2011 Hindsight: All things Playstation
By Punk1984 11 Comments
I'm gonna go ahead and get this one out of the way first because; A) I have the most to say about it and B) it is my platform of choice. So if you are a fan of the other platforms I'll go ahead ad apologize for being a Sony elitist and you can just copy and paste this rebuttal into your reply:
"Yeah?! Well too bad PS3 sales still suck in America, where it matters!"
What Sony did right in 2011
2011 continued on the 2009 promise that you'll always want your PS3. Sony has done an astounding job of releasing AAA titles through out the year. From a first party perspective you have to admit that it takes guts to release a AAA title during a window where game don't sell. Killzone 3 and InFamous 2 are two of my top ten titles this year and both of them came out in a release wasteland. From January to December there has been a good first party title release, it is shocking. Titles like Resistance 3 have managed to get a little lost in the fall shuffle but they still debut strong. Sony has also been good adding Move functionality to different titles. Since there has not been a killer app for Move this is kind of Sony's Trojan horse. After purchasing a sharpshooter the Move makes sense. The problem is that it requires a readjustment, the same readjustment I had to make when going from a keyboard and mouse to a controller but an adjustment none the less. The addition of Move functionality and new games gives gamers that picked up the Move last fall a reason to keep playing with it. ( Ape Escape is a personal favorite) While the Move is never going to have the gee whiz factor of the Kinect it is probably the best motion control solution out there. However when you speak to the hardcore, having the best motion controller doesn't mean much.
The net result of all of Sony's pushing this year was that there was always a compelling reason to buy a PS3 instead of an Xbox 360 or Wii - (well except one reason but we will get to that soon.)
What Sony did wrong in 2011
Sony's biggest problem in 2011 was Sony in 2007. I mentioned above that there was always a compelling reason to buy a PS3 and well that is true and good but you can't ignore the fact that a lot of people have already bought Xbox 360's and there is already a built in audience. If your friends are on XBLive you're going to buy an XBox. While Sony's PSN is steadily moving down the road to parity with XBLive it still isn't there. Frankly at this moment Sony needs a new generation to kind of re-level the playing field with XBLive, with customers already set up on XBLive it is just hard for Sony to woo them away. I mean let's be honest; today, between Live and PSN there isn't much difference. The biggest divider is that your "friends list" on Live is about twice as large as it is on PSN. Sony has done a good job of recovering from the hack (in fact I hesitate to mention it because I imagine most of you had forgotten about it) and they've done a good job of fostering a developer community on PSN. Sony has done everything 'right' to make PSN a success but the customers just are not there yet. Honestly that is a shame, because there are some great experiences exclusive to PSN and it doesn't cost the customer. If Sony had the PSN they have today in 2007 the PS3 would be the top selling console this generation. The only thing holding the PS3 back is Sony's past mistakes.