No offense to the PlayStation 3 faithful, but I had a crisis of spirit when the console made its debut in November 2006. First off, it came out much later than anticipated, forcing some of us to jump on the Microsoft bandwagon and pick up an Xbox instead (which turned out to be the better move). Secondly, the original price point was completely ridiculous; not everyone just has $600 lying around, Sony. I, for example, didn’t. Instead I had a pocketful of spite over this long-awaited next-gen "savior," which had handily proved itself to be unaffordable, buggy, not backwards-compatible and with a thin selection of decent games.
I feel I should point out that I used to be the biggest PlayStation supporter, back in the day. Heck, most gamers were, at least those that I knew personally. The PS2 had the best game library of any system, and maybe we were spoiled by that. Maybe we didn’t realize how hard it would be for Sony to top the PS2. Inflated expectations have surely played a role in all the hating-on of the PS3 since it became available.
Lately, we've been seeing a bit of a turnaround, as more people appear willing to plunk down cash for the system. But it's been an uphill battle to get to where we are now, and it's not even close to being over. At $400, the price is still enough to give people pause, especially with the Wii priced at $250 and the Xbox available for as little as $200. Still, all hope is not lost: ever since Blu-ray beat HD in the format wars, the PS3 has emerged among savvy consumers as a great quality Blu-ray player at a competitive price. It also features BD-Live software, which lets you grab even more extras from the internet, something that lots of other BD players do not come equipped with.
An anecdote from my own experience illustrates this arc in miniature pretty neatly. Not long ago, a good friend of mine dropped $600 to get a PS3 and a copy of "Metal Gear." There was no alternative -- he wanted the game that badly. For a while, all I heard from him was how cool and awesome the game was, and how the PS3 is actually a gorgeous system. Once he finished the game, though, the console sat there and collected dust for months. My friend later told me that it was one of the biggest mistakes he'd made, and a source of extreme buyer's remorse for him.
Flash forward to now: his love of the system has been re-ignited. With Blu-ray games like "Resistance 2" and forthcoming titles like "God of War III" and "Final Fantasy XIII" (not to mention "The Dark [Frigging] Knight"), things are really starting to look up for the PS3. The player interface has become more user-friendly, and the home networking feature is -- and forgive my lapse into technical language here -- pretty dope.
There are of course a few glaring issues that many PS3 owners would like to see resolved. Foremost is probably the controller-charging thing. Annoyingly, the system has to be on in order for the controllers to get charged up. This seems like a hardware issue that can be addressed fairly easily, given the engineering sophistication on display in other aspects of the console.
A bigger obstacle for the PS3 to overcome will be the supremacy of the Xbox. Right now, Microsoft's console is clearly King of the Mountain; it's the system that can do no wrong. The 360 has already cemented itself in the annals of gaming history, and the New Xbox Experience has reinforced the console's reputation for both fun and innovation.
Still, there remains a chance for the PS3. It needs to start marketing itself as more than just a game system, and it wouldn't hurt to drop the price by about a Benjamin. Combined, these moves would most likely lead to a spike in sales from customers who want both the game system and an affordable Blu-ray player. It would also draw in those Sony fans who have been on the fence since day one. And if Sony could come up with something as awesome as the NXE, then they would be solid gold.
So do I love you, PS3? Not yet -- but I may have a slight crush.
