as much as the first, I love it more and I've invested 50+ hours into it. Co-op is addicting) -Ridge Racer 7 (IMO, best Ridge Racer in a long time. Enjoyable career mode or whatever it's called again) -SingStar / SingStar Vol. 2 / SingStar ABBA (very fun series and pretty good music in the SingStore, unless you are looking for music from the past few years from well known artists) -Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (Very fun and excellent story adventure/action game) -Valkyria Chronicles (excellent and different SRPG) -Warhawk (Very awesome multi-player online game) Download -Calling All Cars (Fun to play with others if you have local friends and many controllers) -Echochrome (very interesting puzzle type game) -Everyday Shooter (fun game and very interesting) -High Velocity Bowling (fun bowling game with online play) -PixelJunk Eden (might not be for everyone, but cool style) -PixelJunk Monsters (very fun RTS type game, similar to Tower Defense or whatever it's called) -Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest For Booty (If you beat ToD, this game is great to play, although short) -Siren: Blood Curse (awesome survival horror that's fun and scary) -Super Stardust HD (Very downloadable game that's addicting) -Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online (Best version of Tekken 5) -The Last Guy (Pretty cool and interesting downloadable game) -Wipeout HD (Very awesome racer)