PlayStation 3 and our big mouths.

It's been a while since I started anything with an apology, but I'm new to blogging. Not sure what you can and can't say, etc. So I apologize in advance if I offend anyone with this.

Allrighty. It's been nothing but hairy since the PS3 was announced, and it's coming into existence has got everyone, gamer or not, viciously discussing Sony's problems in brining this system into the light. The intarweb is simply aflood with raging wars between fanboys, bad-news articles and the horrors that Sony has comitted towards the gaming industry. It is the undisputed black sheep, nothing can come even close in terms of criticism, but why am I giving this lead-in if this is already fact? Next.

Typically, the console last decade of hype has seen two major plot points that were deemed "destined to fail" with the big three players, and they are as follows:

• Microsoft entering the console market with the XBOX
  
  
• Nintendo naming the Revolution system the "Wii"

Both these things have seen VICIOUS opposition across message boards, and what have you. And despite the roaring apocalyptic masses, here we are, in 2007, there is no blue screen of death on either Microsoft console, and nobody has any trouble saying that they own a "Wii" or that they play with their "Wii". Of course, once a product hits that level of success, all past opinions seem to be forgiven, never to be revisited again. Shame on the gaming industry? No. Shame on the consumer.

The list of crimes that Sony has "comitted" with the PS3 would span quite a few pages, however, let's boil it down to a few major plot points, notice we have a three way toe for first place :

1. High price, High price, High price.
   
   
2. Bidding so highly on Blue-Ray
   
   
3. Loss of the rumble function for the new SixaxiS controller (combine that withe being accused of "stealing" wii motion sensing technology)

I'm purposely leaving out, here, the shortage of shipped units, and HDMI fiascos. Warehouse quantities and things of the like apply to all companies. When there's no Tomato soup at the store, you take a rain check, you don't hit the web and tell everyone that "OMG, Campell's is wack, I'm buying [other major brand]". People who buy technology on the day of release and don't wait their product to be up to par, are not very smart people. These are the same people who buy the newest version of software and complain that it's full of bugs. This goes for almost anything technology: you wait for the review/fixes, and then you dive for your stuff. In the end, iit's probably gonna be less expensive, and more satisfying. But no. We have legions of people who insist that products be flawless upon release -- keep dreaming. Haven't you heard? The world is spinning faster than ever, and even you in your daily life, cut corners to meet people's expectations.. there's always a cost to doing this.

Am I excusing Sony? W.... WHAT? "Excusing Sony"? As in "kiss and make up" or "I like them now?". Oh, you must think that consumers rule the world. Sony doesn't care about your opinion, neither does Microsoft, Nintendo, Logitech, Ikea, whatever. These are businesses, baby, it's not that they don't "care", they don't have time to care, and everything happening out there on the web whilst Sony employees work overtime and lose sleep, is just hype. Just like any company, people drive to work in the morning, and have a job to do. There's no exec sitting there going "Candace, please take care of the unhappy people who think that the Killzone videos are bullshit? Thanks honey.". Companies don't die from bad press: they die from not being able to recover from it through proper execution of their internal mandates. They die from attending to the little guy's needs, the one who threw a monkey wrench into your plan and got you to believe that you took a wrong turn. Keeping promisses, "integrity", meeting release dates, these things are press-fodder. When you have a kick-ass product that turns heads, all these things that happened prior, are unimportant. If you were to compare a first gen PS2 title like Shinobi to, say, let's see, ummmmm God of War? You'd know how useless it is to own a console within it's first year. So STFUAJPG.

Let's get back to them three bullet points.

The high price.

So, the PS3 clocks in at a 699$ price tag or so. Problem is, they don't have the proper voice to justify it, and their ads are just cryptic (UK), or downright a recited user manual (NorthAm). Thing is, it's actually a fight to dominate the living room. The PS3 is hoping to kick your Windows Media center out of there , and keep it's rightful place in your home. Microsoft has invaded their market, so they are trying to push back -- but nobody knows that their box is actually capable of, yet.

If you're reading this, there's a pretty high chance that you're doing so from a PC. Yes, I am fully aware that the web is accessible from a number of devices, but if you're reading this, you're likely to be doing so from a computer, perhaps a Windows based PC. If you own a PC, then it would be silly not play any games on it. The PC instantly doubles as a gaming machine. Cost of buying a PC? 250$ to 800$ for your base model, a good 3D gaming video card can run you anywhere from 200$ to 800$. That's 1600$ tops, or 450$ minimum. And guess what, you need to upgrade it every couple of years to play your favorite titles. The PC is a life investment, and if you're consistent, you likely spend 2500k every 5 years: flatscreen, faster CDrom, DVD burner, Better speakers, Optical Mouse and keyboard, and whatever you have at the office or tried at your friend's house.

Nobody complains about the price of PCs: a continuous financial investment in both base parts and extended peripherals.

So, this PS3, is a one-time-payment of 699$. When you buy a product, it's normal to shell out just a little bit more for that luxury. People do it all the time, they go from a 1099$ flatscreen to a 1499$ flatscreen, and that's for a diagonal inch of joy. 699$ for a PS3? Whatever, what difference does it make? The only point of contention is that it eats a bigger chunk out of our paychecks on the week we buy it. Get over it, you'll recover just fine, just like that time you went ape shit and paid for everyone's meal at the restaurant. Deal with it.

When the XBOX came out, it was 150$ over the PS2's price tag. And it was a "superior machine". There really wasn't that much noise about it back then.. at least not as much as what were' hearing for the PS3 today.

Blue-Ray

Most of us don't know what it is, but let's just label it as a DVD standard that will, or will not be the only one. Not the smartest thing in the world to bet on, but considering that a Blue-Ray DVD player might cost 500$ upon release, for a few bucks more, you get a full-on PS3 entertainment system. I myself bought the PS2 because I needed a DVD player. I'm interested in seeing how that pans out. However, it's hard to sell something that, in the past, was a "gaming console" and toot a feature that is generally "movie" related".

SixaxiS

In latest news, the rumble may actually be back. It's not so much the loss of the rumble that is sad, but the simple fact that the SixaxiS motion sensing capabilities were intepreted as a substitute/compensation for the lack of rumble. I can only say that these people who have a tendency to swing around their controllers in the direction that they want them to go, should direct themselves to the Wii, cause your spaceship might wind up in the bushes with SixaxiS.

Personally, I've come to realize that I play PS2 because of the sweet Japanese imports. This easily tips the scale for me. But it baffles me to think that anyone who has loved their PS2 for so long would consider a migration to 360. Saving 200$ means nothing. We're such moronic consumers that we don't realize that we'd flame those bills on something probably even more inanimate, like a coffee table or whatnot. But to not pay the difference and revert to another product by default? Hey, you know what, you do that and you're probably not serious about your games to begin with.

A year from now, when all this noise settles, we'll be away from the web, and sitting comfortably in our couches, playing our favorite console, away from the web, and closer to our respective gaming communities. Can't wait. Actually... I am.