Did Sony go wrong with the PS3?

[Hippopuncher12]

At first yes, but it turned it around in the end. It's actually a testament to Sony as a brand I think to see how fucking badly they did with the PS3 for the first 2 years or so, launched a year later than the 360 and still sold as many as they did, with some amazing games after the initial nothing it had.

 

[garion333]

Outsold the 360.

Bad price, eventually fixed.

It was a good console. Not great, but good.

 

[Jean Valjean]

Yes, Sony made a huge mistake with the PLAYSTATION 3. They corrected their course with the PS3 though, it was basically a new launch.

 

[Deleted member 13155]

A complete fucking disaster.

Sony lost billions because of it. The whole concept was flawed to the core.

Blu Ray - whatever. Movies were already slowly pushing towards on demand. The jump from DVD wasn't as big as it was from VHS, which was a completely different and more cumbersome format. This jacked up the price by 200. No one still gives much fucks about BR. When it kind of took over from DVD, everyone went digital anyway. It was a losers war. And DVD is still being produced.

Cell - whatever. It was a shitty processor for gaming. Lots of cores but I think they were puzzling to work with. Developers didn't love it. In fact, wasn't the Xenon being quickly assemled during Cell development? That one seemed to do its job more efficient and with less of a hassle.

XDR - what the hell was this? a seperate RAM pool that was supposed to be very fast but there was only 256mb of it. The other 256mb was GDDR3.

This frankensystem was a recipe for failure. And it did. Sony went through hell with this thing. Not to mention the PSN hack which was fitting for the state Sony was in. These years have absolutely been Sony's darkest and I bet they will avoid a repeat at any cost.

 

[Midgarian]

At the time that song was made, absolutely.

However their redemption roughly correlated with the Slim's release.

One thing you have to admit about the PlayStation brand is that it only had 2 blips. The Fat PS3 era and the Vita. Otherwise PS1, PS2, PSP and PS4 were rock solid, and PS5 so far feels rock solid in perception.

Yes, Sony made a huge mistake with the PLAYSTATION 3. They corrected their course with the PS3 though, it was basically a new launch.

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The Spiderman font still haunts me.

Though can't deny that the best BC PS console (arguably best BC of all consoles?) is the glorious launch Fat PS3. I'd love to have one of those.

 

[Deleted member 30681]

Yes they did, but I think there's something to be said for how they managed to turn the ship around.

Very few companies I feel, would be capable of turning around a ship as disastrous as the PS3 was in it's early days.

In terms of playstation consoles, though it's probably my least favorite though.

 

[Deleted member 13155]

Yes they did, but I think there's something to be said for how they managed to turn the ship around.

Very few companies I feel, would be capable of turning around a ship as disastrous as the PS3 was in it's early days.

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Sony had to and they had the funds to do so (a company like Sega would simply fade away). I think Sony had not much other succesful products at the time. They essentially banked on Playstation. The Playstation boss became CEO of the entire corporation. Trimmed it down and ofcourse knew what its gaming division needed. Their turnaround was good and the PS4 success was I think because of the PS3 shaping up just in time, while the Wii U failed and Microsoft chased a downward hype with Kinect and other useless stuff. Sony did everything perfectly with the PS4 up to launch.

 

[Deleted member 7883]

https://www.gamesradar.com/kutaragi-insisted-on-spider-man-font-for-ps3/ this still makes me laugh

 

[Deleted member 13155]

PS3 was $499 for the 20gb version which matched Xbox 360 Premium storage size. It was only $599 if you wanted 60gb.

With "rumble is a last gen feature", you reminded me, it's interesting reading the articles this week about Sony wanting their exclusives to make use of "all PS5 features", as it's hugely reminiscent of what they were saying at PS3 launch with SIXAXIS and those awful motion controls they forced in to Lair. Hopefully no gyro nonsense this time around, the haptics seem cool though.

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Yeah but PS3 had mandatory 5+gb installations on a lot of games. A 20gb would be full after 3 games. On the flip side you could easily upgrade the HDD with SATA. I put a 320gb into it and it lasted me the entire gen.

The biggest pros the PS3 had over the 360 were wifi and free online (and HDMI I guess). I needed Wifi back then and I bought the 360 dongle which was like 80 bucks lol.

360 was more expensive if you add it all up (wifi, HDD, HD-DVD etc). But you had choice. I bought that wifi thing some time later. And I needed a bigger HDD but ofcourse I didn't buy that 120gb for 100+. I jumped ship back to Sony who had just slashed the PS3 RRP while my 360 broke for the second time and enjoyed free online play for MW. And my USB stuff such like Saturn pad worked. PS3 did a few things right.

 

[Windrunner]

The PS3 was the best console of its generation:

• It had WiFi and HDMI as standard (flash in the pan 20GB model aside)
• You could upgrade the HDD yourself instead of having to buy overpriced proprietary ones
• Online was free
• No region protection
• It was an amazing Blu-ray player and media server (UPnP) functionality was top notch
• You could use whatever USB controllers you had lying around
• The PS+ IGC was incredible value
• PS1 Classics!
• PS Move brought back light-gun games
• Sony first party was consistently excellent
• Fan and disc access noise was inoffensive, especially compared to the original model 360s
• Sony never put file size restrictions on digital games so out of the gate we had downloadable Tekken 5 DR

People love to dunk on the PS3 but it got so many things right and by 2008, after the in-game XMB and trophy firmware patches, the console was in a very good state.

 

[Gurgelhals]

Cell - whatever. It was a shitty processor for gaming. Lots of cores but I think they were puzzling to work with. Developers didn't love it. In fact, wasn't the Xenon being quickly assemled during Cell development? That one seemed to do its job more efficient and with less of a hassle.

Click to shrink...

What's interesting about CELL is how, in hindsight, it anticipated a lot of what was to come technology-wise. The entire thing of GPUs becoming these highly parallelized programmable processing monsters capable of not just graphics rendering but also of taking over general computing tasks from the main CPU as well – that is actually kind of what CELL did as well. It just did it the other way around: It put those parallel processing units into the CPU. The problem of course was that all of this was so exotic for a consumer device that no one knew how to properly program those things.

My impression of the entire PS2/PS3 era was that Ken Kutaragi was never really interested in building game consoles. The guy was an electrical engineer at heart and he had these huge ambitions of revolutionizing the entire CPU industry. And the Playstation platform simply happened to be his conduit for that.

It was the same philosophy with the PS2 already, for that matter: an insanely different and complex CPU paired with a graphics chip that was extremely barebones. Not developer-friendly at all.

IIRC, they had similar plans for the PS3 as well with Kutaragi's vision basically having been, 'We don't need no stinking graphics chip! All power to the allmighty CELL!' And then they at least came to their senses wrt the GPU at the very last minute and had Nvidia provide a more practicable solution (and Nvidia being Nvidia, they reportedly had Sony paying through the nose for this while delivering a GPU that didn't really perform as well as they had promised initially, lol).

But, yeah, mass-market consumer devices probably isn't where you want to test run your envisioned future of CPU processing, so I'm kind of glad that Kutaragi had to step down after the PS3 disaster and more practical minds prevailed at Sony.

 

[behOemoth]

I love the PS3 but I can't believe anyone would argue it wasn't a failure. PS3 completely wiped out PS2 profits and bleed them money for the most of the generation. They never made back the money lost from it during that generation

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It doesn't work like a simple zero sum game.
The Worldwide Studios were build in that era and the Onlineservice. Their studios are situated all over the world and many of them are considered to be one of the best videogame studios.
Especially the Worldwide Studios became a powerhouse with their own developed games, helping and building studios like thatgamecompany, giant sparrow and actively helping extern studios with funds or studios like XDEV, Santa Monica or Japan.
The PSN was also a big push for Indies as Sony allowed Indiegames to be self-published without any data restriction.

 

[ConanEdogawa]

They definitely did at the beginning, and it's really remarkable how they turned it around. The PS3 had no business reaching 80+ million sales worldwide.

 

[ReturnOfThaMack88]

They fucked up badly with the launch, but man did it produce some great series. Uncharted, TLOU, Resistance, while still having my favorites from PS2 like SOCOM, GOW, and Twisted Metal. I know this isn't popular to say, but for me, PS3 was peak output from Sony's first party. They just had everything I wanted both multiplayer and single player story experiences. I guess PS2 had it too, but the multiplayer was still so new. I miss that variety of output.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

My favourite PlayStation console but by almost any measure you can think of an utter disaster

- Way too expensive
- A disaster for devs to work with
- Inferior multiplat ports (outside rare exceptions)
- Wiped all money made by PS1 and PS2
- Was in third place at the time the generation changed over

I can see why Sony wants to forget it ever existed but I really like mine.

 

[Deleted member 1627]

It's the only place to play Calling All Cars and Tokyo Jungle so it's alright with me.

 

[DoktorAkcel]

Yeah but PS3 had mandatory 5+gb installations on a lot of games.

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At the start it was actually limited to like 2gb per game, which is why MGS4 had to install-reinstall parts of the game partway through.

 

[dep9000]

It started off as a disaster. I don't think anyone can argue against that. It did eventually turn things around, and by the time it did it was dirt cheap so I picked up one along with the handful of games I was interested in.

It's shocking that Sony was so dominant before the PS3 and nearly lost it all due to its launch. Gotta hand it to them, they made the right moves and got things back on track. Microsoft seems to be doing the same thing with the Xbox One. Started off bad, but they've had a nice turnaround.

 

[naff]

soft relaunch was well handled. initial launch was janky as hell, but i loved how high concept it was. i was studying comp sci at the time and i justified a purchase by installing yellow dog linux on the thing and learning about the POWER OF THE CELL lol

 

[laziboi]

With the PS3, I feel like Sony missed the point. It's not about how much tech and power you cram into a console, if it's not actually good to use for either users or developers. The PS3's first half was pretty bleak, with poor performing multiplatform titles, due to an extremely difficult to use architecture. Lack of exclusive titles for its first few years, missing tons of features the Xbox 360 already had, Sony's arrogant PR suggesting people to get 2 jobs, pointless SIXAXIS gimmicks bolted onto games where they didn't belong, not having rumble at first, an insane price, Giant Enemy Crab LOL.

It took a change in leadership at SCE, and a complete rebrand of the console for it to get back on track. The PS3 eventually, ended up being a great console. But it's first 3 years were a disaster, and really hurt Sony in the long run.

 

[Guru Meditation]

PS3 had some great games but everything about the console was a subpar experience. I had both 360 and PS3 and I only used the PS3 for exclusives because of that.

Crazy expensive until the slim, massive sized launch console, consistently the worst multiplat versions, horrible online experience, lots of outages - 23 days! due to the hack, slow store, unusable controller, no party chat.

It's good they learned from it for the PS4 but it was pretty shocking how many mistakes they made after the wildly successful PS2.

 

[bnx]

Instantly thought of that song before clicking the thread XD.

but yeah, PS3 certainly stumbled from the start but later on redeemed itself. I love my PS3.

 

[j7vikes]

It's weird as it's easy to view it as a "bad" console generation for Sony in comparison to its other gens but still "good" in comparison to the bad generations it's competitors have had.

The mistakes have been pointed out by others, but we're still talking about a console that sold a bunch of systems. It's just sandwiched in between the dominance of the PS2 and PS4.

 

[Coi]

For Sony it was a disaster for sure.
As a consumer I really didn't care. I bough my PS3 when the slim model came out and was a great console lol.

 

[killer7]

You probably don't remember this song, but it's pretty funny.
What do you say, did Sony go wrong with the PS3? Was it a great or a flawed console? Have they managed to redeem themselves later?

Click to shrink...

Yeah, i remember... and this is the original:

 

[Mercador]

It was arrogant Sony by that time. The console was too expensive and there weren't a lot of good games at launch. It wasn't bad, but the 360 was a better console all around. The situation reversed this gen. I think the launch price will decide the faith of the next gen, again. Gamepass will probably get more followers, I know I'm tempted.

 

[TheUnsungHero26]

My favourite PlayStation console but by almost any measure you can think of an utter disaster

- Way too expensive
- A disaster for devs to work with
- Inferior multiplat ports (outside rare exceptions)
- Wiped all money made by PS1 and PS2
- Was in third place at the time the generation changed over

I can see why Sony wants to forget it ever existed but I really like mine.

Click to shrink...

This where I'm at too. The early years of the PS3 were a complete disaster, but the console ended up with some great first party games. Its next to the PS1 as my favourite PS console. Though I'm a rare case as I never had any love for the PS2.

There's a lot of debate on whether the PS3 or 360 took the lead (for second place). Whatever you choose to believe, it's hard to look past the marketshare Sony lost and Microsoft and Nintendo gained. The PS2 was so far ahead of the original Xbox and GameCube. For the PS3 to be more-or-less tied for second place is quite the loss.

Of course, Sony came back and absolutely dominated with the PS4, so in the end it doesn't really matter.

 

[rochellepaws]

The worst console of the gen at launch before eventually becoming the best. The song was right at the time but credit to Sony for turning it around so quickly.

 

[Elios83]

The console was designed in a traditional japanese way by Kutaragi with an extreme focus on hardware alone without caring about the costs in the design phase.
They made an extremely powerful CPU but with a really exotic design. Things didn't go as expected on the GPU side with nVidia. The system was really hard to develop for and it took a a few years to get the expected results.
At the same time things like a state of the art Blu Ray drive, a whole PS2 put inside for BC reasons and other stuff made the price go out of control.
And that was the biggest issue they had. The system was saved with the price cut to 399$ and the 40GB model that removed PS2 BC but success only came with the 299$ Slim in 2009.

But it was also a gen when they made an incredible comeback selling close to 90m units LTD (something that has never happened to other consoles that failed so hard at launch).
They won a format war with Blu Ray making the iterests of the whole corporation.
They cultivated and expanded their own first party studios developing amazing exclusives that became a key reason for their domination in the next generation with PS4.
In those years they also built all the PSN infrastructure and services starting from a Nintendo-like situation (who remembers the first Playstation store in 2006/2007 that was a slow web page without a search engine LOL) and turned it into a leading gaming network that makes incredible profits for them.
So tons of positive things were achieved during that generation.

 

[Deleted member 5028]

PS3 was $499 for the 20gb version which matched Xbox 360 Premium storage size. It was only $599 if you wanted 60gb.

With "rumble is a last gen feature", you reminded me, it's interesting reading the articles this week about Sony wanting their exclusives to make use of "all PS5 features", as it's hugely reminiscent of what they were saying at PS3 launch with SIXAXIS and those awful motion controls they forced in to Lair. Hopefully no gyro nonsense this time around, the haptics seem cool though.

Click to shrink...

Didn't the 20GB not include WiFi either?

 

[RossoneR]

The PS3 was the best console of its generation:

• It had WiFi and HDMI as standard (flash in the pan 20GB model aside)
• You could upgrade the HDD yourself instead of having to buy overpriced proprietary ones
• Online was free
• No region protection
• It was an amazing Blu-ray player and media server (UPnP) functionality was top notch
• You could use whatever USB controllers you had lying around
• The PS+ IGC was incredible value
• PS1 Classics!
• PS Move brought back light-gun games
• Sony first party was consistently excellent
• Fan and disc access noise was inoffensive, especially compared to the original model 360s
• Sony never put file size restrictions on digital games so out of the gate we had downloadable Tekken 5 DR

People love to dunk on the PS3 but it got so many things right and by 2008, after the in-game XMB and trophy firmware patches, the console was in a very good state.

Click to shrink...

It had more 80+, 90+ exclusives than both 360 and wii by a margin.
256 players online battles.
Resistance 2, 60 players mp. 8 player coop. Running smooth.
Killzone 2, 32 players chaos.
Warhawk 40 players etc.

While you couldnt play gears and cod 5vs5 match on 360 without lag, disconnects etc. I used both i know lol.

 

[Deleted member 59109]

The PS3 was the best console of its generation:

• It had WiFi and HDMI as standard (flash in the pan 20GB model aside)
• You could upgrade the HDD yourself instead of having to buy overpriced proprietary ones
• Online was free
• No region protection
• It was an amazing Blu-ray player and media server (UPnP) functionality was top notch
• You could use whatever USB controllers you had lying around
• The PS+ IGC was incredible value
• PS1 Classics!
• PS Move brought back light-gun games
• Sony first party was consistently excellent
• Fan and disc access noise was inoffensive, especially compared to the original model 360s
• Sony never put file size restrictions on digital games so out of the gate we had downloadable Tekken 5 DR

People love to dunk on the PS3 but it got so many things right and by 2008, after the in-game XMB and trophy firmware patches, the console was in a very good state.

Click to shrink...

I'd definitely put the Wii above it personally

 

[pswii60]

Didn't the 20GB not include WiFi either?

Click to shrink...

360 didn't have WiFi either. You had to buy a USB adapter.

 

[Deleted member 5028]

360 didn't have WiFi either. You had to buy a USB adapter.

Click to shrink...

I know. It's not a contest ffs.
It's a thread about PS3

 

[linkboy]

Didn't the 20GB not include WiFi either?

Click to shrink...

The major differences between the 20 and 60GB models were (besides the 40GB of hard drive space) WiFi (20GB lacked it), media card slots and a Chrome trim.

 

[OldBritBloke]

It felt to me at the time that the PS3 had been almost fatally handicapped by the inclusion of its Blu-Ray drive. At launch Sony were losing huge amounts of money on every PS3, despite the ridiculously high price tag, in order to win the format war against HD DVD. Win it they did, but Blu-Ray discs were never the goldmine that DVDs had been, and to make things much worse Microsoft knocked it out of the park that gen.

Still, I adored my PS3. Killzone 2 remains the only multiplayer FPS that has ever really hooked me. Uncharted 2 was outstanding. I even had a great time with Home if you can believe that.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

Great console but a bit too expensive early on.

The PS3 was needed to humble them.

Just like the Wii U was needed to humble Nintendo.

And probably the XBone for Microsoft.

Sometimes its good fail so you can learn from your mistakes. Sega did not and often doubled down and made new ones ...and thus by the time they got it "right" it was too late. Sony learned to make the PS4 affordable, easy to develop for, had all or more features than its competition and actual games. Now these lessons were put in place over the PS3's lifespan but still. Microsoft is doing the same with the Series X with all of its pro consumer stuff for example. (Nintendo is a bit harder to peg but the Switch despite its dual nature is a normal console with tons of "normal" games rather than them smelling their own farts with the Wii U and trying to pull a Wii again.

Click to shrink...

Humbled from what exactly? They literally overdelivered with it.

 

[Deleted member 5028]

Guy

The major differences between the 20 and 60GB models were (besides the 40GB of hard drive space) WiFi (20GB lacked it), media card slots and a Chrome trim.

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Oh shit I forgot about the chrome trim. The PS3 Was a 2009 purchase for me but it captured my imagination with its unique design from 2005 onwards when it was first revealed. Genuinely wish there was more flourish like that.

 

[pswii60]

I know. It's not a contest ffs.
It's a thread about PS3

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The fact that your mind even went to "contest" says more about you than me. Go back to the start of the quote chain: it was claimed the PS3 was a $599 console. My point is that it wasn't - it was a $499 console with a $599 premium SKU if you so desired. Comparing to the direct competition at the time (360) was to only prove the point that the $499 SKU was perfectly competent in comparison: the $499 price offering only had a 20gb hard drive and no WiFi, but then neither did its direct competition at the time. The PS3 was essentially a $499 console at launch.

 

[A New Beginning]

Considering they burned all the profits made by one of the most popular entertainment devices in all of history and made the company sit on the verge of bankrupcy yes, they objectively went wrong but it also forced them to rely much less on 3rd party content and was responsible for the reconstruction that made their studios and 1st party IPs the powerhouses they are today.

 

[Deleted member 27315]

I really loved when they squeezed this beast though. It was like a different console.

 

[Deleted member 5028]

The PS3 was essentially a $499 console at launch.

Click to shrink...

Kaz stood on stage, said $599 US Dollars. It was not a 499 console. There was a PlayStation 3 at that lower price but it had little traction with anyone in the US and Japan. In the consumer view the more expensive one was PS5

Bigger proves better as Sony drops 20GB PlayStation 3 in the US

Larger drives more popular, but UK sales keep falling as Nintendo's Wii stays on top. Charles Arthur reports.

www.theguardian.com

 

[Hey Please]

I loved that song even though I was primarily a PS3 player.

In retrospect PS3's pitfalls did a lot to teach Sony what areas to strengthen and how to craft messaging. Also, kind of ironic how KZ2 turned out to be the best KZ in the series despite its input lagged controls (and aside from KZ Mercs).

 

[XaviConcept]

I mean it outsold the Wii so "wrong" is a very loose term. They certainly tripped hard at the start of the race

edit: looks like I got my facts wrong, nevermind :)

 

[JusDoIt]

At launch? No question. They did almost a complete 180 when the PS3 Slim launched, though. From 2009 on the system was lowkey on fire and that's why it ended in a dead heat with the 360 by the end of the generation. Microsoft allowed a photo finish that should have never even been a close race.

 

[laziboi]

I mean it outsold the Wii so "wrong" is a very loose term. They certainly tripped hard at the start of the race

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??? When did this happen?

 

[Deleted member 5028]

I mean it outsold the Wii so "wrong" is a very loose term. They certainly tripped hard at the start of the race

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It... didn't?

 

[CRIMSON-XIII]

The only mistake was not doubling down on SOCOM, into the PS4 generation. The remedy should be soon. (Oh and not remastering GTA IV).

 

[Deleted member 12833]

I think it's one of the most important consoles for Sony. It has the best first party lineup for a PlayStation console and I doubt Sony's WWS would be the powerhouse they are now if it wasn't for the underperformance at launch and the developer woes.

 

[Lost Knight]

Ken Kutaragi is what happened.