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Did Sony go wrong with the PS3?
- Thread starter Chivalry
- Start date
I mean, it's not like Sony was any slouch in the first party department before PS3. Many of the PS2's best games were published by Sony.
...
wait, am I getting this wrong?
*looks it up*
Uh, look at that, yeah nevermind. Wonder why I thought that was the case, I certainly thought it ended up catching up.
$600, awful terrible messaging, terrible controller, PSN was as barebones as can be, and a real knockout 1st party game took years to release. Now these issues were fixed by 2009, but it was tough their for a while.
It was expensive and heavy and huge. But considering it was the cheapest BluRay player at the time plus it could play PS1-PS3 games and built in hard drive, it was a high end multimedia console that was worth it for some. I got a 60GB launch model that still works to this day.
I actually think about this song way to often haha.
Also makes me think of this as well from around the same time
Also makes me think of this as well from around the same time
A lot of posts will say "but Sony turned it around and beat the 360 in the end for sales".
And this is 100% true.
But the crucial reason why Sony got the PS3 generation wrong is this:
If Sony released the PS3 and continued the momentum of the PS2, Microsoft would no longer be in the gaming business.
They outsold the original Xbox 6 to 1 and had the opportunity to take that brand equity they built with consumers and get people to buy into their vision in the PS3.
MS would no longer exist in console gaming if it wasn't for Sony's errors on the PS3,
And this is 100% true.
But the crucial reason why Sony got the PS3 generation wrong is this:
If Sony released the PS3 and continued the momentum of the PS2, Microsoft would no longer be in the gaming business.
They outsold the original Xbox 6 to 1 and had the opportunity to take that brand equity they built with consumers and get people to buy into their vision in the PS3.
MS would no longer exist in console gaming if it wasn't for Sony's errors on the PS3,
Nothing wrong with it really aside the OS functionality, that was there big mistake.
Packing all that power and they forgot that folks might want to speak with their friends online. That they might want to listen to music while they played their games, etc.
I might be mistaken here but I don't think Sony turned anything around. Year on year they outsold their primary competitor (the 360) since the PS3 launched. The doom and gloom sentiment surrounding the PS3 and its launch was very much overblown, it got better with exclusives later in its cycle but it was never as bad as people say.
I also think your downplaying how much Microsoft got right with their 360. It was affordable, had a great feature set, and shipped first. Sony could have shipped first and taken that benefit away from them, but the rest I think Microsoft were just better poised to win out on. Their original XBOX was already ahead of the game when it came to online play and Microsoft doubling down on that was the logical step forward, which paid off.
Packing all that power and they forgot that folks might want to speak with their friends online. That they might want to listen to music while they played their games, etc.
I might be mistaken here but I don't think Sony turned anything around. Year on year they outsold their primary competitor (the 360) since the PS3 launched. The doom and gloom sentiment surrounding the PS3 and its launch was very much overblown, it got better with exclusives later in its cycle but it was never as bad as people say.
I also think your downplaying how much Microsoft got right with their 360. It was affordable, had a great feature set, and shipped first. Sony could have shipped first and taken that benefit away from them, but the rest I think Microsoft were just better poised to win out on. Their original XBOX was already ahead of the game when it came to online play and Microsoft doubling down on that was the logical step forward, which paid off.
It's definitely the worst of the PS console family.
They were overly cocky and were trying to cram too much into it in hopes of boosting their other investments. It worked out for Blu-ray since it won the HD disc format war, but it didn't pan out to well for the Cell CPU. There were high hopes for Cell outside of the PS3, but it never reached those lofty goals.
Those 2 pieces of tech in the PS3 drive the price up along with the the PS2 chips, wifi, card reader and also a last minute Nvidia GPU added in because they thought they could use Cell for CPU and another Cell for the GPU..... it obviously did not work out and they had to as Nvidia for a gpu and they got the RSX, which was very underwhelming compared to what MS had in the 360. This is what lead to many multiplatform games performing poorly on PS3 in comparison to the 360, which had a cutting edge GPU. Oh, and the split memory of 256 MB + 256 MB further complicated things...
So they had a CPU that was powerful but complex and difficult to work with, an under performing GPU, a split RAM configuration all in one with a ridiculously high price tag compared to the 360. This was just hardware too. MS killed them in software with XBL unified online chat, music playback, all at the OS level so devs didnt have to create their own online logins and voice chat/parties... it was much simpler on XBL in the early years and it paid off for MS since this was the gen where online really took off on consoles.
Sony definitely went wrong with the PS3 and thank god they learned from that mistake and turned it around with the PS4. The days of exotic hardware in consoles is over and that is a blessing for us all.
They were overly cocky and were trying to cram too much into it in hopes of boosting their other investments. It worked out for Blu-ray since it won the HD disc format war, but it didn't pan out to well for the Cell CPU. There were high hopes for Cell outside of the PS3, but it never reached those lofty goals.
Those 2 pieces of tech in the PS3 drive the price up along with the the PS2 chips, wifi, card reader and also a last minute Nvidia GPU added in because they thought they could use Cell for CPU and another Cell for the GPU..... it obviously did not work out and they had to as Nvidia for a gpu and they got the RSX, which was very underwhelming compared to what MS had in the 360. This is what lead to many multiplatform games performing poorly on PS3 in comparison to the 360, which had a cutting edge GPU. Oh, and the split memory of 256 MB + 256 MB further complicated things...
So they had a CPU that was powerful but complex and difficult to work with, an under performing GPU, a split RAM configuration all in one with a ridiculously high price tag compared to the 360. This was just hardware too. MS killed them in software with XBL unified online chat, music playback, all at the OS level so devs didnt have to create their own online logins and voice chat/parties... it was much simpler on XBL in the early years and it paid off for MS since this was the gen where online really took off on consoles.
Sony definitely went wrong with the PS3 and thank god they learned from that mistake and turned it around with the PS4. The days of exotic hardware in consoles is over and that is a blessing for us all.
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Of course they went wrong, they went from something like 75% market share and making hundreds of millions of dollars to around 30% market share and losing billions of dollars. They were also going to lose market share because of the disruption of the Wii, but they kicked so many own goals with the price, the development complexity, etc.
What saved them was the truly global strength of the Playstation brand (something that Microsoft and to a lesser extent Nintendo have never been able to match) and the improvement of their first party output in the second half of the generation.
The PS4 was a return to form but again that was helped by Microsoft having their own disasters.
What saved them was the truly global strength of the Playstation brand (something that Microsoft and to a lesser extent Nintendo have never been able to match) and the improvement of their first party output in the second half of the generation.
The PS4 was a return to form but again that was helped by Microsoft having their own disasters.
God, that video is a huge mix of the best and worst of old YouTube.
More on topic. Yeah the PS3 launch was a joke that was memed to hell and back. Sony was smart and turned it around by putting out some killer exclusives and slashing the price with the release of the PS3 Slim, but that took like 3 years. They seem to have mostly learned from their mistakes and the PS4 did great because of it.
More on topic. Yeah the PS3 launch was a joke that was memed to hell and back. Sony was smart and turned it around by putting out some killer exclusives and slashing the price with the release of the PS3 Slim, but that took like 3 years. They seem to have mostly learned from their mistakes and the PS4 did great because of it.
Microsoft got a lot right with the 360 agreed.
Their focus on online play was something that massively pushed the industry forward. But lets be clear, like the PS1 and PS2 consumers were really waiting for the PS3.
Consumers wanted the Sony console primarily over the competition.
And Sony's missteps with the architecture and the price were the setback to their massive lead from the PS2 era. Considering where Sony were in terms of share at the end of the PS2 era if Sony had managed to get the pricing right and produce something devs found it easier to work with they'd have blown MS out of the water. No way would MS have put up with an Xbox division spending spending a decade in the market for a measly market share.
The PS5 though has the opportunity to set that opportunity in motion again though I think. If MS doesn't execute on their plan this gen as well as Sony does I can see this gen setting in motion a longer term exit from the console game for MS, the beating would have to be pretty bad though.
The PS3 was basically a continuation of the PS2 hardware wise.
The PS2 also shared all of the negatives people call the "PS3 fuckup".
It was later, harder to dev for and more expensive as the Dreamcast, still nobody calls it the "PS2 fuckup", because people argue from the outcome.
What PS3 could have outsold the 360 6:1?
Even the 1st Xbox wouldn't have been outsold 6:1 if it released at the same date as the PS2 and with the much weaker Japanese market of the PS3 gen.
Well free online play, with actual dedicated servers for their online games was great.... as well as the exclusives.
So I wouldn't say everything wrong.
The console was expensive, but I was able to do so much with it. Back then BluRay Players were way more expensive... I was able to rip MP3s the easiest, fastest way possible... share game saves, which was great.
I loved the games I played on the PS3, more so than the PS4gen.
Underpowered? Compared to what?
Also as far as releasing a year after the 360, Microsoft chose to rush their system to the market at the cost of reliability.
This thread was unnecessary, and only looking for drama.
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i think they had the right idea with ps3... the mercedes of consoles you probably can't afford right away but eventually when ps2 stops beasting you can hopefully afford it and/or it becomes cheaper but like nintendo in the mid 90s sony realised nobody has the "right" to position themselves as arbiters of the market
It was the best generation they had if only because they had to work their ass off to compete. I still use my PS3 to this day for watching movies because it has a hard drive I can use to hold videos, unlike the PS4. The XMB is superior for navigating DLNA systems.
But it came at the cost of so much.
But it came at the cost of so much.
Compared to 360, obviously. 95% of multiplatform games looked better on the 360, with huge problems on PS3.
Nah, original plan was drastic, but not that extreme.
The gpu was unlike anything from pc and had more in common with ps2 approach, including large eDram.
On the other hand 360 also squeaked by to double the ram last minute, imagine if neither happened and 2005 simultaneous launch with both machines in sub 512mb range, no BR, and a much, much weirder ps3 than what we got.
I think history has pretty definitively said "yes" to this question, but everyone made huge mistakes that gen, red ring of death would have killed the Xbox brand of PS3 wasn't so expensive with a worse experience. We was doing great, but the success lead to the massive failure that was the Wii U. Just a bad time for gaming hardware imo, we still got some great games though.
In the very early years of the PS3, yeah it was a pretty rough experience. Not that many great games to play for a couple years, horrendous PSN speeds, can't download stuff in the background, no in-game XMB, shitty Sixaxis pad with no rumble, oh yeah and it was 499/599 and HDTV's were super expensive at the time so to take full advantage of everything, it was going to cost a lot. Once MGS4 hit, the price drop a little bit after, and first party titles REALLY got going, and Sony started delivering some beefy firmware updates, Sony righted the ship.
Yeah it took a ton of effort to turn that sinking set on fire ship around, but they somehow managed to pull it off. I was a PlayStation fanboy back then and deluded myself into thinking it was a better console. Exclusive were pretty good though, but those ports were absolute dogshit for like 3 maybe 4 years. That said even some of the exclusives were bad. They also screwed themselves on things like BC. Even though they got the hang of the cell and made impressive exclusives eventually, I don't think it was worth all the headaches that came with that architecture.
Xbox 360 came out of nowhere and blew their socks of. Sony became arrogant and resorted to showing fake CGI trailers (Killzone, Motorstorm etc) in order to downplay 360. They also screwed up the specs big time, at one point the PS3 dev kits had SLI nvidia GPU's (MGS4 TGS trailer @ 60 FPS), those specs were cut and resulted in heavy downgrades across the board.
Then then screwed up during the e3 presentation, $599 etc. It took them years to recover from all this.
Then then screwed up during the e3 presentation, $599 etc. It took them years to recover from all this.
As a consumer, yes, absolutely. The only important thing is the end result. And the end result is that Sony came with an underpowered machine $100 more expensive and a year later.
That's how you compare systems, regarding power?
You had Ridge Racer 7. That is the only game you should need for a while. Yes I am serious
First I don't know where you pulled that 95% number from...
And I shouldn't have to explain this... but hey.
The Xbox One X pushes 6TFs and has 12GBs of GDDR5 ram, compared to the Pro's 4.2TFs and 8GB of GDDR5 ram.
Would you say the X1X showed it's big difference in power this gen?
Cheapest Blu-Ray Player
Amazing mid to end of life
No defense there
Free online and PS+ was fantastic during these times
The best exclusives this gen.
I love this console. A lot.
It took them 3 years to correct the situation.
E3 2009 was a huge moment. Slim PS3, cheap price, Uncharted 2 and big news like Portal 2 coming to the system.
But those were a rough 3 years up to that point. The chalk board of "saviour" games was a growing joke that lasted months. Lair, Haze, Heavenly Sword and many others.
The good thing for Sony was that they didn't kill their brand like the song says. They damaged it severely, but it was still powerful enough that once they stopped the bleeding they were able to recover. PSone and PS2 had built up a lot of good will.
It's taken the Xbox brand a lot longer to recover from the damage done by the Xbox One launch because they didn't have the global good will the Playstation brand had.
It was a fascinating time to be watching the games industry evolve. I think this gen will also bring great intrigue. Sony had the PS3, Microsoft had the Xbox One and Nintendo had the Wii U. They know what mistakes to avoid and all seem primed to be successful over the next 5 years. Can't wait.
E3 2009 was a huge moment. Slim PS3, cheap price, Uncharted 2 and big news like Portal 2 coming to the system.
But those were a rough 3 years up to that point. The chalk board of "saviour" games was a growing joke that lasted months. Lair, Haze, Heavenly Sword and many others.
The good thing for Sony was that they didn't kill their brand like the song says. They damaged it severely, but it was still powerful enough that once they stopped the bleeding they were able to recover. PSone and PS2 had built up a lot of good will.
It's taken the Xbox brand a lot longer to recover from the damage done by the Xbox One launch because they didn't have the global good will the Playstation brand had.
It was a fascinating time to be watching the games industry evolve. I think this gen will also bring great intrigue. Sony had the PS3, Microsoft had the Xbox One and Nintendo had the Wii U. They know what mistakes to avoid and all seem primed to be successful over the next 5 years. Can't wait.
I agree. I play my PS3 almost daily, even with a PS4. From 2009 until the end, the PS3 was on fire. Hell, even from 2008 with Metal Gear Solid 4.
Had they scaled back features and managed to launch at $399 things would've been different imo. Especially if they had hit holiday 2005 like originally aimed for.
I don't know what they could've eliminated other than BR to get it to a $400-$500 BOM, but the Cell probably didn't help.
I don't know what they could've eliminated other than BR to get it to a $400-$500 BOM, but the Cell probably didn't help.
Honestly, I think I may prefer the PS3 over the PS4, warts and all.
The only two things Sony directly did wrong were the price point and the Cell being too exotic. The rest was just Microsoft making excellent use of its year head-start and Sony not really sensing where the tide was going.
In that first year (really the first couple years) Microsoft managed to get some important (console) exclusives, largely by convincing a whole new culture of western PC developers to jump over to consoles, and it established a service and OS that set a new standard Sony didn't see coming. By 2007 the result was big games like Oblivion and Gears that directly appealed to western gamers in a way 20 years of Japanese console games never had, plus features like custom soundtracks and achievements and online features Sony didn't have.
On top of all that, the HD era brought about changes that caught the Japanese third party publishers that defined the PS1 and PS2 off-guard. People used to buy PlayStations for Final Fantasy, Tekken, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear, and the like. Those games didn't arrive on time and when they did most had to go multiplatform to recoup costs.
Sony eventually course-corrected with that $299 slim but also by investing in big AAA, western-oriented first-party IPs like Uncharted. For all that though, Microsoft never really overcame its relative weakness outside North America and the UK. Sony was always stronger in Japan and continental Europe, and that helped the PS3 eventually overtake the 360 worldwide. This remains the case today, even though technically Microsoft is still ahead of Sony when it comes to software and services.
In that first year (really the first couple years) Microsoft managed to get some important (console) exclusives, largely by convincing a whole new culture of western PC developers to jump over to consoles, and it established a service and OS that set a new standard Sony didn't see coming. By 2007 the result was big games like Oblivion and Gears that directly appealed to western gamers in a way 20 years of Japanese console games never had, plus features like custom soundtracks and achievements and online features Sony didn't have.
On top of all that, the HD era brought about changes that caught the Japanese third party publishers that defined the PS1 and PS2 off-guard. People used to buy PlayStations for Final Fantasy, Tekken, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear, and the like. Those games didn't arrive on time and when they did most had to go multiplatform to recoup costs.
Sony eventually course-corrected with that $299 slim but also by investing in big AAA, western-oriented first-party IPs like Uncharted. For all that though, Microsoft never really overcame its relative weakness outside North America and the UK. Sony was always stronger in Japan and continental Europe, and that helped the PS3 eventually overtake the 360 worldwide. This remains the case today, even though technically Microsoft is still ahead of Sony when it comes to software and services.
This is a good post. I feel the hyperbolic posts ITT don't take enough of a holistic view to understand why things went the way they did.
Horrible launch but that's bout it. It wasn't an embarrassing flop as a Wii u and the PR wasn't as bad as early XBONE. Mainly because it didn't make a recovery at the end like PS3.
It didn't live up to it's potential because there were too many competing Interests at Sony trying leverage the Playstation brand to further their respective goals. It started with the design of the system's architecture and is evidenced by the success of the PS4 and it's respective design.
PS3 was the manifestation of Ken Kutaragi's hubris.
Mark Cerny was a Godsend, and kudos to Kaz and Shuhei to giving him the autonomy to oversee the PS4.
PS3 was the manifestation of Ken Kutaragi's hubris.
Mark Cerny was a Godsend, and kudos to Kaz and Shuhei to giving him the autonomy to oversee the PS4.
It's their worst console, by far, so yes. A complete disappointment after the masterful, GOAT-tier PS2. I've never been so disappointed with a system.
I'm glad they've improved things since then. Hopefully the PS5 continues to improve things.
Now that Demons Souls is officially being remade, I have literally no use or interest in the PS3 anymore. I'm so glad it's not going to be stuck on it.
I'm glad they've improved things since then. Hopefully the PS5 continues to improve things.
Now that Demons Souls is officially being remade, I have literally no use or interest in the PS3 anymore. I'm so glad it's not going to be stuck on it.
I'll be honest, I never saw this video until today and it cracked me. I got my PS3 in 2008 and just because it came bundled with a TV my mother bought, she asked me if I wanted it and I said sure why not. I was completely disconnected from gaming (only played Age of Empires 2 and 3 on my PC for years), and I started looking on the internet what game this system had and I was blown away, it quickly became my favorite console of all time (previously it was Gamecube, never owned a PS2), still today I appreciate the PS3 more than the PS4 (could be pure nostalgia). So for me the initial tumbles of the PS3 are very foreign, I feel I 'jumped in' just at the right time.
