Another "How Sony killed the PS3" Article. It's primarily centered around Sony's decision to screw up their backwards compatibility but the author hits a little on everything. Fully quoted below.
Almost everybody in the media inside and outside Europe slammed Sony’s decision to change the hardware configuration of PS3 for PAL areas, considering it a state-of-the-art PR disaster. But I would call it simply a management disaster.
Those guys at the PR department are not guilty for others’ blunders, on the contrary, they are the ones that try to cover the mess as deftly as they can. The real problem is Sony’s top management, who seems to consider that the company’s resources are limitless and that they are the smartest people on Earth.
A short history of Sony’s failures with the PS3 shows that the PR did the best, while the ones in charge with the production and design did the worst possible. I will not go over them again in this article, but if you are interested in the subject try this.
I will mention though the latest blunder that Sony committed with PS3, concerning the backwards compatibility of PS2 games with PS3 hardware. Sony transformed this famous compatibility in early stages of development into one of the key features for its product, triumphantly declaring that the HD experience of PS2 games played on PS3 will likely increase the level of satisfaction for hard-core gamers.
For that they’ve included in PS3s launched in Japan and the US the Emotion Engine, the heart of every PS2 console sold out there. And that is a hardware component. It is important to underline the difference here, because according to Sony’s latest announcement the PAL areas will have software emulation for PS2 games played on PS3, and so the backwards compatibility will be limited to only a few titles at launch. They did not mention what titles will be supported at PS3’s debut in PAL areas, but they specified the fact that "some additional PS2 titles will become compatible on the PS3 system through regular downloadable firmware updates, which will be made available through the PLAYSTATION Network or via PS3 game discs, with the first update planned for the launch date of the 23rd March 2007. “
I personally cannot think of something good when I hear Sony’s spokesperson saying “the backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the US and Japan models."
The reason for this hardware modification is of course the cost-saving policy adopted a bit too late. Sony is known to lose a lot of money with every PlayStation 3. The combined materials and manufacturing cost of the PlayStation 3 is $805.85 for the model equipped with a 20Gbyte Hard Disk Drive (HDD), and $840.35 for the 60Gbyte HDD version. This total doesn't include additional costs for elements including the controller, cables and packaging. At these costs, Sony is taking a considerable loss on each PlayStation 3 sold. Materials and manufacturing costs for the 20Gbyte model exceed the suggested retail price of $499 by a total of $306.85. For the 60Gbyte version, costs exceed the $599 price by $241.35. With Sony taking a smaller loss on the higher-end model, it's not a surprise the company is steering customers to the 60Gbyte version.
In contrast, the HDD-equipped Xbox 360 has a manufacturing and materials total of $323.30, based on an updated estimate using costs in the fourth quarter of 2006. This total is $75.70 less than the $399 suggested retail price of the Xbox 360.
What Sony decided to cut from PS3 in order to cut overall costs is exactly the Emotion Engine that ensures the backwards compatibility. It is built by Toshiba, Sony, and IBM and is said to be two times faster than a 733 MHz Pentium III, giving Toshiba control over 11 percent of the total PlayStation 3 materials and manufacturing costs. With its removal from the PS3, Sony will apparently save around $27 with every manufactured console.
SCEE president David Reeves said that: "PS3 is first and foremost a system that excels in playing games specifically designed to exploit the power and potential of the PS3 system. Games designed for PS3 offer incredible graphics quality, stunning gameplay and massively improved audio and video fidelity that is simply not achievable with PS and PS2 games. Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, truly taking advantage of this exciting technology."
And now, the bomb: it seems that Sony’s move in Europe and other PAL areas like Australia, New Zealand or Asia will soon be followed by similar moves in NTSC areas like the US or Japan, following the same cost-saving policy. So bye-bye real backwards compatibility. Everywhere.
One could say: hey, they promised the software emulation didn’t they? Yes, that is significant, but it helps neither Sony, nor gamers. First of all, the same software emulation technique was implemented by Microsoft in its Xbox 360, with rather unfortunate results. In the end, it has been abandoned, since producers re-oriented towards the next-gen and the exclusive Xbox 360-software package reached a higher level of attractiveness.
Why shouldn’t we expect the same thing with PS3? What guarantees can Sony offer (after all the scandals that have plagued PS3 since its launch) that PS2 games will run without any glitch on PS3’s advanced hardware using software emulation instead of Emotion Engine?
Think of this almost hilarious aspect: the Cell CPU, which is the core of every PS3, is so the Cell CPU, which is the core of every PS3, is so complicated that High Moon Studios has invited IBM engineers and a handful of other Vivendi Games studios, such as Swordfish and Radical Entertainment, to a workshop that aims to teach developers how to effectively harness the power of the Cell. "We've been talking to Sony for almost two years now, but they didn't create the Cell," High Moon Chief Technical Officer Clinton Keith claims. "They created the architecture for the PS3 and they've created a lot of the developer libraries. We’ve had access to those [Sony] engineers... but they’re not the hardware engineers.”
So again, what guarantees do I have that PS3 will run PS2 games fine, if even the developers are confused and overwhelmed? And remember: backwards compatibility was one of the most enticing traits when pre-orders for PS3 began in Europe and in other PAL areas. A Geekzone.com visitor had this to say about the Sony topic: “One of (the many) reasons I was interested in a PS3 was backward compatibility. Why should I pay full price for a system that won't support my old games? This new PS3 system is different from what Sony has been advertising. In my opinion this is a PR disaster for the PS3 and I am seriously considering not buying one now…”
The problem with the PS2 games on PS3 is not only about the compatibility, it’s also about the price of the console. If Sony is indeed considering outsourcing the production of the Cell CPU and if they remove the Emotion Engine, that should immediately be translated into a price-cut for the next-gen console. But IT WON’T HAPPEN. Not in the next two years, that is. Sony is interested in covering its losses, and keeping the price at its current level is a logical decision (did Xbox 360 get a price cut until now? No…).
Although PS3 costs are compensated by PS2 and PSP sales and Sony’s core electronics Business, it is still hard to deal with them, and a future revision of hardware for NTSC areas is quite possible, lowering even more the interest gamers have for Sony’s product.
The compatibility issue has more implications than Sony says: the games exclusively built for PS3 right now are considered by many as lame. For example, Times Magazine declared the PS3 in December 2006 as one of the top 5 products that didn’t live up to the hype around them last year, and the games were an important factor in that choice. So now Sony strips its console off one of its last attractive features: playing PS games on PS3, at higher resolutions. What Sony officials need to understand is that it’s the games that are the most important factor in a console’s success. If I want to buy an Xbox 360, I want to do that because I get to play Gears of War, Halo 3 or Lost Planet. If I acquire a Wii I do that because of Zelda. The PS3 can only be bought at this moment because it’s a cheap Blu Ray player, and because you can enjoy some fine PS2 games on it. If you cannot even play those games at higher definition, you're only stuck with a cheap Blu Ray player.
And what’s worse is that game developers are heading towards Wii and Xbox 360, rather than the PS3, with Valve’s Gabe Newell calling Sony’s console ”a total disaster”. From all next-gen consoles, programming for the Cell CPU is the most difficult and even at PS3’s launch in November Sony did not have enough developer-kits. It’s also a lot more expensive for game-developers to build games for PS3, which translates into higher prices for PS3 games. Stokky, a colleague of mine here, informed me that the recommended retail price for each of Sony's five disc-based launch games will be around €59.99 (£39.99, AUD 99.95, NZ 109.95), while the downloadable games will cost between €2.99 to €9.99, depending on the specific title (and apparently only "for an introductory period").
Moreover, the list of compatible games has not yet been published, so Europeans will have to blindly buy the console, not knowing what exactly they are buying it for: will God of War 1 be compatible or not? They will only find out when it comes out on March 23, which is another reason for them to sit back and wait until something certain and enticing appears about PS3.
All in all, one could say about PlayStation 3 now that it’s expensive (especially in PAL territories), it’s hard to program for, it has expensive and rather lame games, it severely discriminates gamers and doesn’t fulfill their expectations concerning key features. Perspectives are also bad. That is a deadly combination in gamers’ world. So why would they buy a PS3?
The facts show that Sony did not revolutionize gaming with its product, it only brought losses to the company and disappointment to its fans. I personally confess that I love them for the PSP, but I hate’em for the PS3.
Kaz Hirai, Ken Kutaragi, please, in the name of reason, spare your PR department the troubles they get daily and resign!
