Is it just me....(PS3-related)

[Perversion]

...or does it seem Sony, regardless of the fact that their system sales are less than both of its competitors, seems to be the nichè system in terms of released games (especially downloadable stuff)? This follows for the PSP to some extent as well.

Examples:Patapon, LocoRoco, the original Lumines (although that soon went mass-market upon release), all for the PSP;

Pixel Junk Monsters, the "interactive art" stuff for the Playstation Eye (and even Eye of Judgment, at that), a video editing program for the Eye, Everyday Shooter (to an extent...granted, it's their "answer" to Geometry Wars, but it's definitely a bit more quirky, and really not just a straight-up shooter),flOw....and one of the most anticipated releases before the end of the year (notice I said ONE OF....I'm not counting MGSIV, although there's been rumblings that MGSIV might NOT be the mass-market system seller in the way some people suppose it might be, especially with the video game market exploding with casual gamers) is LittleBigPlanet, which, from what I've seen, is nowhere NEAR mass market in the way Resistance or Killzone are.

I mean, I guess the PS2 had its fair share of quirky or nichè titles amid all the mainstream stuff, but I guess the difference is the ratios. As there are a lot fewer PS3 titles out, the pecentage of non-mass market stuff seems to be higher. It would seem to me that if Sony wanted to continue the trend set by their last two consoles, they would go all-out on producing/distributing huge "system sellers" as opposed to a lot of the stuff they are currently putting out. Could it be that Sony is actually catering to the "underground" gamer who is bored by the mass market stuff, and is intending for their system, as it never caught on in the way they expected from the beginning, to slowly build some goodwill amongst longtime gamers (after how they mishandled all the prerelease/release stuff), in hopes that word-of-mouth will get the snowball rolling?

And what about Home? It would seem (as Chuck Rich pointed out in that link to IGN or whatever) that the mass market would really have no use or need for a system like this, as Xbox's Live is all they need to find friends/send game invites, etc. However, for someone like myself, the concept of Home intrigues me a great deal, and is one of the reasons I invested in a PS3. I'm just crossing my fingers that it becomes all that Sony says it will be.

Or am I just thinking about the initial question too much?

[Chad]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

I think you're thinking about it too much. The games will come eventually, but Sony made a poor decision by not giving companies a better idea of their system long ahead of time. Especially when developers definitely need time to figure out how to utilize the cell processing properly.

I really don't even think Sony considers Everyday Shooter it's answer to Geometry Wars. It's kind of a different quirky title. They kind of got lucky and picked the game up before it saw a huge release on the indie PC market. The game was already done when they saw a copy and they just asked him to throw a few more levels in the game.

I'm kind of confused what you mean by mass market. Are we talking games for hardcore gamers?

[Biggie]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

Sony to me seems to not make much sense in what its trying to do.

Nintendo is doing the casual thing, Microsoft is doing the hardcore thing, while Sony seems to be trapped in videogame purgatory. All there games lack the wide ranged appeal that even a hardcore title like Halo 3 seems to do effortlessly.

I'm just still surprised some poeple got stabbed at launch for one of these machines.

But at least this year there are games I am very much looking forward to playing. =D

MGS4 and LittleBigPlanet are easily some of my most wants of '08.

[Perversion]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

To me, something like MGS4 (I guess I used Roman numerals in the last post, when it's really just listed as "4") is something that would appeal to a hardcore gamer....to me, a "hardcore gamer" is someone who grew up on video games, and can appreciate stuff that might be a bit different or quirky, because they've seen it all before. In that sense, my description of nichè probably has some overlap into "hardcore gamer" territory. When I say mass market, I'm referring to games that specifically appeal to (and pardon me for saying this PostulateMan) fratboy types who constantly dismissed videogames as being specifically made for nerds/sci-fi geeks, etc, until this last generation, when they began to purchase PS2s and Xboxes, and realized that there were a lot of games out there that they could enjoy (probably mostly shooters, of course). Granted, this is sort of a broad generalization, but I think you see my point. I do not consider someone whose Xbox 360 is his first console and who spends hours playing Halo 3 online "hardcore." I think (and this might only be my definition) that to be considered "hardcore" about something (be it a genre of music, a genre of film, or even streetracing, motorcycles....really anything), one of the prerequisites is to know something about its history or roots. Granted, this could come after the fact [a lot of people's first experience with an RPG was FFVII. Some played it for the "novelty" value and because of the hype, and then moved on to something else. Others played it, liiked it, and then through research, discovered stuff like FFT, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, etc, and then moving forward maybe got into stuff like Shin Megami Tensei (for an example)].

Or for music, you discover an artist you really like because it's different from anything else you've ever heard, and then go and do research on the artist and genre, and find other similar artists, or bands that inspired your initial find, and it just branches off from there.

So, yeah, to me, there are pretty much three broad categories of gamers....casual, "hardcore," and, for lack of a better term, mass-market or mainstream.

Then again, this may be one of those semantics issues we got into a debate about a while back re:"underground."

Oh, in case someone else posted in the interim, this post is directed at PostulateMan.

[Biggie]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

Oh, in case someone else posted in the interim, this post is directed at Postulate Man.

Why do I even post anyways.

I don't even exist to you guys. ;_________________;

[Perversion]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

I'll add you on my PS3 if that'll make you feel any better. :3

[Biggie]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

PSSHHH.

I couldn't even imagine remembering that username anyways. }:3

I mean jesus, is that your freaking phone number attached to that thing?

[Perversion]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

Well, let's just say that I was pretty damn disappointed when I realized that my avatar was supposed to be a seal, not a polar bear. Just pretend it's a polar bear, okay, guys? A good portion of the reference in my username/personal info/word bubble above my name when logged in is sorta negated by having a damn seal as my avatar.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

an interesting hypothisis, but i dont think this is the case. i think sony has acually just lost some big names due to not pre releasing their software to the companies so they wernt able to get familiar with as mentioned. plus, if i was a developer i would want to produce a game for a system that is popular and has a larger chance of selling more then going with a system that will involve more learning and production time and sell less copies due to system unpopularity.

much of what sony has to do is already stated in this thread. sony has to take a hard look at where they are and what they have to do to get there and start making some changes.

[Chad]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

I don't know about the "fratboys" you used to know, but there is a reason Madden has always been a top seller.

Now, to be clear, I wasn't talking semantics of calling a gamer hardcore. I was talking about demographics. Demographically, Halo 3, Gears of War, Final Fantasy, those are all games aimed at hardcore gamers. When you say casual, I'm thinking that you're referring to the genre. Card games, word games, puzzle games, MMOCCs. When you say mainstream I am thinking of the games that consistently sell well or are aimed for the broadest appeal, the mass market, such as Cars, Madden, The Mary Kate and Ashley games (), etc;

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

And what about Home? It would seem (as Chuck Rich pointed out in that link to IGN or whatever) that the mass market would really have no use or need for a system like this, as Xbox's Live is all they need to find friends/send game invites, etc. However, for someone like myself, the concept of Home intrigues me a great deal, and is one of the reasons I invested in a PS3. I'm just crossing my fingers that it becomes all that Sony says it will be.

I stand corrected. Home is going to be a whole lot more interesting than I thought it would.

One of the first games expected to shine in one of Home's series of game portals is Insomniac's Resistance: Fall of Man. Resistance is said to provide Home visitors with an interesting room to explore, one that will let PlayStation 3 owners visit unseen areas of the game and tap into bonus content in the form of "intercepted" radio communications between European and U.S. forces.

These hidden transmissions will help to flesh out the Resistance story, giving players a better understanding of the game's conflict. We hear that Home avatars will have free roam of unpopulated levels, not unlike a virtual Resistance museum.

We hear that the Home portal for Naughty Dog's PlayStation 3 adventure will follow in Resistance's footsteps, allowing Home avatars to explore the game's levels without the threat of being shot at, a nice feature.

But it's the Uncharted mini-game that has us far more pumped.

According to our sources, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune comes to Home armed with a side-scrolling 2D arcade game, described to us as reminiscent of both Contra and Out Of This World. Sounds kind of like Capcom's 2D remake of Bionic Commando in its execution, full of enemies and exploding barrels to shoot.

it's actually Warhawk's planned game portal that has us most excited. According to our sources, the Home lobby for the Incognito dogfighter will serve as a "war room" where up to eight players can meet to discuss their strategy for an upcoming match.

Sure, you could do that with text or voice chat, but it sounds like the developers have gone the extra mile to make planning your battles even cooler.

Using a three-dimensional "sand table" replication of the level, Warhawk players are said to be able to lay out their strategies in a properly scaled space. They'll even be able to place little army men avatars around the map to envision their formations, something we hope they can also do with teeny tiny Warhawk planes, tanks and Jeeps.

The Warhawk war room is said to also serve as a launchpad for games, thankfully, so jumping into a match shouldn't require leaving the Home interface.

If this is why it kept getting delayed it sounds worth it.

[Chad]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

Sweet bananas. That all sounds very nice.

[Perversion]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

link plz k thnks.

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: Is it just me....(PS3-related)

Here ya go. That's a PS3 Fanboy article that links to the three Kotaku articles.