What’s happening with the PS3 wonder machine?
The PS3 started as a promising super game machine. As a real product, it developed into a mildly accepted new game console. In a way the PS3 together with Blu-ray discs and Windows Vista are the great disappointments of recent years. The later two however are near monopolies, while Sony has to beat the Wii and Xbox 360 consoles, something easier to say than actually do.
In the Japanese market (where Sony is Sony and Microsoft an outsider) Nintendo consistently sells two or three times more than Sony and the Xbox 360 has achieved the unimaginable feat of actually getting some sales! So what is wrong? One explanation is that problems start from the fact that very few games are developed specifically for the PS, a fact that gives an edge to the Xbox 360 that seems to have the best games these days.
And although the Cell processor is a feat of engineering, games on the PS3 do not look better than on the Xbox, a paradox if you think of Sony’s hardware advantage. According to game developers, the PS3 needs a lot of extra effort because its design is different to everything else out there. The result is that the extra performance is not worth the time and in many cases a side by side comparison gives the Xbox 360 the upper hand (if you don’t believe me watch the Fallout 3 video review at IGN). Similarly for other services like films for example. The PS3 experience is incomplete relative to its competitors. At the end of the day we are talking about good enough performance and wide choice. In the same way that Windows XP is good enough for many of us relative to Vista.
In all this I want to add an extra element that is specific to Sony. It has grown into a huge successful company. Its speciality list (if we call it that any more) has grown so long that it is hard to be the leader in every product category, however its huge volume has given it the ability to be bullish (and in many cases very unsuccessful) in many efforts to go opposite common standards and market forces. Take for example the Minidisc, or the proprietary Memory Stick format, or SACD, or… the list is long… The PS3 cannot be described yet as a failure, but given that consumers do not accept it wholeheartedly and developers do not particularly like it, things do not look very bright.
