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Forums - Sony - Console Philosophy: Sony's Playstation|Overambition

Mr Khan on 16 November 2014
Dr.Henry_Killinger said:
Mr Khan said:
Playstation's theme has been to follow the trends in general electronics: PS1 looked to standardize away from the Nintendo epoch, which was very closed down and centralized, and make a system with standard media and a more mainstream approach to publisher relations. PS2 followed that trend, taking on the next bit of standard media and more power and staying the course. PS3 was launched in the beginning of the HD craze, and Sony was invested across the board in pushing HD in as many formats as possible, which explains the PS3's overreach: they believed their dominance in the gaming market could force people into Sony's HD marketplace. PS4 comes in now that the standard is all about making things convenient for programmers, standardization and portability in silicon, with the rise of platforms like iOS and Android and game publishers' needs to port everything everywhere (unless it has "Nintendo" on the box.)

That's the PlayStation philosophy in a nutshell.

PS3 strayed far away from the trend of general electronics. Yes, it pushed HD but that was definetly not because there was an HD Craze at the time. At 600$ it was the cheapest blue-ray player avaliable when blu-ray movies were first appearing on scene as well.

Not to mention, Console R&D takes place years before release so following is impractical, they'd have to predict whats going to be the trend in 2006 for a console meant to last 10 years. It was influenced more by the Xbox then current trends. Which is ultimately the problem with all consoles. Current actually means future.

It also doesn't explain both exotic and proprietary hardware in all but the last iteration of the product family, which by definition doesn't follow trends.

Furthermore, I'd wager that the PS4 vs PS3 had completely opposite design focuses in them, at least concerning who were the dev heads (Kutaragi vs Cerny), and their atitudes at their respective launches. No way is "You'll want to get a second job to buy one" following current trends, that is over ambition in a nutshell.

Exotic and proprietary were not a significant barrier to consoles until this generation (really last generation, but as you said, they could not have foreseen that). Every console was different and devs were expected to shoulder that burden if they wanted to port. That changed, so Sony's approach to it changed.

The HD craze was easier to telegraph: the move to big screen and flat screen was well underway, and a few 6th-gen games even supported HD output (i want to say Tourist Trophy, and a few OG Xbox games), and of course Sony would want to be big into that.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

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Intrinsic on 16 November 2014

As sony themselves put it some 6/7 years ago in relation to the tech industry. What is happening now is a race to the bottom. In the past great hardware used to be about revolutionary design that usually came at a premium price. And since all the players at the time were more concerned about out teching each other prices generally remained high. Today, its all about getting "just as good" devices into peoples hands for as low a cost a s possible.



Gehirnkrampf on 16 November 2014

vita has exotic architecture?



must-have-list for platforms i don't own yet:

WiiU: Donkey Kong

XBone: Dead Rising 3, Ryse

Pemalite on 16 November 2014
Hiku said:

Adding to the list, Gran Turismo 4 supported 1080i.


It scaled the image to 1080i, it didn't internally render at that resolution, in-fact no PS2 game did, but the number looked great on the box for advertising purposes.

Dr.Henry_Killinger said:

PS3 strayed far away from the trend of general electronics. Yes, it pushed HD but that was definetly not because there was an HD Craze at the time. At 600$ it was the cheapest blue-ray player avaliable when blu-ray movies were first appearing on scene as well.

It wasn't only the cheapest Blu-ray player, but also the best, not just in image quality and sound quality but in terms of support too.
A significant percentage of early Blu-ray players are now non-functional due to the lack of firmware updates that makes them compatible with more modern forms of DRM, in-fact it was the sole reason for me throwing out my Blu-ray player and buying a PS3 to begin with.


I think what personally turned me away from Sony in the early years was simply how much propriety stuff they would force into their product lines to try and lock people into their brands, aka. Propriety memory cards for their early Digital cameras, where-as Samsung gave me much more free reign.
However, I don't exactly represent the average-joe.




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