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Tripping at the Gate: A History of Marred Launches |
Listed in: PS3, Xbox 360 Tags: Dreamcast, playstation 3 updates, Ring of Death, Saturn, Sega, Sony
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There's a lot of grief in Europe, North America, and Japan over the recently-reported setbacks in Sony's PS3 launch, from being postponed to spring next year (Europe), from initial numbers being cut (North America), and from initial numbers being cut way back (Japan). As the streets run red with blood from both the PS3's jilted supporters and vindictive skeptics, it pays to calm down (on all sides of this so-called "console war"), take a step back and see things from a bigger, and historical, perspective. Botched launches are a dime a dozen in this industry, and they happen to the best of the lot as often as they do to the worst.Even the most recent launch, that of the Xbox 360, had its own share of problems. Today, Microsoft's game console is running steady - all the more given that its closest competitors have yet to launch - and in most accounts, smoothly. Its launch was anything but flawless in the eyes of some observers: first with having only a limited number of units available for the launch, then with hardware problems from hardware issues and that Ring of Death popping up unexpectedly, to disk scratching issues (although the latter was admittedly caused by users who didn't pay attention to the manual).
But such things are not new to the industry. Like what's written above, it happens to the best of us, it happens to the worst of us. Even the legendary PlayStation 2 had a just-as-limited initial North American release of 500,000 units. Even the revered Sega Dreamcast had hardware problems at launch - not to mention a number of games that simply refused to work as advertised, such as Mortal Kombat Gold (remember that "Hot! New!" label they added to the re-release?). Both Panasonic's 3DO and the Sega Saturn also fell apart at the gate, but in those cases they became mere footnotes to gaming history. And it's not unique to the industry, either. Even Apple, for example, had to contend with a host of issues that came up after the MacBook's debut.
Call it the price of innovation and competition. Nothing in life is perfect, no matter how much we may demand it be. There may be a lot of grief in the streets of gaming tonight, whether we're talking about the supporters or skeptics of the PS3. But, having taken the long view, we would prefer to think in the long-term. All the bad press, in the long-run, is noise-deafening, yes, but noise nonetheless. We can't speculate or concentrate on noise.
As with all the other consoles in gaming history - and all other innovations in the history of technology - we will simply wait and let the PS3 prove itself come launch day. We don't have to expect perfection, we just expect it to work decently. It's the only fair thing we can do.
Via GameDaily.com
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However, I think with what the console itself will offer it should prove worth the wait. People want more and more and more. When it does come out, people will just ask, "What next Sony?" and then you all get mad cause you feel like Sony has left you hanging again. So let's just sit back and wait for it to happen. You guys can't possibly be serious about buying WHEN it comes out. For some of the gaming audience getting mad about a delay, I feel like y'all are kids. The rest us working folk don't find a problem waiting. Our money can wait and it isn't eager to leave our banks. ;)
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PS3 will be on top like the PS2 did.
Anyway, in 5 year there will be no more console fight. Because all the people who brought an Xbox360 will have a PS3. Why?... because all the xbox360 will be OUT OF DATE!!!
Eventually M$ will realize that the xbox360 will be no match. And they will have no choice to release an other console.
Nintendo it's an other thing...I have respect for them!
Come XBOX FANBOY I'm waiting for you! I'm here to love my PS3. No one could change my mind. Except GOD !
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NES was King in the mid 80's.
Nintendo was slain by the Genesis.
Sega is overcome by SNES eventually.
Nintendo back on top hires Sony to make a CD Add-ON for the SNES.
Big N dumps the idea for 64 bit cartridges instead.
Sony is pissed and releases it anyway against Sega.
Sega is big in Japan but Playstation owns U.S. Market.
N64 releases but not as many casual gamers care.
Dreamcast is Sega's Next-Gen but turns out PS2 is more Next Gen, Microsoft tosses its big hunky chip into the mix and releases with Nintendos first CD based console.
M$ sits poorly in Japan but is #2 in U.S. (a market that even Japanese developers are catering towards) Sony is King. (yea... and it is a weaker system)
360 owns the Next Gen Market at the present. Sony had that 1 year lead last gen and it was the "inferior" the system. Time will tell but it seems M$ is playing its cards correctly in the Markets that really matter U.S. and Europe. Japan is gonna be pwned by the "Wii".
Basically it takes time... but a changing of the guard might be in order.
-V
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Pics and vids are no indication of gameplay graphics. We've seen very few footage of ACTUAL gameplay. And from those that play-test at E3 2006, it was supposedly underwhelming.
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But that's true for every new console in history!
Gamers will be saying exactly the same about certain PS3 games in future. :|
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it's too early to tell who will be number one when all the smoke clears. system performance is secondary to software in my book.
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- Works right
- Doesn't burn my house down
- Doesn't scratch my disks
So if there's ANOTHER delay, I can only assume that serious problems like these are being fixed. I'm willing to wait; it's 'investment security'.
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- Works right
- Doesn't burn my house down
- Doesn't scratch my disks
So if there's ANOTHER delay, I can only assume that serious problems like these are being fixed. I'm willing to wait; it's 'investment security'."
seeing as both the ps1 and ps2 really had some major problems worse then the 360...i don't really see the ps3 becoming a miracle no-problem free system in a couple of months.
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Thats nasty, get a girlfriend
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sony was actually second to hit the market in that generation... dreamcast had a 1 yr lead on sony.
"seeing as both the ps1 and ps2 really had some major problems worse then the 360...i don't really see the ps3 becoming a miracle no-problem free system in a couple of months."
last time i checked neither of my playstations burned down my house or had any serious in game glitches (although after 5 yrs of service my ps2 finally came down with the cursed disk read error) and i tend to think things on fire are WORST than disk read errors!!!
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Consoles also hit their stride in the 3rd or 4th year of their lifespan. #20, The projected split between the two versions is 80% high-end. Which would give about 320,000 on launch day. Sony's high-end alone is on par with the amount of units MS had sold days after the launch of the X360.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6157399.html?action=convert&click=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;0
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There is a company that is an exception to this article that promises and delivers, and makes a great piece of hardware in the process, Nintendo. I have never heard of any widespread problem in Nintendo products. Hell, most NES systems still work, it's the cartridges that are going bad. I've never had an SNES go out on me, or an N64, or even a Gamecube. The only problems I've ever had with Nintendo hardware is one time I had a dead pixel on my Gameboy SP, but Nintendo gladly paid for my shipping to fix it. And right now I have a cracked hinge on my Nintendo DS Lite, which Nintendo is also fixing right now for free. And those problems didn't even affect gameplay, it was just aesthetically unpleasing.
If Sony is making us wait this long and most of us won't even get to see a PS3 in stores until next year, and they are charging us 600 dollars, it better be damn near perfect.
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