Diving With Processors

by Darren Lee Taylor - 2008/01/05 2:19am

As Playstation 3 owners will no doubt tell you by now, and with one hearty look at our reviews section on the site, it would seem that Sony’s latest console entry isn’t exactly brimming with high scoring, first party offerings, exclusives, or system selling titles at this present stage of its shelf life. It’s also apparent that it’s continued failed attempts at counterattacking the competition with absent affluent and consistent releases, not to mention its lacklustre PSN offerings throughout last year; the future at first glance looks decisively bleak for the once proud Japanese studio.

Sony’s marketing strategies, including its bizarre advertisements and profile schematics leave little to be desired, and along with the negative press documented throughout the mainstream media channels, and various criticisms on their delayed European launch, pricing decisions and launch titles, it seems that the company is only just recovering from these worryingly brash mistakes. Q3-Q4 for Sony looked slightly more promising however, as titles started to bolster sales throughout retail, and with the significant price drop, added support and functionality downloads the console started shifting serious numbers, but still outpaced and outgunned by the crafty, skilled and lucrative Eastern rivals Nintendo. Unfortunately Nintendo have had a phenomenal year with their Nintendo Wii and DS, with style, control and remote play easily bypassing any of Sony’s Sixaxis gimmickry. Nintendo have also received praise throughout the media for entertaining and opening up a new audience, a player with fun, interactive and simple design complementation in mind; where sports, mini-games and even fantastic first and third party adventures such as Galaxy, Prime and Zack and Wikki have propelled sales of the little white boxes into the stratosphere, with the UK seeing a huge rise in videogame sales throughout 2007, breaking all records, and achieving a mass market revenue of a whopping £1.5billion pounds.

Of course, this feature is not designed to simply admire and peruse Nintendo’s last year celebrations, neither is it an attack on Sony’s misfortunes and failed impact in the first wave of the race for this generations golden crown. To compete with sales of the Playstation 2 Sony must pick up its game quite considerably in 2008, and that it surely will…how do I know this…well…its all down to the processor and the graphical beauty that is the Cell chip, the submersion of its secret nuclear weapon buried deep under its myriad wave; basically in 2008 Sony will finally be in the position it has been waiting for since March to launch a full scale attack on Nintendo and Microsoft’s governance, and challenge the number one spot in this territory, and on Eastern shores. A position only gained by the emergence of some fantastic final year titles such as Ratchet and Clank, Call Of Duty IV, Uncharted and Half Life, and upcoming inter stellar bounties such as Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto IV, Gran Turismo 5, Resident Evil 5, Devil May Cry IV and Final Fantasy XIII. Most of these titles are multi-platform however, crossing wires with the also steady success story, the Xbox360. So what makes the PS3 versions the ultimate titles for your collection?

Firstly, we have the upcoming launch of HOME, the online universe created for the player to dwell and dive into a fictitious world of virtual escapism, displaying a presentation of awards and videos, aesthetical character and surround preferences, ready for guests to sit, enjoy and revel in your handy work. This service was delayed until Q1-Q2 2008 in Europe, and the rest of the globe, but when it does surface, will surely strengthen Sony’s backbone in the marketplace, and bring in the gamers that are so swayed by the Live service offered by Microsoft. Also in the pipeline is the fantastically addictive LittleBigPlanet that will no doubt cover the gap between Home and the next first party offerings. As for the PSN, more titles are said to be in development, plus retro classics from both the PS era and other formidable 80’s consoles to spruce up the offerings for 2008.

There is also one other form of PS3 detail in its titles however that I am most interested in, and that’s its gloss, its malevolent use of the underlying power of the ‘extra’, being the super shine on most of its high definition experiences. Call Of Duty, Uncharted and Ratchet and Clank all prove the case in point, a submersion of colour and processing punch. Its even present in Oblivion and Rainbow Six Vegas, where the items of level structure and design, layout and mapping gleam with a pleasant warming glow. The extra polish on these titles makes the experience even more powerful for the absorption of the gamer’s cultural and political views in the games narrative. A title such as Call Of Duty IV, which you can find our verdict of in our reviews section right now, swallows the player into its modern realm of warfare by bypassing the level of motion immersion that you find in the Nintendo Wii and implementing the powerful graphical engine instead, in turn alienating the child audience, but groping the masculine integrity of Sony’s main audience at the same time. This kind of bit processing is like the PC era of gaming ten years ago, when the processing options were far more limited in terms of scope and realism. Now that the Cell contains the GB needed to process this new behaviour, such as the fantastic character motion in Uncharted, and you get a console that could quite possibly overtake the PC in terms of family media entertainment…. a question that is inevitably left for another day.

With this extra arsenal at Sony’s disposal, the console war of this generation is about to step up a gear or two…and lets face it, who missed the intensity of the rivalry between Sony and Nintendo last year, I certainly did. With so many third parties complaining that the Playstation 3 is the most difficult to code for, it seems Sony’s first mission in its next phase of combating the other systems was to release easier development kits. With added firmware updates and technological advances in the BluRay functionality however throughout 07, plus a rumour of a pre-E3 press release in March 08, Sony must continue to bolster its European push towards consumer relation and mass market releases, with an aspiring look towards big hit titles that can only be found on the Playstation 3. Final Fantasy XIII and Guns Of The Patriots are good starters, both in-line for a March 2008 release. With the community starved of any graphically impressive genres on the Wii system, and with Microsoft prodding its fingers in so many pies, such as HD movie downloads and music and video activity, it might just be Sony’s camp that you need to reside in this year if you so choose to be victorious in your purchasing choices. Happy New Year to all our forum members and here’s to a great year for Sony"