Post-GDC. Are Sony turning it around?

[Concept]

The forum was offline during what was, for better or worse, an increasingly press focused GDC. Sony released news about PlayStation Home and LittleBigPlanet, and subsequently their keynote became the talking point of the conference.

A few days after, do you feel Sony have begun to successfully turn a corner?

[jimmbob]

I only found out today that the PS3 is out in a couple of weeks. It seems to me at least that no one really cares too much about Sony at the moment.
Probably because everyone's still trying to get their hands on a Wii.

[Myth]

I want a PS3.

[Crimson Day]

I want a PS3.

then order one

[B1gBeard]

Yes in some small way.

Home looks interesting. The only negative I see is that maybe its offering too much. Will it leave time to actually play any games? I imagine it will appeal and maybe sell the machine to the Second Life/You Tube/My Space crowd and looks great for guilds and clans.

LBP of course looks very special and I'm sure I will lose many many hours in that if the demo is anything to go by.

Wishful thinking but its a shame their is such a thing as sides and fanboyism. I'm sure the PS3 will play games as well as all the other consoles out there and surely that's the most important thing.

[Myth]

then order one

I'm a poor student, lend me the money and I will

[Bort]

I wouldn't say Sony are turning it around but the news that Unreal Tourney 3 will support keyboard and mouse is really good for me.

Apart from the (hopefully) seem-less integration of games within a persistent world (I want to play golf in WoW!); the home stuff doesn't do anything for me.

The PS3 is still an overpriced console with hardly any games.

[B1gBeard]

I wouldn't say Sony are turning it around but the news that Unreal Tourney 3 will support keyboard and mouse is really good for me.

Apart from the (hopefully) seem-less integration of games within a persistent world (I want to play golf in WoW!); the home stuff doesn't do anything for me.

The PS3 is still an overpriced console with hardly any games.

Its not even out here yet. How can we complain about not enough games? Madness.

[Bort]

Its not even out here yet. How can we complain about not enough games? Madness.

Check the name of the site this forum is part of.

[B1gBeard]

Check the name of the site this forum is part of.

Even so, its a fairly new machine even in the NTSC territories and has more A titles than the Wii currently.

[Bort]

Yes but personally, the Wii and it's games justify the cost of importing a console. The PS3 doesn't*.

* At the moment.

I'm not pissing on the PS3; I just think Sony are still deep down in a stinky bog. Once the good/big name games start popping up they will start to shine again.

[EDDIE M0NS00N]

I dont feel anything towards this announcement.

When MS announced the 360 capabilites I wasnt really that fussed tbh because I was only really interested in what games were gonna be produced & its graphical capabilites. The multimedia side of it didnt really do anything for me. Now that I've got a 360 its still the same. I dont rip music, I dont watch DVDs, etc, etc. I have other appliances that do these things for me. I'm the sort of guy who owns a basic mobile phone & so I dont need a load of bells & whistles, just the basic stuff.

The same applies here for me re: the PS3. I just want a games console that I can play quality games on/offline, but there is NO WAY that I am forking out even £250 for a PS3 even if the games are amazing.

I've really lost faith in SONY over many things regarding the PS3 & especially over the PS2 backwards compatibility issue here in the UK. I think that people should wait & see what the PS3 is like b4 buying & those who rant & rave only to change their minds & cave in & buy one should instead stand their ground & not let SONY take them for suckers.

PEOPLE POWER!!

[Number45]

Yes but personally, the Wii and it's games justify the cost of importing a console. The PS3 doesn't*.

* At the moment.

A little subjective? I have Zelda and SSX Blur at the moment with little on the horizon that I'm interested in, I've had the PS3 for a couple of months less than the Wii and there's Resistance, RR7, VF5, MotorStorm, VT3 and Oblivion at least that I already have or am almost certain to pick up.

With regards to whether Sony are turning it around or not, and whether you agree or feel Home/LBP are of interest to you, it's impossible to ignore the upturn in feeling towards Sony and PS3 as a brand. The media, which have been unbelievably scathing of almost everything to do with the PS3 until this point are suddenly starting to talk in a positive manner and listing reasons to pick up a PS3 if not now, then in the near (6-12 months) future.

For me personally, Home intrigued me more than excited me. I'm looking for more concrete details on what will come of the service as an online gaming hub, something that the platform needs. The 'Second Life' functionality is little more than a novelty to me (I don't do the MySpace thing), but it's something I'm sure I'll sign up for/download (It's free!) and get some value from. I'm very interested to see what the stance is with regards to 'ticketed' events (Live HD streamed sport/music/movies)... like I said there's a lot there but we'll only find out over the coming months whether the service gives us what we want/need.

Little Big Planet, however, looks ****ing awesome. It's one of the few things I've seen related to games that sent a shiver down my spine when I watched it - and I've grinned from ear to ear each and every time I've watched it (Along with my eldest daughter).

In a semi-related note, I'm looking forward to seeing how Katie (My eldest) gets on the the SIXAXIS only control in Flow and Super Rub-a-Dub.

So, in conclusion, definitely the nucleus of a turning point for Sony, but I think we need to know more before it's safe to say they're on the way back.

It's just occurred to me, a little late, that showing these two things in tandem was a bit of a master stroke for Sony. Home for the masses, LBP for the hardcore. Everyone's a winner.

[NekoFever]

GDC was definitely an improvement for them based on previous performances, although this time they didn't really have anything from Nintendo and MS to compete against. Turning a corner, though? Well...

Home doesn't interest me at all. It looks just like Second Life which I'm similarly uninterested in, and somehow people are holding it up as the great leveller against Xbox Live. It's not - it's still the same system underneath, which means no cross-title messages, no cross-title invites, no mandatory unified friends list, etc. Alright, it makes things easier in that you can get together with friends in Home and walk over to the Motorstorm lobby or whatever, but that sounds like a massive pain compared to just setting up a game and pressing X on all the friends who you want to invite, regardless of what they're doing at that moment.

Stuff like media streaming is admittedly very cool, but I want the fundamentals more. I rarely use any of my consoles to watch video anyway.

LittleBigPlanet, on the other hand, is much more difficult to be critical about. It looks beautiful, looks like fun, and if the creative aspects run as deep as they say it has the potential to be a bit casual hit. In that, both announcements are very Nintendo-like in their attempts to give casual appeal rather than scaring people who like the Wii away with the big, monolithic machine.

The PS3 still has two main problems for me, though. One is that for all the fanfare they only announced one new game (LBP; Home is something different), which doesn't solve my main problem that the machine doesn't have enough good games to justify the cost. And that's the other big issue. You can have all the mainstream appeal in the world, but ?425/$600 isn't even going to be entertained by the mass market crowd that's currently eating up the Wii. End of story. Home is free (albeit ad-supported), is it? I'd better ****ing be getting something for free when you want me to pay that much.

[windowlicker]

The PS3 message on Radio 1 today was not a positive one. Sony even cracked out the old 'Importing PS3 is illegal' line.

If mainstream media is giving them a hard time then they have a mountain to climb.