You have to feel sorry for everyone that plumped for the PS3 over the 360. Not the Sony diehards that would buy a polished poo if it had the Sony logo on. No, I’m talking about those poor souls who were stood in Comets humming and hawing over which console to buy and plumped for the shiny black plastic thing that had a familiar name.
Because it just hasn’t delivered on its initial promise, has it? And sure, PS3 owners put on a brave face and try to sound like they’re not bothered that they backed the wrong horse, but that’s just because they paid a ton of money for something that really isn’t worth it.
That’s not to say the PS3 won’t become a great console in the future. I’m sure it will. Of course it will. Remember when the PS2 was about to come out? It was hyped as being the greatest thing EVER. Better than Jesus, better than a cure for cancer, better than peace in the Middle East.
But when it did eventually arrive, everyone went ‘Yeah, it looks great and all that, but where are the games?’ Back then, the hype did the job it was supposed to do, which was completely kill the excellent and hideously over looked Dreamcast, one of the most spectacular consoles the world has ever seen and which was eventually bought by approximately 50 people.
PS3 or Xbox 360 (or even the Nintendo Wii)? The console wars rage ever on over on the message boards.
A quick game of Chu Chu Rocket anyone? Shameful the way that beautiful little grey box was treated. And it died a death all because of Sony’s aggressive marketing campaign.
I’m not saying the PS2 wasn’t a stunning machine. It was fantastic. It just took a year after the actual release of the bloody thing for anything vaguely decent and next gen to come out. Meanwhile, the kids are at home playing some crappy fireworks simulator pretending they’re having a great time.
The exact same thing is happening with the PS3, but this time it hasn’t worked anywhere near as well as Sony had expected. Firstly, the 360 came out and is as close to perfect as you can get. Don’t get me wrong, I may be in the employ of Microsoft to write this column, but there is no way I’m taking dirty money.
I am allowed to say exactly what I want to about any console or game. And you’ll see over the coming months that Xbox doesn’t get off scot-free. But even the biggest Playstation fan has to admit that the 360 is just great. And it had enough of a head start over Sony to actually tempt a few people away.
Then there was the ridiculous sale price for the PS3. Something like 70 billion million hundred pounds. I exaggerate slightly for piss poor comic effect, but you get the idea. Way over budget for your casual gamer. Even me, with my millions, wasn’t going to spend that much on it. Oh no, I got mine free. And I have used it precisely once.
And what the sodding hell is Blu-ray all about? That’s not even how you spell blue. It should have an ‘e’ at the end, B-L-U-E! Not Blu. Pathetic. Yes, it may have beaten HD DVD, a format I didn’t even know existed until the announcement that it was being withdrawn, but are people really going to dump their old DVD players to watch something that is a) only slightly better quality and b) more expensive?
I even got sent a free copy of Casino Royale when I registered my PS3 online, and I haven’t watched it out of protest. I lost big time in the great Betamax/VHS wars of the early 80s. Yes, I’m not ashamed to admit I backed totally the wrong horse then. I went for Betamax. Excellent quality but only 3 films available to rent.
Oh the shame of going into the then new video libraries and having to shuffle into a corner to spend literally seconds browsing through the Beta titles that were half-filling one tiny shelf.
And do you know what? It was Sony that got me a severe kicking on several occasions in school because I didn’t have VHS. For that reason, I shall certainly NOT be supporting another nancy boy, nonsense format that Sony have just made up in an attempt to look all clever and cool. No. Not again.
And don’t get me started on the online services. That’s a whole rant in itself. Suffice to say, one console offers a sublime, beautiful, wondrous, joyful online experience, while the other is guff. I’ll leave it to you to try and work out which is which.
Look, I’m not saying I’m never going to play PS3 again, all I’m saying is it’s going to take something pretty special to get me to try and find the controllers and start up the thing. It will happen, I just don’t know when.
So if you choose Sony or Microsoft its up to you, but I'm sticking to my 360...
Discuss.
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