All the Video Game Consoles I’ve Ever Owned in Chronological Order, Pt. 4 of 4

PlayStation 3

The console gaming world was ‘totally rocked’ by Sony’s revelation that it would sell a glittering black miracle machine tower supercomputer monster for $599 [initial launch pricing]. Much attention was paid to the ‘Blu-ray drive’, thereby developing reason for video game journalists to learn the proper syntactical way to write ‘Blu-ray’, gamers wanted to know if it was really that much of a big deal to have a ‘Blu-ray’, or if the PlayStation 3 would cost any less without a ‘Blu-ray,’ and were video game graphics going to be better with ‘Blu-ray’ discs and would ‘Blu-ray’ win the ‘format war’ and if you are fatigued of reading the word ‘Blu-ray’ in this endless paragraph, and wondering ‘what does this have to do with video games’ then I have encapsulated for you, precisely, the environment surrounding the launch of the PlayStation 3.

People sent around pictures of aged Solid Snake [circa early MGS4 trailer] with a gun in his mouth.

The current generation marks the death of the video game ‘exclusive’ [games that appear on only one console thereby creating a reason to purchase that console instead of the rival console]. Ironically, the only reason to buy a ‘cutting-edge’ $599 console is because it has games that the other console doesn’t, yet given the high cost of developing video games for a ‘cutting-edge’ console, most developers have to release video games on multiple platforms in order to recoup their investment.

So for approx 2 years people went ‘what is the point of the PS3’ and Sony went ‘chill bros, you had yr PS2 approx 10 years and the PS3 will be cool for 10 years too,’ and now it is a few more years later and it seems that even if Sony ends up a way distant third in the current console generation their strategy was semi-appropriate, or at least they will not be ‘massively fucked’ this generation.

Seems like rather than making a $599 glossy black console, Sony should have made a $299 matte black console, except they should have done this in 2003 instead of in 2009, since once they did that it started selling much better [do not go ‘cry in a forum’, obviously the $299 matte black PS3 ‘slim’ was the result of cumulative learnings, cost reductions and hardware revisions that would not actually have been possible in 2003’]

My discussion of the PlayStation 3 is not especially sentimental/personal, and in fact resembles the excessively technical hardware and spec-focused environment around consoles at the beginning of this ‘console generation.’  Yet when I [always after a moment’s sonorous deliberation with my lips pressed together] answer the question ‘which console is your favorite [of the like 5 you have at your house right now]’ by saying ‘PS3’, there is little logical explanation for it besides sentimentality/’brand loyalty’/possibly Metal Gear Solid 4.