Sony’s broken promises
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
Yesterday, i talked about the new 40GB PS3 model and who i think will and should buy it.
Today i would like to quote some excerpts from N’Gai Croal’s reaction at Level Up in his article Broken Promises: Why the Elimination of Backwards Compatibility With PS2 Games Is Great For Sony–and Terrible For Playstation Fans to the news that this new model will be going to North America soon after the European launch.
Like myself he was also disappointed but he goes further to compare the format with other forms of entertainment where backwards compatibility is taken for granted and is standard practice. The gaming industry on the other hand treats this as a privilege and gamers according to Sony need to pay more to acquire it.
| Quote: |
| While it is definitely in Sony’s best interest to introduce a cheaper model to help spur sales and grow its installed base, we have to add in no uncertain terms that we are extremely disappointed by the company’s elimination of backwards compatibility. We’re not surprised—the cost of goods in the PS3 made it likely that critical components would at some point be excised; also, we were the first to report Sony’s placement of an order for large quantities of 40 gigabyte hard drives—but we’re nevertheless shocked at this retreat from Playstation founder Ken Kutaragi’s vision for eliminating software obsolescence though continued hardware compatibility. While the idea that you could just take about any one of your PS1 or PS2 discs, pop them into your PS3 and play them wasn’t central to the PS3’s fortunes, it was seductive because of the way it made videogames just like other media: your CD player or DVD player may improve, but it still plays your older disc-based content. What’s more, it was a talking point that Sony used to needle Microsoft during the run-up to the Xbox 360 launch and thereafter, because of the Redmond giant’s much-discussed backwards compatibility woes. |
In fact even Sony’s current Playstation chief, Kaz Hirai promised this in 2006 with the following statement:
| Quote: |
| It’s always been an important strategy of Sony Computer Entertainment that we provide value to the consumers; and one of the values that we’re providing is the backwards compatibility of the Playstation 3, to play PlayStation 2 games that the gamers and consumers have bought over the years, as well as the original PlayStation titles that have been available in the market since 1995. And I think that when we ask the consumers, or the gamers to make an investment in software, that it’s our responsibility to make sure that the future consoles that we bring to market, including a Playstation 3, is able to actually play all these titles that the consumers have really spent a lot of money in, and invested a lot of money into really a master library. And I think you’re doing the consumers and the gamers a huge disservice, when you come out with a new console only to say, it only plays Playstation 3 games; and that’s really counter-intuitive to our strategy, but also, really to the Sony DNA who’re always trying to provide compelling consumer value in any of the products that we launch. |
Like N’Gai says, we could not have put it any better ourselves.
