I was a big fan of the original PlayStation with such amazing titles as Ridge Racer, Wipeout, Tomb Raider, Parappa the Rapper, Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Gran Turismo 2.
Of course when the PlayStation 2 came out I jumped at the chance and have enjoyed some great titles too - more of the same franchise really but some great titles nether less and you can still use it to play all your PS1 games. It's a great machine although it's definitely due for replacement by now.
I've spent a fair amount of cash on those PlayStation games and hardware despite flirts with Dreamcast (yum) and Xbox 1 (which did nothing for me).
PlayStation 3 should be my logical upgrade path - all they had to do was more of the same but with better hardware and on-line support but the news this week was the final straw.
Not content with overcharging Europeans for the machine they've also decided to make the hardware a bit cheaper for them to produce by removing the hardware for backwards compatibility with the PS2 stating it's "not a priority" for them.
So what we have is a machine that's been repeatedly delayed, that developers won't be able to harness the CPU power of, that is expensive, uses proprietary media from a company that has a long list of failed media formats, that offers no compelling titles, has a poor on-line experience, has no unique features at all, is expensive and late to the party.
I know, this isn't a unique viewpoint there have been comics and even songs (thanks Lab) about how Sony are killing off their own PlayStation brand with sheer incompetence.
[)amien
I didn't think they awere killing it completely? I thought it was just some of the games that wouldn't be supported.
Glad I got a couple of games in my pre-order bundle then!
Haha, that song is superb.
Lee was really pissed about the PS2 compatibility drop, since he's just sold his old one in preparation and wants to play FFXII on it.
I'm still holding off making judgement here - although this is clearly a cost-cutting exercise that really should have resulted in a price reduction (that would have been much more readily accepted and would have been good publicity instead of bad), I think in the round most people buying a 400+ quid console isn't going to be that worried about PS2 compatibility. After all you can buy a PS2 for not much more than the price of a PS3 game.
It's just yet another publicity gaffe by Sony (they're great at them) which probably won't hurt them that bad in the round. Most analysts are saying the situation won't be at all clear until at least mid 2008 - even the PS2 didn't really take off until the first couple of price cuts.
The solution is simple really.
Import a US PS3 like I did.
It's available now.
It's cheaper than the Euro version.
Cheaper games.
More backwards compatible than the Euro version.
An excellent, cheap (by Blu-Ray standards) and most firmware updated Blu-Ray player.
If it dies on me, warranty may be a hassle maybe.
I have to say the online experience is awful. It's a like a webpage circa '95. There only seems to be driving games available, though Gran Turismo HD is sweet.
There's no downloading in the background yet which sucks. No download manager for incomplete download continuation, which sucks even more.
You do get the impression that with time and firmware updates this could get really good though.
I bought it to play Blu-Ray films and Gran Turismo HD. It does both of these very well.
Lee