I don' t like how Sony have handled PS3 so far. I think what they' re doing is relatively obvious and i don' t think they are being fair on their own userbase (read: PS2 install base). I do however think that one or two people are being a little harsh intheir opinions of PS3 games shown at E3 this year.
I will be the first to say that none of the games Sony have shown look as good as the 2nd and what will be the 3rd generation of 360 titles, but when you put everything into perspective it' s very unfair to compare them.
Sony' s main problem was that Microsoft entered the next-gen early and MUCH earlier than Sony had expected. CELL wasn' t even finished and Blu-Ray was having teething problems so in a sense Microsoft FORCED Sony to rush a strategy and try to keep cool while doing so.
Now, as for E3, ...you' ll probably have noticed that some games you expected to be showcased haven' t appeared and haven' t even been talked about. Mostly Japanese games! It would seem that Sony are delaying showing most of their Japanese developed titles until TGS in September (very close to launch), and they are doing so for 2 reasons:
1 - The extra development time will allow for the game demos (for the show) to be much more polished than the titles shown at E3.
2 - Sony' s strength lie' s in their massive developer support and their best games are generally developed by Japanese studios. Games like DMC and RE are as popular outside Japan as they are on their home turf so delaying them until Sepetember when console' s launch will be just around the corner will build a huge amount of hype. That and stores will only have just begun taking pre-orders around that time.
When i say that people are being overly harsh i' m looking back at TGS last year when Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter looked awful and had a choppy framerate. It looked like this...
...and sure it looked nicer than any " non-next-gen" game, but the additional 6 months development time allowed for it to end up looking like this...
...and has ended up being my favourite game of this year so far.
So while games like Motor Storm (which looks disturbingly bad) and Resistance look nowhere near as good as they ought to, their still a good chance that in the next 6 months or so, they' ll vastly improve.
Sony' s only saving graces have been MGS4 (which is still only a cutscene and not a representation of what the game will be like when you play it!), Heavenly Sword and Warhawk (which i think looks great.
Heavenly Sword does need to be worked on but if it turns out to be a God of War/Ninja Gaiden-esque game rather than a Dynasty Warriors/99 Nights-esque game then all the better really. 99 Nights has really impressed me thuis far but seemingly lacks depth so if Heavenly Sword continues as i suspect it' ll be a seriously good game upon it' s release.
I would have liked to have seen Advanced Warfighter on PS3 (expected at launch) so i could get an idea of how it' s coming along (it' s being ported from 360). It would also have been nice to see the PS3 version of Fight Night Round 3, but i guess i' ll have to go without...
The things that have really let people down are things like the PS3' s stupid controller. I HATE the Dual Shock 2. It' s a horribly designed pad with overly sensitive analog sticks that are made from a nasty slippery rubber, and the worst d-pad ever! It' s just average and nothing more.
To remove the force feedback is bad enough, but then to go and claim that it interferes with the tilt tech is just stupid because Nintendo have got it working fine. The reasoin they aren' t using rumble technology is because Immersion won their lawsuit and while Sony have appealed and can still sell PS2' s with Dual Shock 2 pads, Immersion won' t let Sony use the technology for PS3.
Ken said that rumble was " old gen" -- Well Ken' s a fucking idiot who my good friend Quez would say looks like a frog. So we have another addition to Ken' s library of moron quotes...
The other thing is the prices and how the 2 SKU' s break down. It' s seriously a bad move to ship a lower spec' d version of the console and make it un-upgradable. No HDMI and no memory stick ports are the main issues, with a smaller HDD and lack of 802.11g compatability being minor insults, ...but it' s really not very fair on the people who can' t afford to spend $600/£410 on the higher end machine. At least the core 360 was only lacking add ons that can be bought and fitted later.
Sucks that some people are going to have to choose between a Wii & 360 or a PS3 for the same amount of money!
At the end of the day, Sony are going to let developers bail them out and make it work for them, but with 360 getting much more 3rd party support and having some insanely good looking exclusives (Alan Wake for one), i don' t see how Sony can justify what they are doing, ...or would you pay $600 just for the 1st generation, 2x Blu-Ray drive that' s in the machine?!