PlayStation not living up to its past

(Originally published on www.dailycollegian.com on Nov. 1, 2011)

I’ll never forget the day I picked up my first PlayStation 2.

Courtesy wlodi/Flickr

Having saved up money for a long time, the payoff was more than I could have expected. Armed only with Soul Calibur 2 and one controller, there were many sleepless nights when I would push through fatigue to get one step closer to completion.

Flash forward a decade later and not much has changed about that habit. The system though, is an entirely different story. I don’t play as much PlayStation as I used to. My time is devoted to other consoles — and it’s a shame — as the PS2 was a pinnacle of gaming. I’m not too fond of Sony’s approach with the development of their product.

The first problem I have is with the marketing. Sony’s fictional vice president, whose roles change in every commercial, tells you why the PlayStation 3, its most recent home console, is the most amazing thing in which you can invest your money. This is accompanied by the “it only does everything” motto that Sony has picked up somewhat recently.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall commercials when I was a teenager telling me why the PS2 was so awesome. The games themselves could say that, and the trailers sufficed plenty. There are a plethora of franchises that started and peaked on the PS2 that did the console justice.

Now, I’m not saying that the next generation system doesn’t have quality games, but Sony seems to be trying too hard to sell their product. If a video game trailer is good enough, then the game should be able to sell itself. Sony is too reliant on telling people that the PS3 is capable of playing awesome movies, surfing the web, doing your laundry, cooking breakfast and fighting crime. It’s like Sony is saying, “We know you gamers don’t have $60 to shell out on a new game every week, but please buy our products, please. They’re cool, we promise.”

The available games can be considered another problem. There are many gems to be found, but the console is heavily reliant on multi-platform, blockbuster games. And when it comes down to it, if a different console has better exclusive games, the consumers are going to stray towards that console, considering they can get their cross-platform games as well. A console needs to be able to provide fantastic exclusive games, or else it will fail as a business as there’s no incentive to choose one console over the other.

With the exception of perhaps “Uncharted,” there aren’t many great PS3 exclusive series that haven’t originated from the PS2. Whereas before we had Ratchet and Clank, Sly, Solid Snake and Kratos, we don’t have much in standout characters that haven’t come from the PS2.

This shows in the figures, as Sony is last in the current generation console wars, only selling 53.9 million units worldwide, compared to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 selling 56.8 million and Nintendo’s Wii, selling 88.5 million as of Oct. 15. Sure, localization of games and other countries are an influence to these figures, but Sony is a Japanese corporation, so if anything, that demographic should massively boost the unit sales.

The Wii’s success is a horrible influence on both Sony and Microsoft. The simplistic motion controls of the Wii and its marketing to the casual and family gamer has led Sony and Microsoft to do the same. Microsoft has developed the Kinect, a full-body camera that utilizes a person’s image as the controller and has met with decent enough success. Sony on the other hand, has made the Move, a controller that looks like a lollipop that people shake in their hands …exactly like the Wii. There’s not much quality to really stand out besides some games with cheap “waggle” gimmicks, when the goal should be providing quality to an already existing market.

When the PS2 came out, the games were such top quality that it completely destroyed the Sega Dreamcast. Sega hasn’t created another console since, which is a shame, since it first introduced online play on a console, something that wasn’t appreciated at the time. Sony marketed to what people wanted at the time with quality games and prevailed. Sega tried to change things up, but it didn’t work. Sony’s focus on motion-controlled games is a risky move for the direction of the company. Perhaps motion-controlled gaming will evolve in the future, but it’s not exactly revolutionary at this point in time.

Does anyone remember the Eye Toy or the built-in tilt-sensor in the PS3 controller? Whatever happened to those concepts? They’re long gone because they were poorly-executed. The Move is no exception, yet Sony continues to invest into this. If I wanted to shake a controller and pretend that I was dancing, I would buy that game for the Wii. It would be one thing if Sony was attempting innovation, trying to bring new concepts to the table and take a risk, but it blatantly took an idea and used it themselves. The processing power of the PS3 is just being wasted on attempts to be cool and blend in with the current crowd. Sure, the Move technology has actually met with positive reception, but I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I don’t want to waggle a stick at the screen. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t consider it immersion when I’m swinging a controller through the air. I do play games for my Wii, but I prefer a classic controller when it comes down to it.

Despite this, Sony’s efforts has paid off somewhat, and its sold over 4 million Move units, but considering how many console units they’ve sold, it’s clear they haven’t hit the correct group. It’s likely that families are buying the Move because when there’s a certain demographic playing, there’s a certain style of games made. Look at a shelf of games for the Wii. Most of them are horrible kiddie games because families are the ones making the purchases. If it keeps up for Sony, we can expect to see a gradual decrease of quality games for the “gamer’ demographic, and a shift towards the family-friendly range. You may like the Move. It may have good games. However, I think Sony needs to concentrate efforts elsewhere.

Of course, Sony has gone through plenty of other issues. There’s even the whole security issue with a hacker that completely got through Sony’s servers and stole credit card information from thousands of users, resulting in a total shutdown of the system. Sony’s response? Require the users to make a new password and tell everyone they’re sorry by letting them download a couple of mediocre/horrible games from a list for free. That’s customer service for you. Then there’s the annoyance of a lack of backwards comparability. Sure, Microsoft made the same mistake, but it’s still a problem for Sony.

Sony, there’s a reason you’re losing the console wars, and it has nothing to do with the lack of a market. There is a massive market and those are the gamers who desire quality-games. Yes, the families buy the Wii for the friendly atmosphere, but the massive titles are always the same Zelda or Mario spinoff titles that rake in cash. Microsoft dominates with online gameplay. That’s an opportunity to be unique with quality. Stop wasting time with the motion and the gimmicks and invest it into obtaining some high-quality games, which will draw in the older demographic. Not everyone is looking forward to Call of Duty 35 or Madden 2076; some people actually need originality and quality with their games. I’m not looking for a console with cameras and motion and voice control. I’m looking for something with a plethora of unique games in which I can invest.

I want to be able to love the PS3 as much as I did its predecessor, but it’s not happening. Until then, one can find me shopping online for a $10 PS2 gem, reliving some nostalgia. You can do better than this Sony.