Vain attempts to defend Sony the PS3 against the forums

gaminghorizon.com gives us a review of common PS3 complaints and a few opinions on each. Although the review is supposed to cover both sides of the issues, it seems to me that the opinions are just the result of the staff having an uncomfortable boner for Sony.

Here's how they claim it works:

Point-Counter-Counterpoint works like this: we've scanned some forums and picked out 10 of the most common arguments people have made against the PS3. The anti-PS3 arguments will appear in bold, and below them will be an observation by some of our writing staff or other gaming experts.

Yeah. Let's get started on "The PS3 costs too much!".

Aaron D: if you don't want to run Cat-5 cable all over your house to connect your 360 to the internet you'll need the $100 wireless adapter

What an ignorant comment. I have to say this a million times, but wireless is not a reliable way to play online games. The less reliable your connection is the more frustration you will have with your gaming. 802.11g only runs at 54Mbps (in optimal conditions) and that connection will vary. Use wired at 100-1000Mbps (depending on your router and provider). If you are bone-headed (or lazy) about wireless, then why the hell wouldn't you just wait until 802.11n is an option?


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Ryan: So I ask, when considering the proposed longevity of the PS3 hardware, why is the price-tag such a problem?

Ryan must be alluding to Sony's "10 year console duration" claim. I'm sorry, but the PS2 was boring after about 2 years, and I started in the middle of it's lifespan. I'm doubting consumers will want the same old product for 10 years unless they are in less fortunate areas. PCs are only gaming-good for a year or two, so 5 years for a console is plenty.

On the $499 model:

Shiva: A gamer who picks up the $499 "core" version isn't a gamer. I'll rephrase: he isn't a gamer in Sony's target audience, otherwise he would pick up the "full" version.

That is a mighty bold claim. Not all gamers need the extra gunk in the $599 model, with exception of maybe the 40GB of space. You've already read my opinion on wireless, the multi-card reader will probably go unused, and HDMI really isn't necessary unless you plan on falling for the Blu-ray/HD-DVD security-token scams.

This is where Aaron D makes a good point:

Aaron D: I'm pretty shocked that all those memory card formats are still accepted (SD, Compact Flash, et al). They've barely said what those are even for; is it just for watching slideshows of your digital photos? Can you save your game status on them?

Then the "there are few HDTV owners" subject comes up. I've not much to say there; I think consumers have very little reason to go with HDTV at the moment (low support, and it makes their DVDs look bad). I'll leave this one alone.

"rumbleless" is the next topic:

Shiva: I'd rather have a game respond to my direct actions than a controller that spends most of its "vibrating" responding to cutscene explosions anyway.

Shiva is obviously one of those gamers that "takes rumble for granted" as Evan suggests. No one ever thinks about games like Shadow of the Colossus or racing games. When that Colossus steps on the screen, you FEEL its large presence thanks to the rumble. In several racing games, if you get hit of the right side of the car, the right motor vibrates. It's called feed back. If we have to give the game more input (motion control) but get less output (no rumble), how is that more immersive? SEE the screen, HEAR the audio, and FEEL the nothingness of no-rumble. As for smelling and tasting games, I'll pass.

If that doesn't convince you, think of Resistance: Fall of Man. In FPS games up to now, the controller vibrates when you get shot. This is a good alert to danger when you are busy paying attention to 30 things on the screen at once. Resistance will offer you no such convenience. Hello bullet sandwich.

The last topic I'm going complain about (LOL) is their comments on Blu-ray:

Shiva: I've spotted several Blu-ray format new movie (DVD) releases in the past few months, but I haven't heard a peep from the HD-DVD camp.

Shiva has obviously never visited thedvdwars.com. Or seen any of the other articles about how HD-DVD out-sells Blu-ray consistently.

At this point, I'm beginning to think that the PS3 is going to make people associate Blu-ray with games more than movies. The acronym DVD was essentially obvious: Digital Video Disc (or Digital Versatile Disc). The name "Blu-ray" means nothing to the average consumer, while HD-DVD obviously means High Def DVD. Consumers know DVD, so they'll probably want to stick with it. All Toshiba has to do is market their player as a DVD player that supports HD-DVD, and they'll be golden.

The staff also talk about the PS3's difficulty to program for. Shiva again shows that he/she doesn't know what the hell he/she's talking about it. At least Aaron D and Ryan show a little knowledge. Aaron D probably hit the nail on the head by saying that the PS3 won't get good ports because code can't transfer over. The few developers that make exclusives will probably have a better time.

The rest of the points covered aren't really worth going into detail to me. They cover the low number of consoles Sony will have at launch. It's a launch of a new console with new technologies...so this really isn't a surprise. Later on, they talk about a low number of launch titles...but there won't be that many units, so it won't be an issue either. Lastly, they talk about Sony's lack of advertising, which is fine by me.