Sony says the same things about the PS3 that Sega did the Saturn

This comes from a Sega Saturn white paper:

"...growth won't be possible on competing systems that offer a simpler architecture. It may be easier in some ways for developers to create programs for the competition because there's less to learn and work with from a technology standpoint -- but that means that developers are much more likely to run up against the limits of the system in a short span of time."

And this from Kaz Hirai's mouth:

"We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?"

(from me, not the article) Sorry, guys, but developers have shown that making good games and making money drives them, not how far they can push a system.

well we all knew that ;P

That's crazy how similar those statements are!

I do agree that having a harder-to-develop-for system isn't an advantage in most people's eyes. What developers DO appreciate that?

These statements are basically reflexive defensive statements to tell shareholders why the hell your company doesn't have market share. I wonder if they said the same thing over the Neo Geo (I don't remember if that was the systems name).

ps3 has been dreamcast, saturn, gamecube, xbox, n64, atari...you name it. What's next guys?

Nah. The Neo Geo was manufactured with the explicit intent to be sold in very low quantities to eccentric and moderately wealthy collectors. For what it was it was very successful.

Didn't claim it was the Saturn. Just pointed out they are sharing a bad mindset that Sega had.

PS3 has always been the Saturn.

It's been discussed countless times already on these forums.

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=51086&page=1

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=55415

Unfortunately pushing the industry from a technological standpoint, which is a good thing, doesn't equate with good sales. But I'm not gonna blame them for making good hardware. Difficult to program for, maybe. But the same complaints were leveled against the PS2....

The PS2 just had manual rendering. A bit more work, but systems like the PS3, the Saturn, and the N64 have hardware that requires jumping through hoops to get the most out of.