Good article on the beginning of the PlayStation

[Kupek]

http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the ... laystation

The first paragraph is poorly written, don't give up on the article because of it. The beginning few paragraphs is probably common knowledge here - Nintendo and Sony were working on a CD add-on to the SNES, had a falling out, Sony went on to make the PS1 - but the rest has inside Sony information that was new to me.

[SineSwiper]

Good stuff. The developers angle explains why sooo many joined their ranks.

[Eric]

Here's hoping Sony bounces back from the monumental failure that is the PS3.

How you go from the maker of the best selling console of all time to 3rd place in the next generation is mind boggling.

Good thing they have those PSP sales.

[Kupek]

I liked this line:

“The main reason why the Sony brand wasn’t really used in the early marketing of PlayStation was not necessarily out of choice, but it was because Sony’s old guard was scared that it was going to destroy this wonderful, venerable, 50-year-old brand. They saw Nintendo and Sega as toys, so why on Earth would they join the toy business? That changed a bit after we delivered 90 per cent of the company’s profit for a few years.”

[SineSwiper]

So has the concept that console games are "toys". Of course, Nintendo is trying to bring all of that hard work crashing down.

[Kupek]

Can we not threadjack this into a Nintendo thread?

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, yeah. Consider it a Godwin's Law of console conversations, though.

[Mental]

Sony just lost it with the PS3. They made the most expensive console since the Neo-Geo heading into the worst global downturn in 75 years. I still remember a bunch of friends and I sitting around playing poker in the Bay Area when the first commercial for the PS3 that we saw came on - it was the one that was just the single shot of the chattering monkey, the hysterical laughter, and then the PS3 logo. We all looked at it and literally nobody said anything for like twenty seconds, and then we all immediately agreed that the PS3 was going to be in really deep shit right off the bat and that Sony had gone insane.

[Julius Seeker]

I liked this line:

“The main reason why the Sony brand wasn’t really used in the early marketing of PlayStation was not necessarily out of choice, but it was because Sony’s old guard was scared that it was going to destroy this wonderful, venerable, 50-year-old brand. They saw Nintendo and Sega as toys, so why on Earth would they join the toy business? That changed a bit after we delivered 90 per cent of the company’s profit for a few years.”

The irony of that statement (name "Playstation" aside) was that was exact thinking that led to the development of the PS3 which has been a huge failure for them; losing them all the profits they gained from the previous two systems. In addition, they won the market with the PSX by adapting to new trends and cheaper prices; and they lost it by doing the opposite with PS3.

[SineSwiper]

The irony of that statement (name "Playstation" aside) was that was exact thinking that led to the development of the PS3 which has been a huge failure for them; losing them all the profits they gained from the previous two systems. In addition, they won the market with the PSX by adapting to new trends and cheaper prices; and they lost it by doing the opposite with PS3.

It lost because of Blu-Ray. Sony lost sight of making the PS3 into an actual gaming console, and focused too much on the Blu-Ray player inside, which skyrocketed the price.

Ultimately, Sony won the Blu-Ray format war, but lost the console war. Was it worth it? No. Blu-Ray hasn't had much adoption, and it looks like internet-based solutions are going to replace it well before it really takes off. Besides, DVD is good enough for most people, including people with HDTVs, so Sony really has lost both wars.

[Mental]

I don't think it was just Blu-Ray. There was a really hubristic attitude going on throughout the whole company at that point. Doesn't anyone else remember Kutaragi and the sticking PSP buttons? "You don't criticize a beautiful work of art for a minor flaw"?

[Tessian]

who could forget this??

[Kupek]

I'm not ready to call the PS3 dead yet, but Sony certainly screwed it up and I agree it was probably from hubris. Blu-Ray and the Cell processor were probably a mistake. It makes for an interesting media device with long term potential, and an interesting platform for cheap high performance computing research, but it's too expensive for a videogame console.

The reason I'm not willing to call it dead yet is people are still learning how to program effectively for the Cell processor - I, in fact, and getting a Ph.D. by implementing a parallel compiler for the Cell. In the next few years, the 360's potential might be maxed out, while the PS3 can continue getting better performance.

But even if that's true, graphics are really good right now, ridiculously good. I don't know if raw performance will matter that much in the future.

[Lox]

The PS3 is far from dead, but it's not going to ever overtake the other systems, I think. It's got some great games. I wouldn't have gotten one otherwise. The problem is that the PS3 is a failure in comparison to the PS2.

[Tessian]

Yeah it's not dead and will continue to improve... but just too many mistakes to keep it anywhere except a trailing 3rd. Even Home was a big failure after way too much hype. I'm kind of surprised we haven't heard of an Xbox 720 yet or something... isn't it time yet?

[Eric]

Yeah it's not dead and will continue to improve... but just too many mistakes to keep it anywhere except a trailing 3rd. Even Home was a big failure after way too much hype. I'm kind of surprised we haven't heard of an Xbox 720 yet or something... isn't it time yet?

720? Silly Tessian, it would be X-Box 1080.

[Julius Seeker]

E3 2010.

[SineSwiper]

E3 2010.

Is that when they are going to say $299?

Face it. The PS3 is dead. What the hell exclusives do they even have? MGS and Little Big Planet. That's it.

[Mental]

They won't let it die. And Sony's big enough to survive. But I bet you the next one costs less at launch.

[SineSwiper]

Yeah, funny that. It still costs more now than PSX cost at launch.

And I'm not saying it's dead as in they are going to throw it away, but it's dead last in the runnings and isn't very useful as a game console.

[Mental]

And no, guys, I wouldn't be looking out for a new console generation so fast. Consoles are loss leaders for the industry and developing a new one counts as a HUGE loss leader. Microsoft just started losing money on its XBox division again. The hardware in these things, even the Wii, is more powerful than people know how to use well yet. I know the Wii is more or less the Gamecube with better shaders, but that's not trivial.

The economy is not going to permit this kind of thing unless Sony realizes it went completely the wrong direction and goes to releasing the PS4 at the old PS2 price point or even lower, since buying a PS3 and some games to play with it is still akin to the price of a month's rent and everybody's relatively fuxing broke...

[SineSwiper]

Microsoft is still reeling from the Vista shock, so I doubt they would be pouring money into another console.

Sony is still trying to drive the Blu-Ray boat until replaces DVDs... or until it falls down a waterfall, next to the Internet downloads.

Nintendo is struggling to gain its core users back, by releasing shitty games with blood, after it realized that casual gamers, the fickle twats, are just as entertained by free web games as they are by the Wii.

[Julius Seeker]

Actually, Nintendo's core audience is larger on the Wii than it was on Gamecube, as almost all of the core Nintendo franchises (Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda, Smash, etc...) have sold better on the Wii, most of those already breaking alltime frachise records. Nintendo hasn't released any games with blood that I am aware of (third parties have, but that's not Nintendo); and software sales on the Wii are on track to surpass Nintendo's record by the end of the year. I think Nintendo's chief concern is currency exchange.

[Kupek]

Sine, Microsoft is a big company. I doubt what happens with the OS group is going to affect the gaming group much. And Nintendo isn't really struggling to gain core users back. Some third-parties are trying to release such games, and they're not selling too well. But that's not Nintendo - they're making money hand-over-fist. The Wii is still selling upwards of 300,000 units a month.

Although I do think this console generation is going to last longer than they have in the past. Since processors are introducing more parallelism to gain performance, and game developers are still learning how to exploit that parallelism, it's less obvious what the benefit is from a hardware upgrade. The console cycle we're used to may not be sustainable.

[Mental]

Microsoft's balance sheet is spectacularly healthy if Wikipedia can be believed. The quarterly loss for the 360 division the quarter I saw was something like $69 million, and apparently the net income for the whole company for last year was like $17 billion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft

I really think they're gonna kick ass for the rest of this generation if the economy stays stable. It's a shame they're taking a loss, but they've been fighting hard. I kind of feel that we actually all ought to be grateful to own our 360s, as RROD as they may be. There's a LOT of computer there.

[Zeus]

Here's hoping Sony bounces back from the monumental failure that is the PS3.

How you go from the maker of the best selling console of all time to 3rd place in the next generation is mind boggling.

Good thing they have those PSP sales.

According to Sony, the PS3 is currently on track with internal sales projections and cannot be viewed as a failure. After 5 or 6 years, they may end up on top, you never know. Once they stop being idiotically stubborn and drop the price that is

[Zeus]

The irony of that statement (name "Playstation" aside) was that was exact thinking that led to the development of the PS3 which has been a huge failure for them; losing them all the profits they gained from the previous two systems. In addition, they won the market with the PSX by adapting to new trends and cheaper prices; and they lost it by doing the opposite with PS3.

It lost because of Blu-Ray. Sony lost sight of making the PS3 into an actual gaming console, and focused too much on the Blu-Ray player inside, which skyrocketed the price.

Ultimately, Sony won the Blu-Ray format war, but lost the console war. Was it worth it? No. Blu-Ray hasn't had much adoption, and it looks like internet-based solutions are going to replace it well before it really takes off. Besides, DVD is good enough for most people, including people with HDTVs, so Sony really has lost both wars.

Sony fell into the same trap that Nintendo did. They got drunk on their own success and felt that they could control the market and make it what they wish. They have to recover from it now but the problem they have is that the rest of their business is shit and that's hampering the games division