PS2 interesting article from 2000

msmalls74

msmalls74

msmalls74

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Found this article written in Oct 2000, i think it seems quite an interesting read, some things never change.


Don't buy that PlayStation
It's overpriced and has no online access, and hardly any good games are available to play on it.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Jim Lynch

Oct. 27, 2000 | 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.

In comparison, the Sega Dreamcast sells for $149 and has a giant library of games already available. Sega also has an online game network, Seganet. The Dreamcast comes with a built-in 56K modem and Sega will soon release a broadband (cable/DSL) adapter for it. (The PS2 does not ship with a modem.) Sega is banking on the appeal of multiplayer online gaming, even going so far as to rebate the entire cost of a Dreamcast to players who sign up for Seganet. And for the first time ever we actually have cross-platform online gaming -- Seganet lets Dreamcast players compete against PC players in games like Quake 3. Sony, on the other hand, is promising online gaming later on but currently has nothing to offer purchasers of the PS2.

In addition to Sega, Sony also has two 800-pound gaming gorillas breathing down its neck: Nintendo and Microsoft. Nintendo plans to release its powerful GameCube system next year. Don't downplay Nintendo's chances either. Despite having a rocky time with the N64, Nintendo has some of the most lucrative franchises in video-game history on its side (Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, Metroid, etc.) and a superb marketing machine.

The real wild card here, though, is Microsoft, which plans to release its X-Box game system next year. The X-Box will have even more powerful hardware than the PS2, and Microsoft has the marketing muscle and rapport with developers to do the PS2 real damage. Unlike Sony, Microsoft is taking great pains to make sure the X-Box is easy to make games for -- developers will also be able to easily port games from the PC to the X-Box, thus insuring a huge supply of games.

So should you feel bad if you can't get a PS2 right away? No way. If you wait a while you'll avoid all the lines and scuffling in stores and you'll end up with a much better selection of games. And if you wait long enough for the upcoming systems from Microsoft and Nintendo, you'll probably see a cut in the price of the PS2 as Sony tries to ward off both threats.

Hardcore gamers aren't known for their patience, but this is one occasion when playing it smart may mean not playing at all. For now.
Click to expand...
 
You could say that is just like the PS3 now but the fact is the PS2 never had competition like the Xbox 360 or the Wii which the PS3 has to compete with.
 
bloody brilliant....i love how you could switch the word ps3 in there for ps2.
I'm a ps3 lad through and through and i'm more than certain the ps3 will eclipse the success of the ps2 and then hopefully all those b*tching about the ps3 as a console with the same arguements which were mentioned about the ps2 in the past will sit down and shut up....360's days are numbered
 
cheets64 said:
You could say that is just like the PS3 now but the fact is the PS2 never had competition like the Xbox 360 or the Wii which the PS3 has to compete with.
Click to expand...

the dreamcast was a 360 without a harddrive! even the controllers are the same...oh and the Metropolis street racer and project gothem? hmmm surely the kudos gives it away?
 
interesting read.
I heard that microsoft released the xbox knowing they would loose money on it, but getting their name on the gaming market ready for the xbox 2 (the 360). But when I opened my xbox once it was 1 circuit board, a pc dvd drive and a prehistoric hard drive. It just looked like they had slapped a console together because they had soemn old pc parts. any truth in this?
 
david.n.c said:
the dreamcast was a 360 without a harddrive! even the controllers are the same...oh and the Metropolis street racer and project gothem? hmmm surely the kudos gives it away?
Click to expand...

LOL yeah the controllers are the same haha funny stuff. And dont forget PGR2, 3 and 4 all being like MSR, oooh wait maybe cause they are made by the same people LOL.

:o
 
mglover070588 said:
interesting read.
I heard that microsoft released the xbox knowing they would loose money on it, but getting their name on the gaming market ready for the xbox 2 (the 360). But when I opened my xbox once it was 1 circuit board, a pc dvd drive and a prehistoric hard drive. It just looked like they had slapped a console together because they had soemn old pc parts. any truth in this?
Click to expand...

Yeah MS has 5 million old pc parts lying around :) what did you expect to find when you opened it?
 
david.n.c said:
bloody brilliant....i love how you could switch the word ps3 in there for ps2.
I'm a ps3 lad through and through and i'm more than certain the ps3 will eclipse the success of the ps2 and then hopefully all those b*tching about the ps3 as a console with the same arguements which were mentioned about the ps2 in the past will sit down and shut up....360's days are numbered
Click to expand...

Naive and deluded.
 
Sorry but the Wii has won this time and I will admit it even though I'm not a fan of Nintendo and I dont even plan to own a Wii unless one of my favourite game series jumps ship.

Its the cheapest at retail and the cheapest to develop for - I read somewhere that to support a development team for PS3 or 360 they could have 3 or even 4 development teams for the Wii for the same price.
It also appeals to the wider audience - Even my parents who never touched a console in their lives not matter how hard I tried were playing a Wii for 5 hours straight the other week when they were only supposed to stop for 10 mins to drop off a birthday present to someone. Hell they were even considering getting one until I talked them out of it since neither have time to play it.

With developers having to prioritize time and resources towards the graphics because of the specs of the 360/PS3 the games suffer from being too short to just being mediocre. Yes there are going to be exceptions to that rule, but it makes me fear what is going to happen for the next generation of consoles when they become even more expensive to develop for and that is the main reason why I hope the Wii will win and teach both MS+Sony a lesson.
 
Phnom_Penh said:
No, they have pretty much the same pockets as Sony do (if not less) ;).
Click to expand...

Huh? Sony couldn't compete with Microsoft in a financial market. Not even close.
Sony have had massive losses on PS3 thus far, where-as the Xbox360 has apparently pulled in profit. On top of that, Sony have struggled in many other areas for many years. The new Bravia range has been a success, but all other ventures haven't been. It was only 2 years ago that the Playstation division was the only Sony sector to pull in signifficant returns.

Sony are relying on Blu-Ray to dominate as they will make money from anything ever sold relating to Blu-Ray. They were in the same position with Mini-Disc, Memory Stick, UMD and ATRAC... however those didn't work out.
 
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