I've owned all of the current gen systems and finally settled with the PS3. Metal Gear Solid 4 and God of War 3 sold me on the PS3 (80GB) and the backwards compatibility with all of my PS1 and PS2 games made the deal sweeter. I am enjoying the multiplats a lot, it's great that both Xbox and Playstation get to share many of the best games of this generation. I am very content with the selection of games and look forward to the PS3 exclusives.
This is system wars though and being happy with what you have is not good enough. Sales are everything unless they aren't. Ratings are everything unless they aren't. Everyone is a hypocrite, me included. With all of that said I'll make my point.
The holiday season makes or breaks consoles. It's happened in the past and it will happen again in the future. This is Sony's last holiday and chance to dramatically increase its market share. It's already October and it does not look like the "year of the Playstation". Sony has been doing a horrible job at marketing the Playstation 3 since it hit the shelves. Sony also designed the console poorly in my opinion, its way too big, the powerful Cell is complex and therefore under utilized, the GPU lacks the power to show off the Cell and the controller appears dated (perception is everything, except when its not). Overall the system is too expensive and bulky.
Why is Sony doing poorly this gen? Expensive console, bad advertising, many of its exclusives are now multiplatform, SKU confusion (20GB, 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, some BC and some not), and supporting the PS2 for too long instead of the PS3.
Unless Sony has a surprise in store for us, Microsoft and Nintendo have this Holiday season locked up. The 360 is cheap (perceived as cheap, but has many hidden costs like hard drive, WiFi, Live), has great library of games and is the system all your friends play online with. The Wii is cheap and will sell plenty of units to gamers and casuals alike.
I think Sony is going to limp through the rest of this generation but will stay profitable, PS2 sales are still massive, the PSP is doing rather well and Sony refuses to dramatically price drop the PS3 to stay competitive.
This doesn't take away any of the enjoyment I have with the system. I think its the best of the 3 but this is system wars so based on sales, exclusives or whatever the argument of the week is, I am on the loosing side.
At this moment, the future of the PS3 as it applies to System Wars looks grim. Maybe something will happen at the Tokyo game show?
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