Why are you (and others) Playstation fans? Question about franchises

[Scoobes]

richardhutnik said:

Euphoria14 said:

Diversity, that is all there is to it.

To be honest, who else out there takes the biggest risks to bring more to the niche gamers? Who else takes the biggest risks with new IPs instead of relying on the same franchises for decades?

This is why people love Sony. I honestly believe they are very good strength for the industry.

It is nice to have a company with some balls, not to mention actually show that they care a lot for their fans and not just their wallets. If something may not sell well they will still usually give it to us.

How many other companies can you say this for? Honestly...

The diversity aspect is an interesting one.  It likely connects to the question of "Where is Playstation mascot?"  You ask Nintendo, and it is... Mario.  You ask Microsoft and it is... Master Chief.  But Sony?  People have said "Gran Turismo car".  There was also Crash Bandicoot for awhile, but a lot jumped ship to go third party, like Crash did and also Spyro did.  I guess Sackboy is kind of, and may be shaping up at such, but I don't see LittleBigPlanet as being THE defining game on the Playstation, or representing THE defining genre, that is why people buy a Playstation console either.  And another case is that LittleBigPlanet with LBP2 is morphing itself into something that is NOT a product that fits any game genre at all.

So, in this, you see title after title rolled off as being excellent in nature but not really clustering anywhere, which gets back to my question of then what is in common here that would be why someone buys a Playstation home console.  Seems like more like a dozen niches, which can collectively form a reason to buy, as opposed to that ONE.  The question then is to try to find that ONE, and it isn't there I guess.  And I hope people see why I mention Gran Turismo as the game off the top of my head to try to ask about.  it doesn't represent the Playstation platform sufficiently

You pretty much answered your own question. I'm more of a PC gamer, but for the last 3 gens, Playstations have been my preffered console.

It doesn't need a mascot for affection, the affection for is to (I know this will sound cliched) gaming itself. With a Playstation console you know their will always be a wide variety of games from multiple genres. Not having a single mascot actually reinforces this association with gaming and diversity. How many people have type-cast Nintendo consoles as "kiddie" or the X-box brand as the "shooter-box"? Playstation on the other hand is synonymous with gaming as a whole. I suppose you could say the Jack of all trades, master of none. 

I noticed you also mentioned emotional attachment/affection for other gaming brands in a previous post. To that I would say that with Playstation, I found console games that could have an emotional impact. How many people balled their eyes out at a certain death in FFVII? Or have found emotional attachment to virtual relationships in Shadow of the Colossus? Or have felt a rollercoaster of emotions in MGS? Such strong emotional reactions can result in affection to the brand.