MARCH 23RD - TIME FOR SONY TO MOVE BEYOND THE THIRD PLACE
While we wait to hear what Phil Harrison has to reveal during his keynote speech at GDC next week (which Three Speech will be covering with regular updates throughout the day), we thought we’d offer you another piece from one of Three Speech’s contributors - Stuart X Pearce (Editor of www.thedigitalgamer.com).
The date is set. The launch games are confirmed. We even know how much an official HDMI cable will cost (if not precisely what HDMI stands for). But what does March 23rd mean for the PlayStation brand, and most importantly, for gamers?
How can Sony ensure the only Third Place in their corporate history is the enigmatic, ethereal gaming world created in PlayStation 2 marketing and not also where PlayStation 3 ended up at the end of its proposed ten year lifespan, behind its two previously-trounced competitors?
For Sony, the road to Europe has been a long and pretty hostile one. From copious amounts of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt being thrown from all sides, the ‘premium’ price point-induced gasps and the forum-igniting Blu-ray situation – it hasn’t been easy. But now, Sony are finally ready to let Europe in on their high gloss, high power, high definition secret.
PlayStation’s past, present and future
Sony has dominated the last two hardware generations through a combination of technical superiority, culturally-synergised marketing (PlayStation pods running Wipeout in the Ministry of Sound’s chill out room, who’d have thought?) and extraordinarily broad third party support that is more potent today than ever before. The Guitar Hero and Buzz franchises delivering mass-market success before other companies even considered courting the casual, non-typical gamer.
To win the hearts and minds of gamers this time around and to ensure PlayStation 3 outsells its generational peers, Sony need to not only get all the basic stuff right but must also tap into the gaming consciousness like never before, as well as spread the PlayStation 3 message beyond the traditional user base.
The power of PlayStation
What are PlayStation 3’s Unique Selling Propositions for this generation, and how can Sony ensure its latest home console usurps its increasingly bold and accomplished competitors?
Hardware - seeing the PlayStation 3 for the first time is an overwhelming experience. It’s the largest home console in recent memory, but remains refined and desirable. It will dominate your living room but you will likely be happy to green light its imposition. It maintains and builds upon the industrial and obilisque-inspired design cues from PS2 and combined with its imposing footprint, ensures it is the most intriguing and dominant example of this generation’s hardware.
The reliability and safety issues that have plagued Sony’s competitors this generation also seem to be thankfully absent from the new hardware. But for £425, that is to be expected.
Software - today’s software publishers are becoming increasingly platform-agnostic. Great for gamers who are limited to one machine and for journalists to draw comparisons between platforms, but not so great for hardware manufacturers looking to differentiate their product within a confusing and crowded market.
As broad and compelling at the PlayStation 3’s software line-up is, Sony have only a few platform-exclusive titles at launch. Resistance: Fall of Man, Motorstorm and Virtua Fighter 5 look set to appease the hardcore though and the PlayStation Store is full of potential to begin competing with the rest, who sometimes struggle to offer robust, relevant and value-for-money experiences.
Functionality - the cost of the PlayStation 3 is a whole other blog post, but the most expensive console ever is in fact great value for money, just not so much if you don’t have a broadband connection, an HDTV or a desire to build a Blu-ray collection or store 60GBs of your digital media.
Its power is being hinted at by titles such as Motorstorm which some say is like ‘looking through a window onto the desert’ and as developers begin to grasp it’s potential, it will almost certainly deliver ground-breaking graphical and gameplay experiences – we just don’t have specific dates yet.
With the daring and controversial specification of the PlayStation 3, Sony have taken a risk that has to pay off. A bold statement of intent that they hope will future-proof their third home console for the next ten years and allow them to rapidly move beyond The Third Place in the European next-gen console race.
Conclusion
The UK launch of the PlayStation 3 is under a month away - Sony need to build their relationship with previously-snubbed European potential early adopters, to display just how powerful the PlayStation 3 is and also successfully differentiate it within the most competitive, varied and thriving videogame market there has ever been.
Gamers have never had it so good, and Sony have never had so much to offer, but also, so much to prove. Oh, and HDMI stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface if you were still wondering – the cable is yours for £17.99.
By Stuart X Pearce
I’m gonna be sitting and the door of the shop all night, until they open! LOL I WANT MY PS3!!!!
Comment by Macrike — February 28, 2007 @ 1:37 pm
“Sony need to build their relationship with previously-snubbed European potential early adopters…”
Too late.
Comment by Diggory — February 28, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
Why on earth would anyone in their right mind pay £17.99 for a Sony HDMI cable when they can buy one online for less than a fiver? And being digital, you shouldn’t see any difference in quality.
Comment by iapetus — February 28, 2007 @ 2:10 pm
You invalidate you warranty if you don’t use an official Sony cable
Comment by Richard — February 28, 2007 @ 2:14 pm
@Richard: Are you nuts? HDMI is a standard, you can use whatever cable you want. Stop the FUD!
Comment by Nemo — February 28, 2007 @ 2:23 pm
What are PlayStation 3’s Unique Selling Propositions for this generation?
I notice the backward compatibility is not mentioned - one of the main selling points for the PS2, and for me preordering the PS3.
Comment by ID — February 28, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
“Sony need to build their relationship with previously-snubbed European potential early adopters…”
I don’t think gimping on the BC compared to US/Japan owners was the way to do that. Sony should start publishing the BC games that will be available as of NOW, updating the site every day until launch. There are 44 million PS2 owners in Europe and a lot of uncertainty and anger over the BC issue in the gaming community.
Comment by Matt — February 28, 2007 @ 3:01 pm
“Sony need to not only get all the basic stuff right but must also tap into the gaming consciousness like never before, as well as spread the PlayStation 3 message beyond the traditional user base.”
“like never before”, yep, they’ve never done that yet nor have a clue on how to do so.
In order to do that, Sony needs a voice, a champion of the gaming community that comes from within Sony - of which Sony does not have nor seems to care about having.
One can only wish/hope.
Comment by Captain Betty — February 28, 2007 @ 3:10 pm
Is there an upto date list somewhere of all the launch titles? Is Rainbow Six: Vegas a launch title?
Comment by Beej — February 28, 2007 @ 3:37 pm
The cable thing
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789061
Comment by Richard — February 28, 2007 @ 3:47 pm
@10
That link if you care to have read it is only talking about the AV multi out connection as this is a Sony proprietary connection.
“Its like using un-licensed controller that might be crap and then telling them[Sony] about it because your controller ports don’t work anymore.”
As HDMI isn’t owned by Sony these cables won’t void the warranty. Whereas if you use other controllers and av multi out cables they might void the warranty, but you’d need to read the small print.
So like before, stop the FUD.
Comment by jotch — February 28, 2007 @ 4:25 pm
Nice read,
From my perspective where Sony got off on the wrong foot is they have raised customer expectations (starting with E3 2005) but has failed to deliver
Ironically the one thing I wasn’t cynical on was the prospect of solid PS2 backword compatabilty. Not a deal breaker in the scheme of things, but a sound example of Sony promising what they aren’t prepared to deliver
Rumble - A good example of Sony telling the customer one thing when we all know it has something to do with a law-suit.
Again not a deal breaker, but a good example of Sonys readiness to BS the customer
I’m over it now and ready to give the PS3 a fair shot.
By all accounts it has a lot of potential
But as I’ve said before please Sony treat the customer with more respect
Comment by Sean — February 28, 2007 @ 5:17 pm
I think the Playstation brand is terrific and has done a lot to bring gaming to the mainstream. All the bad hype will evaporate as people get their hands on the PS3.
However, Sean makes a good point. Sony have repeatedly said that rumble/ force-feedback is last generation hardware. Maybe it is - but listen to what the public are saying ‘we want rumble.’
Apart from that I am very much looking forward to the GDC announcements - after the relief that the PS3 will have reasonable game prices - hopefully even more good news.
Comment by Andronix — February 28, 2007 @ 5:27 pm
LOL
Why on earth would anyone in their right mind pay £17.99 for a Sony HDMI cable when they can buy one online for less than a fiver? And being digital, you shouldn’t see any difference in quality.
Are you serious?!
Take a trip down Richer Sounds and pic up a ‘Pro’ HDMI cable for £99.99. And the ‘budget’ cable for £29.99.
£18 is a great price.
Comment by Tom Kiss — February 28, 2007 @ 6:03 pm
Virtua Fighter 5, Resistance and Motorstorm all at the same time. That’s a freakin’ perfect storm of 1st rate games.
Comment by nmc75 — February 28, 2007 @ 7:46 pm
£18.99 great price?
Fuck that.
Order one from Success-hk for £5.99.
Comment by Joakim Hagdahl — February 28, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
Like any A/V cable, you can pay pretty much whatever you like for an HDMI lead, with ever-decreasing benefits as you reach the top-end.
Isn’t the real question though ‘why isn’t one included in the £425 box as standard?’
After all, how many people will be buying a PS3 to plug into the composite sockets on their 14″ standard def CRT?
Comment by Stuart X Pearce — March 1, 2007 @ 10:15 am
“What are PlayStation 3’s Unique Selling Propositions for this generation, and how can Sony ensure its latest home console usurps its increasingly bold and accomplished competitors?”
I think this is the real question. Does PS3 truly have a unique selling proposition to the general public beyond your hardcore fanboys? How many avg non-gamer would pick one up @ the current price tag?
With more and more games being crossed platform, where is the PS3 advantage?
Comment by DreamingOfaPrefectWorld — March 1, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
So where are the tv/cinema adverts, radio adverts, the big posters on the walls???
it all seems word of mouth at the moment
how else are sony going to win over the european market if they don’t make a big fuss of the PS3???
How much time are Sony going to give the average person to prepare for around £500 (a game and cables etc) to go missing from their bank accounts
Comment by FU666AR — March 1, 2007 @ 5:17 pm
“How much time are Sony going to give the average person to prepare for around £500 (a game and cables etc) to go missing from their bank accounts”
Well, I can hear the sound of Mr Barclaycard rubbing his hands together. Curses.
Comment by danthemanic — March 2, 2007 @ 8:10 am
Sony need to start building their relations with their fanbase and media. They have taken a lot of flack from E3, and while there has been some positive news, it has always just been buried under the avalanche of Ninty and Microsoft fanboys.
Doing what they did with the PSone would be a good idea, but we need to see advertising NOW. No doubt the Wii craze will dry up, so then is the best moment for Sony to strike.
Comment by HyperTails — March 2, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
ER…
ASAP is the best time for Sony to strike - the frickin machine is out in 3 weeks - why should they wait for Nintendo? - that’s like admitting defeat before getting into the ring
Sony gotta take the market by the b*lls again - and stop talking it!!!!!
Comment by FU666AR — March 2, 2007 @ 4:59 pm
I know that. What I mean is while Sony should strike as soon as possible, once Wii sales slow down then they should really hit hard with something. I don’t know what with, but as I said before they need to start building their relationships with gamers and the media. Its out in a few weeks, and I still haven’t seen an advert yet.
Comment by HyperTails — March 4, 2007 @ 11:29 am