PS2/PS3 Article Comparison by Sam of 1UP!

Don't Buy That PlayStation
So my buddy Jason pointed out this story titled "Don't Buy That PlayStation" to me this morning and I figured I'd pass it along.

Whether or not Sony was sincere in its claim that a supply crisis led it to cut its initial shipments of the PS3 to just 500,000 units, there's little question that the corporation was successful in the arena of hype marketing. Lines of obsessed PlayStation fans were a news staple. But is the so-called superconsole really worth staying up all night for?

No. The PS3 is not the revolutionary device that Sony's marketing department would have you believe. Don't get me wrong; it's definitely the most powerful video-game machine on the planet right now. But that's not enough.

The PS3's stats are certainly impressive; it's got hardware power to burn. But so what? There's just not much software available that can take advantage of it. The games that are being released at the same time as the system don't rise much, if at all, above games available for Microsoft's rival (and cheaper) Xbox 360 video-game system.

And don't expect a huge number of quality games anytime soon. Sony has reversed positions with Microsoft and stupidly released a system that is in many ways a game developer's nightmare. Microsoft, learning from the Xbox, went out of its way to make the 360 easy to develop games for. But Sony, intoxicated with success from the first PlayStation, forgot the first rule of the video-game industry: Software sells systems. If you make it hard for developers to produce good games then there's no reason for people to buy the system. This oversight has already cost Sony some goodwill -- developers are howling about how hard it is to create games for the system. In an interview with Time magazine, John Carmack, one of the developers behind such massively popular games as Doom and Quake, said that the "PS3 is definitely more powerful than Xbox 360. But it's less convenient to extract performance from it."

Sony is also under the mistaken impression that including the ability to play Blu-ray movies is a huge selling point. But true technophiles and hardcore gamers probably already have Blu-ray drives. I'm a good case in point. I already own a Sony Blu-ray player, so I could not care less if the $599 PS3 can play movies. I'd rather pay less and get a machine that just plays games instead.


Sure, most of this isn't all that surprising to read; it's a pretty common rant for any message board these days. OK, so here's the thing, though: I may have taken a few liberties and replaced a few words here and there. Here's the original story:


Whether or not Sony was sincere in its claim that a supply crisis led it to cut its initial shipments of the PlayStation2 to just 500,000 units, there's little question that the corporation was successful in the arena of hype marketing. Lines of obsessed PlayStation fans were a news staple Wednesday. But is the so-called superconsole really worth staying up all night for?

No. The PS2 is not the revolutionary device that Sony's marketing department would have you believe. Don't get me wrong; it's definitely the most powerful video-game machine on the planet right now. But that's not enough.

The PS2's stats are certainly impressive; it's got hardware power to burn. But so what? There's just not much software available that can take advantage of it. The games that are being released at the same time as the system don't rise much, if at all, above games available for Sega's rival (and cheaper) Dreamcast video-game system.

And don't expect a huge number of quality games anytime soon. Sony has reversed positions with Sega and stupidly released a system that is in many ways a game developer's nightmare. Sega, learning from its Saturn debacle, went out of its way to make the Dreamcast easy to develop games for. But Sony, intoxicated with success from the first PlayStation, forgot the first rule of the video-game industry: Software sells systems. If you make it hard for developers to produce good games then there's no reason for people to buy the system. This oversight has already cost Sony some goodwill -- developers are howling about how hard it is to create games for the system. In an interview with Time magazine, John Carmack, one of the developers behind such massively popular games as Doom and Quake, said that the "PS2 is definitely more powerful than Dreamcast. But it's less convenient to extract performance from it."

Sony is also under the mistaken impression that including the ability to play DVD movies is a huge selling point. But true technophiles and hardcore gamers probably already have DVD drives. I'm a good case in point. I already own a Sony DVD player, so I could not care less if the $299 PS2 can play movies. I'd rather pay less and get a machine that just plays games instead.


Now, this is in no way meant to draw comparisons to the current console war (a LOT has changed in the console landscape), it's just funny how some of the arguments never really change.