There's Wii all over the place at the moment. At eGames there was Wii all over the show floor. No one is more disgusted by this at the moment than Sony. Every bit of publicity Nintendo gets for their upcoming gimmick based underperforming console takes away from where the public attention SHOULD be: extremely expensive upcoming systems with high polygon counts and few if any killer titles.

And by coincidence Sony happens to have one of those.

In an industry that counts progress by shovelling transistors into the hardware and adding buttons to the controller, Sony are industry leaders, undisputed masters of the "big numbers" arms race that seems so important to press and public alike.

Nintendo and Sony have completely opposite approaches.

Nintendo are more approachable, more friendly, more fun. They are building human technology. I should work for Nintendo's PR company. Course, then they'd get sued by Nokia. Still, that's not my problem, management signed off on it.

Anyw...

There's Wii all over the place at the moment. At eGames there was Wii all over the show floor. No one is more disgusted by this at the moment than Sony. Every bit of publicity Nintendo gets for their upcoming gimmick based underperforming console takes away from where the public attention SHOULD be: extremely expensive upcoming systems with high polygon counts and few if any killer titles.

And by coincidence Sony happens to have one of those.

In an industry that counts progress by shovelling transistors into the hardware and adding buttons to the controller, Sony are industry leaders, undisputed masters of the "big numbers" arms race that seems so important to press and public alike.

Nintendo and Sony have completely opposite approaches.

Nintendo are more approachable, more friendly, more fun. They are building human technology. I should work for Nintendo's PR company. Course, then they'd get sued by Nokia. Still, that's not my problem, management signed off on it.

Anyway, we all know by now that Sony are the market leaders.

And oddly enough, that seems to be all they have. "Dear Sony, why should we buy a Playstation 3?" "Because we're the market leaders.". Ok. "Dear Sony, why should we develop games for your console?" "Because we're the market leaders." "Dear Sony, we hear there's some major development problems with your console, including very poor performance of some components." "Well, we're the market leaders." "Dear Sony, why are you completely unwilling to incorporate the ideas and needs of your actual market?" "Because we're the market leaders. Now bend over and stop talking. It puts me off.".

Sony have been the biggest name in video games since not long after the launch of the original Playstation, and while the strength of that brand can't be denied, they are beginning to face something of a backlash. Many people who have been supporters of Sony for some time are starting to question whether that support should be continue to be blindly given, or whether maybe Sony should have to convince them again.

The answer to that, of course, is yes. Don't you love when people do that? "Do you want the chicken sandwich, or the ham sandwich?" "Yes". Sorry, it's a personal peeve. Focusing. Sony SHOULD be expected to convince us of the value of their product, as should Nintendo and Microsoft. Anything else is fanboyism, which we know is a Bad Thing. We should all be expecting greatness from all companies, and we should be critical and considered, taking PR fluff with a grain of chicken salt. (It's better tasting than regular salt, though it doesn't actually have chicken in it… mostly wheat extracts and stuff. Pity. Chickens are tasty.)

So each of us should now be sitting back and examining the evidence before us, deciding wisely where to spend our money.

Microsoft has the easy job. Aside from the fact that everyone and their goat owns an Xbox 360 already, theirs is an established console, with excellent games already available, and great one still coming, and in big numbers. The console has dropped in price recently to become quite affordable, and the press the console has gotten, especially for its online component, has been generally good.

Nintendo have a harder job, but they're doing well. They've got to convince the world that a magic wand is the best way to play games, and that hardware below the previous generation is still next-gen. But for all the interest in the Wii there are still some valid questions and concerns that Nintendo has to address. The launch lineup still contains a many titles that are adaptations of CG childrens movies or cartoons or are otherwise clearly childrens titles, including Happy Feet, The Ant Bully, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Barnyard, Cars, Open Season and a Sponegob title. There are only a few titles that standout, then, as "serious games" and at least one of them (Red Steel) is considered extremely flawed. Splinter Cell, COD3 and Far Cry Vengeance are carrying the console for serious gamers. Zelda is a big help. Wide market appeal and extremely favourable reviews make it a system seller. But any new console struggles with a shortage of releases just after launch.

Sony has the same problem. Resistance: Fall of Man has been widely accepted as the PS3's Halo, a system seller and a seriously brilliant game, sony's shiny salvation. But there's a real shortage of other compelling titles, with many of the most exciting titles still a long way off, including previously "launch" games like MetalStorm.

Sony's response to this has simply been to re-state their position that they ARE after all the market leader. There's an assumption that all games will be on the PS3 eventually, and that we should just play Resistance until then. Sony seems to think that they're living in the good old days of the Dreamcast. They brought out their PS2 into an occupied market, and crushed all opposition. Naturally they feel they can just do the same thing again. But these days things aren't so simple.

The Dreamcast, despite being possibly my favourite console, was poorly handled and badly supported. For all the killer games (Sonic, Soul Calibur, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, etc) it was never advertised, and the marketing was non-existent. Sony's current competition is a different fish-filled kettle. Microsoft have proven themselves in the gaming space, with an Xbox console that sold exceptionally well, especially in it's US home turf. They followed that up with the very successful Xbox 360, a console that is now the definition of not only Next Generation Consoles, but console gaming in general. The Xbox 360 has had more than a year to get bums-on-seats, and now has a very solid install base for Sony to compete against. A year in the market also means the 360 has a strong list of current titles, and developer support that means new and coming releases that look easily as next-gennish as the PS3. In fact, in next-genosity the 360s second wave of games are looking extremely impressive, and it's going to take a lot for Sony to convince us merry punters that the PS3 is better. Certainly to convince us that it's $500 better.

The convincing has not gone especially well so far. Everyone from the New York Times (warning: requires retinal scan) to IGN(warning: requires not caring that it's pretending to be australian but really isn't) criticising aspects of the launch. NY Times were particularly savage, basically saying that the PS3 is half-baked.

There are suggestions that the PS3 still is a bit squishy inside, but that it will finish baking out on the counter, like some types of cakes do. I don't know what cakes do that, I just vaguely recall that there are cakes that you only half bake, and then the rest of the cooking is done by the internal heat, you see. Anyway, this was just a metaphor, so it really has gone way too far.

My concern is that they won't. Why do I say that? Because when I read the NY Times article I was extremely surprised to note that almost everything being said could be applied to the PSP as well. The attitude, the interface, the general clumsiness of implementation could easily be the PSP. And many of the major problems of that platform have NOT been rectified. A few of the more offensive stupidities have been corrected, but some pretty major ones have not, and some others have been added with new updates, rather than removed.

Worst of all, though, if the PS3s online interface is anything like the yourpsp.com.au website, we'll be having shootings over here too.

I want Sony to succeed. I want to be convinced. I want to join in the gaming revolution that the PS3 offers, to be with the gestalt, riding the wave, to have my finger on the pulse of the gaming industry. But that's not enough for me. Sony is the market leader, but they're going to need more than that to convince me that they're going to get it right.