I really do wonder. Just about all the signs seem to indicate that the PS3 should be dead and buried but somehow it just keeps limping on, like that houseguest that just won't go away. Here's what I mean in more detail:
The PS3 has lost most of its big exclusives
Doesn't this usually kill off a console? When you lose something as huge as Grand Theft Auto, you really have to wonder how this console is still existant. I mean, for a game that was exclusive to the PS brand for most of its life, the PS3 got royally trounced, losing 60% of the sales for GTA4 to the 360, a console that had NO history of Grand Theft Auto prior to that date. Same went for Devil May Cry. Same is going to go for Metal Gear Solid (you don't REALLY think that Konami is going to be suicidal enough to only market to the PS3 market do you? That's like a PC game developer developing a game for just Macs).
Everything gets delayed
It makes you wonder why people wait, doesn't it? I mean, they get promised something amazing. It gets delayed, sometimes for a whole year. It's disappointing (case in point: Lair). You think the PS3 fans learned their lesson, but it happens again (Heavenly Sword) and again (Ratcet and Clank) and again (Home). And still they stick with the console, as though waiting some more would do them any good. If the 360 did this, if Halo 3 didn't come out until September of this year, and Gears 1 was released three months from now, and MGS4 was released on September of last year, I have a feeling the Xbox 360 fans would be mighty pissed at Micro$oft. But for some reason, the PS3 survives this travesty...
No good games, now or in the future
At least, none of the "good" games on the PS3 are any better than their equivalents on the 360, and oftentimes significantly worse. Their major franchises are jumping ship, going multiplatform because they can't make ends meet otherwise. How does this not kill off a game console? Isn't it called a gaming console for a reason? How can a gaming console survive with no games? It doesn't make any sense!
After all this HOW can the PS3 still be alive? Voodoo magic?
But, I think I have a theory as to how the PS3 is able to survive despite its mulitude of failures, and I alluded to it in my second paragraph. Much like the Apple Macintosh, it's all about the fanboys. If you think about it, Macs are indeed a lot like the PS3 these days. Apple used to dominate the home computer market, after they deposed the mighty IBM (Sony deposed the mighty Nintendo with the original Playstation).
But now, just as Windows has relegated the Macintosh to a niche market mostly kept alive by a devoted band of rather blind devotees, it's looking more and more like the PS3 brand is going to suffer a similar fate, limping along in obscurity and being kept alive by brand loyalty and little else. What disturbs me the most, though, is that people keep feeding into this, like those cults that somehow convince dozens of people to commit suicide so they can hitch a ride to Heaven on the tails of a comet.
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