One thing that continues to amaze me about Sony’s PlayStation offerings, is how counter-intuitive they’ve been. Thankfully, the market is finally responding.
Granted, in the beginning PlayStation faced little competition. The original was pitted against Sega Saturn, a more powerful system which was ruined by terrible software development kits that couldn’t tap all that extra power. Prototypes of Shenmue running on Sega Saturn blew away any PlayStation game. Unfortunately, the SDKs for Saturn only came around after the marketplace threw Saturn in the trash.
Dreamcast had the technicals to compete with PS2, and the IEEE even found out that in many ways, it was more powerful than PlayStation 2. Of course, by then, Sony was willing to out-spend Sega at any price-point and with any loss-leader necessary, and pushed Sega out of the market (the one-click piracy mode on Dreamcast didn’t help matters).
But PlayStation 3 is a different matter completely. With each reinvention of the SKUs, the systems wind up being worse. First, Sony offered a 20 GB and a 60 GB. The 20 GB lacked Wi-Fi and memory cards. Okay, so you have some choice. But then, Sony phases out the 20 GB system. Now, no choice. Buyers didn’t like that, and embraced Wii and Xbox 360 on much higher volumes.
So, Sony tried bumping the specs. 60 GB became 80 GB… oh, and it lost the Emotion Engine, so it actually has worse PS2 backwards compatibility. So, the hardcore gamers will flock to eBay and get the 60 GB, and everyone else is scratching their heads. On one hand, the 60 GB is better, on another hand, it’s worse. Wii & 360 have offerings that make sense… so where are confused buyers going to go?
Now, Sony is preparing a 40 GB PS3 SKU (which is already-announced in Europe)… oh, and it can’t play PS2 games at all. With PS2’s install base being so large, not being able to upscale those countless PS2 games to HD just means they have to buy the 80 GB… or keep an SDTV around to continue enjoying them at the same quality. Oh, wait, the 80 GB version still doesn’t play games as well as the 60 GB.
Bottom line: At some point, when PlayStation 3 starts getting good exclusive titles (Time Crisis 4, Metal Gear Solid 4, Wipeout, etc)… the hardcore gamers will flock to eBay to pick up 60 GB PS3s. Everyone else will have heard bits and pieces about how older and newer PS3s are different and confusing.
Apple faced a similar, but more directly aparrent problem with the iPod nano. By dropping the aluminum case of the iPod mini, people were adverse to getting an iPod that would scratch up instantly in the pocket. iPod nano still sold well, but sales of iPod mini’s surged in the aftermarket. It wasn’t until Apple released 2G, aluminum iPod nano units that iPod mini depreciated as it was expected to.
I don’t expect Sony to ever re-add the Emotion Engine to PlayStation 3… so expect that those 60 GB units to carry an increasing premium. Every hardcore gamer that gets one, isn’t going to be likely to let it go.
Interesting perception, though I will say that the majority of people that care about this feature are attached to Japanese RPGS and other such obscure games, and are looking for a reason to justify the relatively high price tag compared to the savings in expenditure if they just kept a PS2 handy.
I own many a 20GB and 60GB model and use them as a POSIX cluster when not spending hours shaving thousandths of a second in F1 Championship Edition or playing the many other racing games available.
I own many PS1 and PS2 games and while upscaling is neat, it still isn’t enough to keep manufacturing the console with the EE+GS if the intention is to push the next console.
I tell people that want a PS3 and want to keep their old games to keep a PS2 around for that reason because there is no way to make everyone happy.
It was stated that backwards compatibility would be a feature but then people complained about the cost of the console. Sony is responding to repeated complaints about price and people still aren’t happy.