Now what?

Those two words sum up my feelings as a Sony Playstation 3 owner thus far. Having only unpacked and played with it for a day and what I’ve found/learned so far doesn’t equal the 60GB system price + tax + game (Resistance: Fall of Man). With other expensive game systems like the 3DO and Neo Geo I don’t remember having the now what feeling set in as quickly.

Just to be clear, these feelings set in with all new game systems at some point so I’m not singling out the PS3. I’ll go through some of the common complaints out there about the PS3 and give a firsthand perspective on each one.

I don’t have any screenshots of gameplay in this post because I want to buy a component cable first. I don’t think it’s fair to show PS3 screenshots at the lowest resolution compared to the Xbox 360 screenshots at 1080i, even if I’m going to be compressing for the web anyway. Rest assured friendly readers, I’ll have plenty of PS3 game screenshots to show in the future.

Not HD ready
When you first unpack the PS3 it doesn’t come with the necessary cables to go above 480i (see former paragraph). Just the traditional composite cables. That’s been a major complaint from nearly everybody and rightfully so. Fine if Sony doesn’t want to include the $60 HDMI cable, they could have packed in at the very least a component cable to go to 1080i and be on par with the Xbox 360 out of the box.

Now we have to go back to the stores and fight our way through the crowds to buy a PS3 component cable (since we don’t have a 1080p capable TV yet). We’ll most likely be buying a TV that can go up to 1080p soon, but right now no sense buying a cord we can’t use to its full potential. Hitting the stores the day after Christmas is not a pleasant thought, Thanks Sony. Not.

No game
Whatever brainchild started the trend of game consoles not including a game should be forced to play ET on the Atari 2600 for a year straight. Sure, we knew this and bought a game separately, but shouldn’t people buying a game system be able to start playing the system out of the box? I realize the Xbox 360 doesn’t come with a game either, although you can buy packages that do include games from places like Costco. At least Nintendo still understands the importance of a game system being sold with a game (Wii Sports) and are seemingly being rewarded as the must-have system of this holiday season.

The PS3 does come with a Blu-Ray movie: Talladega Nights starring Will Ferrell, which we saw in the theater and coincidentally received as a Christmas DVD gift from friends. Our kids have watched the DVD but none of us have watched the Blu-Ray version yet.

The PS3 doesn’t even come with a Welcome, Thanks for Buying Tour DVD (see picture above for all accessories included besides the instruction manuals). I guess Sony assumes everybody buying the PS3 will go online and download demos, but why make your customers wait? CD and DVD media is cheap, so include something, anything. Compare this to the Game Wave system we bought for $49 which came with four remotes, a pack-in trivia game and an S-Video cord and Sony looks even worse. Customers do want and perceive additional value in packaged physical media. What marketing studies or research is telling these companies differently?

You know if it was possible to run AOHell on a PS3 at least that would be included.

Hang up on the telephone input
The telephone input that the PS3 uses is abysmal.

If you’ve ever tried to use a cell phone keypad to have a conversation you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s painstaking entering in anything. Why they didn’t use a virtual keyboard like the Wii remains a mystery. Should have packed in a free USB keyboard if they were going to do this to their customers.

Who cares about Blu-Ray anyway?
I’m sure high end video afficiandos care, but that’s not our family. We don’t currently own a TV over $1,000 (our 61″ is now gone), by choice we haven’t had TV service for over a half year (no cable, no satellite, not even over the air antenna). We have one lowend HDTV that only supports up to 1080i and has no HDMI inputs. We now are sharing this TV for one of our two Xbox 360 and the PS3.

The Blu-Ray movie part of the PS3 had zero impact on our buying decision and I’m curious if anybody else will buy a PS3 just to pick from a 100+ Blu-Ray movies? I looked through the list and the only Blu-Ray movie I’m interested in possibly buying at the moment is the Mission Impossible set for $67. All three movies on Blu-Ray seems like a fair deal as opposed to the $25-30+ each some Blu-Ray movies are selling. Also, all those TV series that look so appealing on DVD are pretty much no where in sight on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. I saw Season 6 of the Sopranos available on Blu-Ray (that’s it?). We’ll probably buy a few movies on Blu-Ray when/if the selection and deals are more appealing but won’t care as much about Blu-Ray until we get a TV that has full 1080p. About like we’ve done with the PSP, I think. Since the PSP launch we’ve bought only two movies in UMD format: Starship Troopers and Tron.

Clearly, Sony is hoping for more Blu-Ray buying customers.

I’m only slightly more interested in the HD-DVD drive for the Xbox. The movie selection isn’t there yet either and I don’t see either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD formats overtaking DVDs. There are too many DVD players out there and too many DVDs. For non-technophiles the difference between DVD and VHS appears more significant than DVDs and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD. Heck, it seems that just recently DVD players have taken over VCRs in sheer numbers. Market penetration for technology can be a very slow process. Just having something better doesn’t make a difference.

Now, when we can get storage with non-movable parts, something like credit card sized holographic storage, I think the DVD format will be in real danger. In the meantime I don’t see either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD being that significant and will keep adding to our DVD collection. Sure, a year from now I might feel differently when the Blu-Ray inventory is greater but keep in mind there are still a lot of people, including families, who don’t even own an HDTV yet, much less an HDTV that supports 1080p.

I don’t have any stats to back this up, and would welcome any in the comments below from those who do, but don’t believe HDTV is close to being mainstream yet. That spells trouble for both new formats.

Sony might be hoping more people will want to buy the PS3 as a cheap Blu-Ray movie player ($999 is the cheapest I’ve seen a stand alone Blu-Ray player, so the PS3 is a much better deal from that perspective), but just like the Playstation store, which I’ll get to next, the shelves need more lining and people need the HDTV that support that before that will be seen as a viable selling point for the masses.

Remember that with the PS2 DVDs were already well on their way to usurping VHS.

Playstation Store cupboards are awfully bare
I do realize the PS3 is only a month old now, but it looks like many store shelves on Black Friday.

Once you do setup your PS3 for online connectivity and visit the PlayStation store with a few exceptions you’re bound to be disappointed. There is an extremely cool Grand Turismo HD playable demo available with fantastic graphics that takes well over an hour to download and really shows off the PS3 graphics power. Even at 480i this racing game looks amazing. I saw screenshots in a forum yesterday that compared to the real cars and you can barely tell the difference. Being we aren’t at full HD yet, I can still tell it’s a game but graphically it looks better than any racing game I’ve ever played on any system including the Xbox 360. I imagine once we get our hands on a component cable, I’ll be even more impressed with this game.

Beyond the Gran Turismo demo, it’s slim pickings unless you want to download Blu-Ray movie trailers, buy classic games to transfer to your PSP like the platformer Crash Bandicoot (a good, albeit very old game) or check out a very small number of other demos and games (by my count you can buy four games to play for the PS3: Sudoku, Lemmings, Blast Factor and Cash Guns Chaos DLX). Here’s a complete list of everything that’s available in the Playstation Store as of this writing:

PS3 playable games and demos
*Grand Turismo HD demo playable (FREE), *Sudoku Starter Kit (FREE), Sudoku Go Easy Pak ($2.99), Sudoku Mild Pak ($2.99), Sudoku Difficult Pak ($2.99), Sudoku Fiendish Pak ($2.99), Lemmings demo (FREE), Lemmings ($5.99), Blast Factor ($7.99), Blast Factor demo playable (FREE), Cash Guns Chaos DLX ($9.99), Cash Guns Chaos DLX demo playable, Genji Days of the Blade demo playable (FREE), Formula 1 Championship Edition demo playable (FREE), Resistance: Fall of Man demo playable (FREE)

PS3 Trailers (FREE, non-playable)
Warhawk, NBA 07, Motostorm, Lair, Genji Days of the Blade, Resistance: Fall of Man (trailer, behind the scenes, audio and weapons), Blast Factor, Cash Guns DLX

PSP Transfer
Medevil ($5.99), Cool Boarders ($5.99), Crash Bandicot ($5.99), Loco Roco Holiday demo (FREE), Tekken 2 ($5.99), Hotshots Golf ($5.99), Syphon Filter ($5.99)

Blu-Ray Movie Trailers (all FREE)
House of Flying Daggers, Dark Kingdom, Stealth, Ultraviolet, Underworld Evolution, Click, Blackhawk Down, Silent Hill, Talladega Nights

Utilities
PS2 system data (FREE)

It’s disappointing not seeing the Playstation Store having actual movie rentals and purchases. iTunes has them, the Xbox 360 has them, but Sony — which has a movie division (doh!) — doesn’t? Why not? Especially when Variety reports (thanks Inside Microsoft) that the Xbox Marketplace has been successful thus far.

I remember when Xbox Live didn’t have the amount of content it has today so I’m sure the Playstation Store will improve, but the comparisons between the three different live stores as of today: Xbox Live, Nintendo Wii store and Playstation Store leaves the PSS and Wii Stores both looking a significant distance behind Microsoft. It’s like looking across the Grand Canyon at the competition. The PS3 has a separate internet browser already installed and available while the Nintendo Wii requires you to download that separately. The Wii at least has an intriguing system of hooking up other players, Miis, they call them, while with the PS3 you feel kind of alone.

The Playstation Store still hasn’t claimed my billing information yet. That is nice, BTW, that it isn’t required to enter your credit card through their miserable telephone interface to browse and download. That is one thing Sony could require to make the store worse, if they want.

Does Resistance: Fall of Man sell the system?
The must have launch game for the PS3 is Resistance: Fall of Man and it’s a gorgeous First Person Shooter (FPS) that is along the lines of Halo, Gears of War, etc. It only managed to hold a couple hours of our middle teenager’s attention but his friend got a PS3 for Christmas too so he said they’ll be playing online soon. Our son said the game is good but hard. He’s since retreated to playing Tony Hawk 8 on the Xbox 360. He’ll be back playing Resistance again soon.

I’m not a huge FPS gamer so my interest in Resistance is minimal, although when I can log some time playing I plan to do so (sharing with the HDTV that has the Xbox 360 is not going to last long). I enjoyed the Grand Turismo racing game and Sudoku starter kit. Guess I’ll have to get my Lumines fix on the PSP or Xbox 360. I need to play Resistance more to fairly say whether or not it sells the system, but it definitely gets an A in the eye candy department. When your soldier is in the fire, he really gets hurt which we thought was a nice realistic touch.

I took some time the last couple days to update my 1up.com profile with some of our games (shows what we listed as over $3,700 worth of games), but it still lists me as a “lurker” there, as well as check out the reviews of various games on the PS3 and Wii, our two newest systems. Looks like the highest rating games are Ridge Racer 7 and Resistance on the PS3 as of this writing.

This brings me back to the question: does Resistance sell the PS3? For me the system was sold the minute I saw it on the shelf available even without Resistance but I’m not sure I’d tell a friend who doesn’t like racing or FPS and doesn’t want a less expensive Blu-Ray player to buy a PS3 yet. I wouldn’t dissuade anybody who could afford it either. The games on the Wii are more the type of games I’m into these days, but the PS3 blows away the Wii in the graphics department. The PS3 is what I’d classify currently as a luxury purchase item.

This might explain why reports of people trading their PS3 for Wii (plus cash and some at a loss) have been surfacing at places like Craigslist. There just isn’t enough meat on the bones to make the PS3 compelling yet

Don’t count Sony out
I expected to like the PS3 but thought my anticipation for the future would be kept at bay at least a week. As it turns out, day one and I’m already looking for more. Another game, a component cable, more online content, something new. From Sony’s perspective that might be genius marketing, but from this customer’s perspective I’m disappointed.

With that said, I definitely wouldn’t count the PS3 out yet.

I see some serious potential here and Microsoft should definitely not get too cocky. If Sony isn’t already (somebody please correct me below if they know differently) the Playstation Store needs a new content launch schedule like the Wii and Xbox Live (weekly or at least 3 times per month) and start stocking the store shelves with more content like the encouraging Grand Turismo HD playable demo. If I were the decision maker at Sony, I’d be making two updates a week that mirror DVDs and other releases like Tuesday and Friday until they get enough content on the shelves to rival Xbox Live.

If Sony doesn’t at least cut the distance in half by next holiday season — when the true next generation console war will take place — they will slip from the #1 position that the PS2 and PS1 both enjoyed.

The math is already hurting Sony. The PS3 is too expensive for what you get at this point in time. I know many people have been saying that and there are times when I don’t agree with the majority. This isn’t one of those times, the PS3 is too expensive. A better, more reasonable price point with the current 60GB WiFi package would be $299 and should include a game and component cable. We won’t see that price point for a long time, if ever from Sony and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Xbox 360 drops down to that price early next year. That will be another crippling blow.

If Sony doesn’t stock the shelves in a hurry and come out with some more must-have PS3 games, they are in deep trouble on the hardware front. I wrote that they could be going the way of Sega and was flamed by fanboys, but the reality is Sony is dangling over a cliff. They aren’t in the comfortable position they have enjoyed for awhile. It takes more than killer hardware to win the console gaming wars and Sega knows this all too well.

I’ve been an outspoken critic of Sony throughout 2006 but I’m not blind to their past success and future potential. It’s too bad that they made the PS3 so expensive and can’t make up the difference in value. Yet.

I give the PS3 pricing an F, the system an A-, the Playstation Store a D and the games (at launch) a B. Add that up plus the unboxing and installation (B+) and that about computes the grade to end this post.

This could all change a year from now but currently I don’t blame the people clamoring for a Wii. Given a choice between the two systems right now — if I was forced to choose one over the other — the Wii would get the nod. And I don’t care if the Wii graphics aren’t as fancy, nor can play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD movies. The games are fun and I doubt most gamers will care. At the end of the day, it’s all about the fun and what system you’ll spend more time playing. For online play, the Xbox 360 has everybody beaten easily, the Wii has the fun factor for motion-activated games (Microsoft is still very weak here) and the PS3 is the super model graphically of the three. Grade: C+

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