2008 "The Year of the PlayStation 3" – Not Likely

After watching the E3 Press Conference be delivered by Jack Tretton, I have to say that im very disappointed.

I’m disappointed because yet again the European Market is left until last, and because of that, the English inventing Great Britain is left out of the loop. The U.S PSN Store at the moment has received a number of aesthetic “tweaks” along with the addition of the much anticipated PSN Video Store. Sadly however these will not be coming to Europe until “Next Year” according to Sony big boss Howard Stringfellow for reasons that are still be to explained.

As i have stated before, I can understand the requirement for regional based content, it makes absolutely no sense to advertise Japanese content to Europeans and vice versa. However promoting one region nearly a year ahead of the other regions is absolutely inexcusable.

The United States is a market of gargantuan size, but that doesnt mean British customers should be of any less importance when it comes to feature deployment. I’m disappointed that once again we miss out, despite the fact that we speak English as our mother tongue. We miss out because Sony will have to offer movies that we want to see in another 26 languages to cater for the nations of the European Union.

One country has to wait a year for a Video Store due to 26 other countries within its Region. Despite the fact that the U.S version of the store would work perfectly well within Great Britain. This is where the “Regional Content” Strategy that Sony employ absolutely fails.

Exactly the same can be said this week with regards to E3, Sony’s big media event to promote its latest games, I return after a week vacation, E3 has ended a number of days ago, log onto the PSN Store within the EU region and guess what, No E3 Press Conference Videos for you, just 10 Game Trailers (that you’ve already seen a million times before). Fear not however the content will arrive a week later, that’s two weeks behind the U.S Store!.

Why cant Great Britain have access to the U.S E3 Content, Why cant Great Britain have access to the latest content on the U.S Store – Afterall we wait a week longer for absolutely no reason, the content on the U.S store is already in English. We wait for Sony to translate it into 26 other Languages, again fail!

If i were in the position of Jack Tretton, I would combine the U.S and U.K stores together, so that they both got the same content, and then class the rest of the EU region as just that, the EU region. It makes perfect sense, and if no-one at Sony has even considered this possibility then … I completely give up!.

Along with the E3 Press Conference, where Tretton ackowledged things wouldn’t look up for another year or so, a number of games that were shown have no official release date, and we haven’t seen anything spectacular from any “actual” in-game footage.

Resistance 2 doesn’t look that brilliant, same as Resistance but with a new setting, and an expanded story line. MotorStorm Pacfic Rift, same as MotorStorm, again different setting but principally the same. KillZone 2 pushed back to February 2009, so that basically leaves the killer app of 2008 for PlayStation fans as LittleBigPlanet.

I would expect LBP to shift more consoles for PS3 than the MGS4 (Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots) Bundle, and if Sony don’t release a LBP PlayStation Bundle then they are clinically insane!. Capitalizing on the hype of LBP and its huge appeal to a wider audience is a must to make 2008 successful.

PlayStation isn’t going to take on the Wii and win, but it may very well overtake the Xbox 360. The problem we currently have is that we are two years into the PlayStation 3 Lifecycle, which is expected to last around ten years, at a maximum. Two years into the PlayStation 3 Lifecycle and nothing spectacular, infact the console has only just got onto its feet.

Early adopters (myself at launch) have had to wait two years for any half decent games to be released, some of the current games like Ferrari Challenge suffer from horrible online issues that should have been addressed by the developers before the game was released. Paying £45+ for a game and then having to wait two months for a patch to actually play against your friends online is horrific!.

So after everything is said and done, E3 was a huge disappointment for Sony, not really showing anything we haven’t seen before, or even anything realistic. MAG (Massive Action Game) showed only a concept using a CGI Trailer, not exactly a highlight, impressive, but not practical. Every game trailer we had seen before, so nothing new.

Everything we were shown at E3 is released Q3/4 2008 or Q1 2009 should there be no more delays. PlayStation Home we were “absolutely assured” (Tretton) would be “worth the wait”. However should it be delayed again, it will be one of those over ambitious technology showcases that is pushed to the back of everyone’s mind.

There’s a golden rule in the games industry, under promise and over deliver. Its just a shame that Sony don’t grasp it yet.

Sorry to Jack Tretton for not having him on for an Interview, but sadly we’re out of time.