Continuing my questionable tradition of turning posts I’ve made on individual people’s blogs into full-blown essays, I will now write about why I think the PS3 is going to stink. Judging from the things I’ve seen said around here, 64 Digits seems to be a relatively safe place to post anti-PS3 propaganda… but you never know when or where a PS3 fanboy might pop up. Anyway, let’s get on with this!

Anyone who followed this year’s E3 show knows why the PS3 is going to stink. Sony’s lost it’s momentum. They’ve taken their eyes off of what people want to see in a gaming system, and are trying instead to show them what they want. If this year pans out the same way things are currently moving, we’re going to see Sony move from first place to possibly third in the next-gen game market.

So how did we arrive at this point? How did Sony shoot themselves in the foot? It’s simple: the PS3 is a deeply flawed product. The price tag, the functionality, and the hardware are all examples of what not to do when you create the successor to one of the most popular products in the industry.

The most obvious and reverberating flaw with the PS3 is the price tag. The console is being released in two flavors, clocking in at $500 and $600 respectively. Ridiculous is an understatement. For those of you who think this seems reasonable, consider the fact that you’re probably going to have to get at least one other controller, a few games, and whatever else Sony makes you buy before you can have some fun with it. Sony has already mentioned that with next-gen games will come next-gen prices, so games will likely hover around the $70-80 range. Blue-Ray movies seem to be about $5-10 more than your standard DVD as well. The bottom line is, if you manage to get a PS3 at it’s normal street price, expect to drop about $1,000 for the entire setup. To me, that is way too much money. That’s more than I pay every month for rent, utilities, and services combined.

Next comes the functionality of the PS3. Just like the PSP, Sony is taking the more-is-better approach to what the product can do, while simultaneously ignoring the needs of consumers and making sure the price tag of their console rockets to the sky. Take the Blu Ray disc player for example. PS3 games will come on Blu Ray discs, which are the arch-rival to the upcoming HD DVD format. Both formats will soon try to thwart regular old DVD’s with superior sound and video quality. Why is this a problem? DVD is still a relatively new technology, and it’s also relatively cheap; two things that make it irreplaceable at the moment. Should I go out and replace my Fifth Element DVD I got for $10 at target with a Blu Ray version that costs $19? It wouldn’t make any difference to me, because I don’t have 7.1 surround sound, and I don’t have an expensive plasma TV that supports 1080p input natively, and which would cost more than my car and every piece of furniture and electronics combined. And judging by all of my friends who own PS2’s, not too many people do. So what is the point of saddling consumers with something completely useless, like the Blu Ray player? Perhaps it’s a Trojan Horse, to get another one of their craptacular proprietary formats into your home? Can you say UMD? Mini-Disc? Beta Maxx? Laser Disc? I rest my case.

Last but not least, the hardware of the PS3, while technically impressive, is not a reason to buy the console. Your typical PS3 fanboy will jump up in your face, yelling all kinds of crazy gibberish that boils down to the fact that he or she thinks that the PS3 will be the best console because it is the most powerful. And that’s exactly what Microsoft thought when they unveiled the ill-fated X-Box… which later proved to be a dismal failure. The true power of a console rests not in it’s inner workings, but in it’s software library. And because of all the silly doodads and extra “featuresâ€? Sony has thrown into their box, the price tag is going to limit it’s exposure, and thus, developers will move on to the more affordable, more sold consoles. To tell you the truth, I think people are getting tired of playing the same crappy games with updated graphics anyway… Game graphics have reached a point where they are beyond impressive, and thus the small differences that increased hardware performances can make are not as noticeable to the layman as they once were, so people care a little less about which console can render the most triangles per cycle. And rightly so. This stuff isn't what makes games fun.

All that said, this is still going to be an interesting year for consoles, and I think it really is make-or-break time for both Nintendo and Sony. Nothing is really set in stone yet, but barring any huge bombs being dropped by Sony in the next couple of months, I think it’s going to be great to see the consoles duke it out. I’m excited to see what new innovations the Wii has in store for us, and I am anxious to see what will become of Sony, and their questionable second-guessing of consumers. If anything, the competition between the giants of the industry will just mean better prices and better games, which I can’t argue with, no matter what system they are coming out for.

For the record, I’m currently saving up for a Wii… But you probably could have guessed. [:D]