Philoking.com

It’s Sunday afternoon and I had to make a Wal-Mart trip for some moving supplies and get some lunch. That’s right, the little studio is moving because we are just out of room. While walking into our local Wal-Mart, I noticed a Sony Playstation tent set up pimping the latest games and systems.

Of course I had to take a closer look, so I walked up and started to ask the Sony rep some questions about the system. I consider myself an educated consumer, and I had some legitimate questions and a little beef with the controller so I gave the Abercrombie and Fitch clad, 70s throwback aviator shade wearing teenie bopper a good ole fashioned grilling.

First on my list of questions was, “So what games are coming out for this thing?” The Sony rep, we’ll call him “chip”, responded with, “You can go to our website and find out all of the current releases as well as what’s coming. Not exactly colorful, nor informative, but that’s I guess as much as you can expect from a corporate flunky.

What happened to surrounding yourself with people who are passionate about games, people who can really get excited and talk about gaming. Let’s be honest, 9 out of 10 people who are willing to plop down $600US on a Playstation3, don’t care about how fast it runs folding@home. Real gamers have real questions like:

• Why is the battery not removable?
• Why is the included USB charging cable so short?
• Why are there still so few games available?
• Am I seriously going to have to pay another $60 to get rumble?
• When is “Home” coming?
• Why did they use an onscreen cell style keypad?

The list goes on and on. Many of us are really perplexed about some of the choices. I can understand trying to position it as a home media center, but how many of us are using those features? Did they come at the expense of not only the console, but features that gamers really want? Why emulate the PS2, but not have PS2 controller ports for all of the games with 3rd party controllers….Guitar Hero anyone?

I digress… I did bring up my gripes with the size of the controller….but it turns out I would have been doing as much good conversing with a cardboard cutout. I was disappointed that Sony didn’t get people out in the field who are true evangelists of the system. The PS3 is a good system. Sure it has flaws, the game library is laughable, and the thing is just plain….well, big. Get a few games out there, and let people who are passionate about gaming sell them to the general public, and drop the price at least a hundred bucks, and I think Sony might be amazed at the results.