I can't be impressed by Sony this gen even if I try hard.
Last two gens were dominated by everything Sony. PS1 sold more than 100m consoles, was home to numerous excellent titles and genre defining. PS1 did an excellent job into brigning casuals to gaming through music games, car simulation (Gran Turismo) and a slew of other gems found here and there. It was where you could find the best games (I was still a proud supporter of the Sega Saturn at the time). Nintendo couldn't touch them and was slowly digging their own grave.
PS2 took everything the PS1 did and made it monstruous. PS2 was like Frieza on Namek, too powerful for anyone. It didn't have the best games, it had them all. Sony had an unbeatable grasp of the gaming market and the gaming culture was synonymous with Playstation. Neither Sega's Dreamcast, Nintendo's Gamecube or Microsoft's Xbox had a chance agains't it.
Then came this gen...
When you think about it, both Microsoft and Nintendo didn't stand a chance against PS2's successor. People even said they would wait for Sony's PS3. But now we know for sure that being dominant one gen won't make you dominant the next gen if you screw up.
Xbox360 didn't have the big names except for Halo. Microsoft managed to get the games that made PS2 successful and even get timed exclusivity to some of them. They built an impressive online structure. During it's first 3 years it was plagued by rrod problems tarnishing Xbox's image amongs gamers. Nintendo who fell from grace decided to cater to a different audience and came up with the Wii. A powerful weapon that brought them back to the pole position. It only started to slow (IMO) when Kinect arrived. That showed how casuals hold no allegiance to any companies. Microsoft scored big with Kinect, it prolonged 360's life.
Sony on the other hand is like that cool guy that thinks he's untouchable. He's like Jean Claude Van Dam. Sony thought nothing could touch them so they released a ridiculously expensive console thinking gamers would work twice as hard to afford one. They said they would never pay 3rd party to get exclusivity so they lost a whole bunch of them. They thought they could rely on old franchises to get to the top again but failed toward fresh and new IPs.
I give them credit for trying hard though. Since 2008 Sony built and incredible library of high quality titles. Most of them were graphics leading titles that showed that, contrary to 3rd party titles, PS3 was on par if not superior to 360.
PS1-PS2, Nintendo lost their ways with Gamecube, Microsoft the new guy that pleased to americans and was hated by japanese I'm sorry but Sony had it in the bag. While Nintendo built an army of soccer mom, Microsoft managed to keep PS3 in third place and this with virtually no sales in Japan and with 3 years of rrod problems... I cannot be impressed with Sony.
