Why all the Sony hate?

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Bodhesatva said:

ElRhodeo said:

Quickdraw McGraw said:

ElRhodeo said:

 

EDIT:

Hardware: Did they progress the market? I tell you what I think: Video game consoles are low tech. Any system. No need to brag about "the great Kutaragi" or "the great N64". The trick is keeping it cheap. Now, I'm not a tech-head, but from what I've heard, PS1 and N64 were pretty much a draw. And PS2 is said to be the weakest of all last gen systems. Correct me if I'm wrong. Still, I'd like to stress that it doesn't matter. It's about the games.

When I mentioned Sony progressing the hardware market, I didn't necessarily mean with the best technology or features (Although that is the route the PS3 is taking). I agree with you 100% in that it's always about the games.

But by saying Sony has contributed nothing to the video game industry in it's ten-year run is way off. Whether it be popularizing disk-based gaming, multi-media features, or opening up the casual and European markets, there is a lot Sony has to be given credit far, no matter your opinion on their new system. Note that I'm not discounting Nintendo or Microsoft (Ok, maybe Microsoft, ; ) ), just trying to convey my point.

I'm from Europe, and I've played tons of video games before Sony's arrival :)

Disk-based gaming: Not something to be proud of, really. There's good reasons why Nintendo hesitated so long, and I'm pretty sure their nextgen handheld won't be disk based as well. Think loading times, scratch issues, no savegames, power consumption.

Multimedia features: Maybe. But when you look at their Blu-Ray strategy, it leaves a strange aftertaste in your mouth: Maybe gamers are just the key to making Sony the exclusive owner of the next dominating video format? If they succeed, Sony will make Billions on licenses alone.

Well you may personally have played games before Sony's arrival, but it is fair to say that Sony greatly expanded the market, and gave them much more respect (for lack of a better term) than anyone else did. They have largely launched their systems simultaneously in Europe, have Europe-based production studios, and so forth. One of the biggest reasons that the Playstation 1 sold so much better than any console previous to it is that it sold so much better in Europe than all its historical competitors.

There are a couple of good reasons Nintendo waited so long on a disc format, and several enormous, overwhelmingly huge reasons Nintendo should have gone with a disc format -- most notably manufacturing and developing cost, both of which were lower on the PS1 than on N64.

Don't get me wrong, I think Nintendo has innovated far more than any other company in the history of video games, but giving Sony zero credit is unfair. How about we just say: "Sony has contributed to the evolution of gaming, but probably not as much as Nintendo?" I think a lot of us can agree to that.

Ok. Depending how you want to rate it, but N64 was pretty much more powerful than PSX, Saturn was much closer, than N64. And the weakest 6th generation console was Dreamcast, not PS2. I wouldn't say that Sony opened the European markets, Sony just happened to strike at the right moment. Gaming had been gaining momemtum for years, before PSX arrived, Atari had tried with Jaguar, Philips with CD-i etc. but their timing was bad. Sony struck at the time of generation change, when there are a lot of buyers "floating" and PSX was something new and neutral; you didn't have to take part in the traditional "Nintendo vs. Sega" arguing. Anyway the PSX arrived along the growth of the market, not vice versa. Sony didn't popularize disc-based gaming, although it had part in it, Sega had discs in Saturn and it possibly had "won" without PSX. Cartriges have certain, technological and useability, advantages, when compared to discs, but the costs are higher. I hope we get cartriges back some day (propably won't happen). But Nintendo wanted to stick in cartriges mostly because they were afraid of piracy. Sony has had affect on the industry, you can't argue that, not as much as Nintendo has or has had, but still. The most affect what Sony has had, is that it made 3rd party important, and this is what people complain, when critisizing Sony. The problem was Sonys weak 1st party and that Sony let basically any kind of crap to be released on its consoles (not topping it with good 1st party games). Now the industry has today alot of crappy games, and only a few good ones, a bit different situation than what it would be if Nintendo would have accomplished with N64 and its "Dreamteam". Of course, the "Dreamteam" wouldn't have been good for the industry, but some kind of quality control should be required. Anyone can state that "shitty games don't sell", but they do.