Sony PS3 - It never deserved its launch criticism

[sscott]

I love my 60gb PS3, price is always an issue but I work and save up and buy what I want/need! The update issue is appalling though there is no doubt. The interface is a little cold but very functional, Home was a waste of space but why people get so angry about all this is beyond me.

[Rayne]

I understand the criticism the PS3 had levelled at it on launch. The games lineup was largely uninspiring, the online side took a long time to get good with things like trophies not being added for ages!

I remember buying my 40Gig model in 2008 (I think, lol) and finding there were few (if any) games and the multiplat releases were not only technically inferior but more expensive too!

That said, the initial hardware specs were fantastic and I don't believe any product should be berated for having a premium price tag, particularly when it can be justified.

[adippm82]

I bought my PS3 phat 60 GB in August 2007, from Choices video, who were having a weekend sale, for £385, I got the machine, with Resistance and Motorstorm for free, and another game of my choice for £10, so I picked Ninja Gaiden Sigma, they also threw in another sixaxis controller, I was very pleased with that, I was advised to buy an HDMI cable for another £12.99.

So I got it home and set it up, set up a new PSN account, all very easy, put Resistance in, and straight away was told of a software update, as I wanted to get on with it, I just cancelled it, as I usually play games offline, I have continued to do this usually to this day.
Immediately, I found my biggest initial problem, the ridiculously light sixaxis controller giving no feedback whatsoever, I found it massively jarring, no rumble with explosions, none with gunshots, horrible, took a while to get used to it.

Absolutely loved the game, never understood the criticism of it, I played up to Manchester, got into a manic shoot out, eventually stopping to put in Motorstorm in, once again despite beautiful graphics and sound, the lack of feel for the road with no feedback was disappointing, and the game was just not that good, so I thought I would download some demos, I chose The Darkness, Ridge racer 7, and Genji.

It took hours, literally to download them, and when I finally got round to it, Ridge Racer 7 looked stunning, but after Ridge 6 on 360, it was poor in comparison, especially in the replays, with quite severe slowdown, did enjoy The Darkness, but removed Genji almost immediately.

I then tried some backwards compatibility, so put Killzone in, it did a very good job of upscaling, and I played it for a while, but when I took the disc out, it was roasting hot, and the machine shut down, it eventually allowed me to turn it back on an hour later, I never dared to put a PS2 disc in again, so disappointed again that I could not remove the PS2 from the telly.

Also it should not be forgotten that the console could not do HD out of the box, no component lead in the box, no HDMI, which with the high price was shocking, just a bog standard scart box.

I think Sony thought everyone who had a PS2 would upgrade to a machine that could play Blu rays, it worked to a large degree with the PS2 and DVD, but they badly misjudged the market, especially the online one, the PSN store was absolute rubbish compared to Xbox live, and IMO still has not caught up, still massive updates that take an age to download, THEN install.

I do not regret the purchase though, I built up a library of over 100 games in the shortest time I have ever done, and actually prefer the Dual Shock 3 to the Xbox 360 one, took a while to come out, and the price was a mickey take, but at least they patched many of the earlier games, it is also what I look at photos on, and my camcorder videos.

So yes, Sony did deserve the flack they got for the launch, a high price point at totally the wrong time of year, no real killer titles, I loved Resistance, but it looked outdated already, the ports were pretty duff, I remember the horror show that was Call Of Duty 3, with it's terrible frame rate, until a massive patch was applied to it, and FEAR was even worse, I had played the 360 version, the PS3 one looked like a much lower res version, with terrible framerate, and sound problems, no trophy system, the poor controller, with it's motion controls, that were not good enough, the bare bones PSN, the horrendous loading times of some titles, the frequent patches and system updates, and trying to play online against some obvious cheating blighters, almost with no policing in the earliest days, particularly one guy who I hit in the face with a rocket with no effect!

Also as a bluray player, it was superb, but at the time it was less than certain whether it would win out against HD DVD with Microsofts might behind it, or even if many people were going to bother replacing their DVD collections with bluray, so yes it was very nice, but the films were very expensive and without every studio onboard.

Case in point with the PSN, there is a sale of PSP games on at the moment, so I have picked Patapon 3, Resistance Retribution, and Everybody's Tennis, it has been downloading since 4:50 this afternoon, and is still only 34% into installing the last game, so I would say they still have some way to go.

[AceGrace]

Isn't the reason why 360 patches are quicker is because Microsoft limit the size of them?

Also the read speed of the blu ray drive on PS3 is very slow.

[gman72]

Isn't the reason why 360 patches are quicker is because Microsoft limit the size of them?

Also the read speed of the blu ray drive on PS3 is very slow.

Well, i can understand how a slow blu-ray drive will expand install time, but i maintain that the blu-ray drive has zip to do with how long it takes to download and install updates.

[Misery]

Never had too many problems with this thing myself, really.

It remains the one piece of electronics that I HAVENT hit with heavy objects in a fit of rage. All of the others have gotten bashed from time to time, but not this one. Well, except the Wii, I didnt bother wasting time bashing it, I just sold it outright.

Despite the PS3's problems, I give it that it just plain WORKS (mine does, anyway). I also give it that Sony hasnt tried (repeatedly!) to come up with new, ever stupider dashboard designs like Microsoft has.


Launch criticism though.... I dunno, I kinda think it did deserve it.

That price, for instance. Oh, *I* had no trouble buying it, but I dont exactly have a shortage of money.... lots of people do though, and Sony seemed to think it'd go down well with them anyway just because the PS2 had sold so well for so long. $600 though for a CONSOLE, launch or not.... that was a bit absurd.

As for the launch GAMES..... I dont remember what they were. Never cared about 95% of it's exclusives, I just wanted LittleBigPlanet (which is why I bought the bloody thing). So I cant really comment on those too much.


Beyond all that though, I'm going to maintain my current stance that all 3 current consoles suck.

[DreamcastRIP]

... Beyond all that though, I'm going to maintain my current stance that all 3 current consoles suck.

Love it!

[Negative Creep]

immediately, I found my biggest initial problem, the ridiculously light sixaxis controller giving no feedback whatsoever, I found it massively jarring, no rumble with explosions, none with gunshots, horrible, took a while to get used to it

I had this same problem, as well as the placement of the L2 an R2 buttons. I bought the comfort pack off Amazon, which vastly improves the feel and adds more weight

[James A]

Got to be the least used console for games at least that ive ever had. All it gets used for is Blu Rays and putting an external hard drive in to stream stuff.

I picked mine up about a year after launch just for the Blu Ray player. After getting home i got evrything sorted only to find no HDMI cable out of the box, so back into town. Got back in only for it to require an update which took nearly an hour to download.

To this day i still think theres very few good exclusive games on it.

[nakamura]

Speaking from my own point of view. I received a PS1 on launch Xmas. I purchased a japanese PS2 before the UK one hit the shops for £500 to play the incoming Winning Eleven 5. A lot of money for a console that also had a less than stellar start but no regrets. I bought a launch JP PSP at a crazy price on impulse but still use it today, not just because of CFW either.

The PS3 never interested me. The games were toss and the BC was messy. I also had too many games from different regions so no chance of getting one until hackable. When this came, the BC was dropped and old consoles unreliable. Everything about the machine feels a mess to be honest, even Gran Turismo 5 is very poor considering the time and cash spent.

So for me, the PS3 deserve it all. Years later, I still have no desire to pick one up even though I think it probably edges the 360 now in terms of exclusives.

[samhain81]

You do know you could download any ps3 update via your pc/laptop onto a usb stick and update manually, which took 1/4 of the time for an automatic download.

Your 1 hour download James probably would have been 5 mins instead

[MikeFishcake]

You do know you could download any ps3 update via your pc/laptop onto a usb stick and update manually, which took 1/4 of the time for an automatic download.

Your 1 hour download James probably would have been 5 mins instead

That's a useful thing to know. However, it's not exactly user friendly.

So, despite every console having it's problems, can you now see why some people were critical of it?

[Fightersmegamix]

I held out for a PS3 until it launched, once i saw it and had a quick go I went and bought a 360 instead. A right mess of a machine, it looks to have improved since but sony made so many mistakes it deserved to fail.

[Freestyler]

To see if Sony have learned their lessons from PS3 let's see what sort of blurb they eventually start spouting for PS4.

My money's on yet more worthless sound-bites such as the now-hilariously-classic "Emotion Engine!"

[Lettuce]

I have one thing to say about the PS3 launch.........

THERE NEVER WAS A GIANT ENEMY CRAB IN ANY FAMOUS JAPANESE HISTORICAL BATTLES!!!!!!

That is all