We knew there could be trouble, but this...

Just look at this headline to a recent WIRED magazine article and tell me it isn't at least a little surprising:

Can the PS3 Save Sony?
The company that created the transistor radio and the Walkman is at the precipice. If Sony's new $600 console doesn't blow gamers away, it may be time to say sayonara.
by Frank Rose

Now I know that the video game industry has been considering the possibility that the PS3 could be a flop for quite a while now(the timeline varies greatly depending on who you talk to, but for my money it's since they announced the price), but I don't think too many people really thought it could sink Sony. However I suggest anyone who thinks that possibility is very slim should go ahead and read the fascinating article Frank Rose has written for WIRED because it makes a very convincing argument.

My own opinion? Well despite some severe bashing by the hardcore gaming community, I still think this machine has a decent chance. Some huge mistakes have been made by Sony, but there is still a lot to be revealed. I know $600 is a lot of money but you must also realize children, that there are people every day spending that much for graphics cards alone in their gaming PC's. And if you still think it's insane well then I direct your attention to an eye-opening little study by the fine folks at Curmudgeon Gamer. It lists the absolute and relative prices of pretty much every console system of worth to come out in the last 30 years. Check it out.

It's been really amazing though to see Sony go from a company that everyone thought was crazy to challenge Sega and Nintendo in '95, to whomping the competition with both the PS1 and PS2, to now standing in front of possibly their most crucial hour, and all their hopes rest on this one game system. Viewing Sony as a whole, and not just a video game company, I must say I hope this isn't it. Despite some recent mis-steps, they are still responsible for some of the finest home electronics around.

Comments

Talk about some Bullshit

That's right, Bullshit with a capital B. It's no news that Sony has been taking some serious shit these days. In fact their insane claims and statements are coming with such regularity it's quite astonishing. The backlash from the gaming community has been pretty substantial, but Sony seemed to be content to continually just brush those haters off as it were. Well they finally got angry. You can get more details at Kotaku, but the long and short of it is that Sony didn't like a (widely confirmed at Kotaku by very reliable sources inside the gaming industry) rumor that Kotaku wanted to publish. Well even after some nice asking from Sony, they published the rumor anyway . Instead of the "we do not comment on rumors or speculation," company line that Microsoft regularly dishes out, Sony sent a bitchy note to Kotaku saying that they were shutting down all relations with the site including interviews at future trade shows and the a request for the return of th...

It's the early 90's all over again!

What the hell is happening here? I'm playing adventure games so much these days, it's as if their oft-reported death never came to be! BASS Remastered (see below) continues along in all it's glory/frustrating old-school puzzle logic. It's helping restart that horrible part of my brain that used to not think twice about the insane leaps in logic inherent in the adventure genre. There is some really insane Blade Runner and Neuromancer inspired craziness going on in this game. Any doubts about it's awesomeness are probably demolished by the time you jack into the city controlling computer and interface with it by walking around in a virtual space. I finished Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1 a couple weeks ago, and am anxious to get started on chapter 2. I'm sad it is hampered graphically by the stupid low memory limits of WiiWare, but otherwise it's a fantastic return to form. Dominic Armato is and always will be the ideal Guybrush, and I couldn't ...

Now that's what I'm talking about

The world needs more driving games where you spend as much time off the ground as you do in Stuntman. The driving genre has been getting pretty creative as of late, with a large handful of games looking to break the mold of Gran Turismo style attempts at pure simulation or the endless line of boring street racing games centered around gaudy chavved out cars. The most visible carrier of this torch of change is Burnout, a series of games centered around extreme speed and the art of the crash. Any game with mode that rewards the total monetary destruction of an acident is alright in my book. However I still think there's another level of innovation just waiting around the corner. It was hinted at by a good-but-too-damn-hard for PS2 a few years ago called Stuntman . The basic idea is almost equally puzzle and driving. You were tasked with performing stunt driving scenes in a series of fictional action films which took place in fairly traditional settings(among others an Indiana Jo...

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