The PlayStation Drawback

It solely took simply shy of 4 years, however I lastly desire a PlayStation 5. Positive, Avenue Fighter 6 appears neat, and me being a Star Wars fan I’d like to check out the most recent Jedi recreation and even dabble in Outlaws, but it surely’s Astro Bot that has me wishing I had a kind of obnoxiously ugly monoliths underneath my TV right now. I haven’t been too eager on PlayStation for a lot of years now, but it surely wasn’t all the time this manner. I used to like PlayStation, and with the superb promise of Astro Bot, I’m hopeful that I can get there once more.

I write about Nintendo so much. I’m a Nintendo fan, and I’ve been ever since I first touched an NES controller with Tremendous Mario Bros. at my pal’s home. In fact, earlier than that I used to be an Atari fan, and I by no means stopped being one when Nintendo got here round. I assumed my uncle’s Grasp System was fairly neat, too. Video games had been video games, irrespective of the place you performed them, and I by no means felt a way of superiority with my system over another person’s. However then, the Console Wars started. 

I wasn’t all that media-aware when Intellivision was taking pot pictures at Atari, so when the Sega Genesis arrived on the scene, declaring that it did what Nintendidn’t, I foolishly selected a facet, and that facet was Nintendo. 

I missed out on plenty of nice video games due to that, and I used to be totally ready to proceed to take action when the Nintendo 64 hit the scene. I by no means cared a lot for Crash Bandicoot, and Tremendous Mario 64 was a revelation. However then Castlevania confirmed up on PlayStation. Remaining Fantasy VII confirmed up on PlayStation. Steel Gear Stable confirmed up on PlayStation. These properties that I had come to like on my Nintendo platforms had been leaping ship, and I merely couldn’t take it any extra. I went to my native Electronics Boutique and picked up a PlayStation with a duplicate of Castlevania: Symphony of the Evening, and I used to be instantly hooked. The startup display, the controllers, the wondrous issues the CD-ROM format might do this the N64 might by no means dream of, had been all superb. I particularly keep in mind a pal of mine coming over to my home along with his rented copy of Mace: The Darkish Age. We performed it for a bit, however after I booted up Soul Blade on the PlayStation, a 32-bit system that was supposedly half as highly effective because the N64, it fully blew it out of the water. 

The PlayStation helped me shake off my Nintendo blinders, and it kicked off a long-term love of the model. I nonetheless had tons of enjoyable with my Nintendo 64, however I got here to understand the sorts of video games that had been touchdown on PlayStation, and by extension Saturn. I went again and picked up a Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, 3DO, and loved as many video games on as many platforms as I used to be capable of. I beloved how completely different all the things felt again then. Every system had their strengths and personalities, and as a lot as I didn’t love a number of the PlayStation identification, there was far more that I beloved than I didn’t. 

I spent numerous hours with my PlayStation and all of the bizarre, superior video games on it. And whereas I had a particular chip on my shoulder when the PS2 mainly killed the Dreamcast as a result of it had a DVD participant in it, you higher imagine when that system acquired its toes underneath it that I performed a metric ton of nice video games there as effectively. Okage: The Shadow King, Katamari Damacy, Steel Gear Stable 2, Ico, Amplitude, God of Warfare, Guitar Hero, the sheer amount of nice video games throughout all genres was astounding. I used to be nonetheless a Nintendo fan above all the things else, however PlayStation had earned a spot in my coronary heart for 2 strong console generations. 

That began to alter with the PlayStation 3. Not solely was the system monumental and loopy costly, there weren’t any video games on it I wanted to play moreover Steel Gear Stable 4, which I purchased earlier than I even had a system to play it on. I did wind up getting a PS3 finally, however I picked up only a few video games for it. Granted, the Xbox 360 was a think about that equation, in addition to me reaching some extent in my life the place I had much less and fewer time to really play video games, however from a pure numbers perspective, my PlayStation fandom dropoff is sort of loopy to look again at. In my assortment proper now, I personal 142 PlayStation video games, 145 PS2 video games, and a whopping 11 video games for my PS3, and 5 for my PS4. Toss in my 7 PS3 digital downloads, and you continue to have a mere fraction of the variety of video games I purchased on earlier generations. Once more, there are plenty of components on this change, together with time and finances, however the true concern got here all the way down to the video games themselves. PlayStation stopped making the sorts of video games I wished to play. 

Quick ahead to right now, and we’ve got the right distillation of contemporary PlayStation represented by two video games. Harmony, and Astro Bot. On one hand, we’ve got Harmony, a large, large finances, hyper-realistic reside service hero shooter being billed as the following large factor. On the opposite, we’ve got Astro Bot, a inventive 3D platformer with a 3rd of Harmony’s finances that celebrates PlayStation’s historical past. And the general public’s response to those two video games couldn’t probably be completely different. 

Harmony stands as an ideal instance of all the things improper with PlayStation’s present method to video games. To not sound too imply, however the whole factor struck me as extraordinarily creatively bankrupt from the second it was unveiled. The dialogue all seems like what folks assume Guardians of the Galaxy seems like. (It doesn’t. The Guardians motion pictures are literally actually nice). However there’s a snarky goofball man, a stoic warrior, a badass woman, and many others. This man likes scorching sauce! Isn’t that quirky! It’s simply… eeehhhhh. And the final consensus was that my emotions had been shared by the overwhelming majority of gamers. This style was already oversaturated 5 years in the past, however Sony was determined to chase that pattern and get in on the infinite cash printing enterprise that they went forward and launched the sport anyway, and their hubris bit them large time. Harmony was a large flop, with its servers being turned off and refunds being issued a mere 2 weeks following its launch. 

Now, take a look at what persons are saying about Astro Bot. I can’t keep in mind the final time I noticed this many individuals genuinely excited a couple of PlayStation unique. Positive, there was ferver about getting the PS5 console itself, however the video games haven’t actually moved the needle, not less than nowhere close to as a lot as Astro Bot appears to have. Right here’s a recreation that isn’t hyper life like, that isn’t designed to turn into a life-style, and is concentrated in the beginning on being enjoyable. And it looks like it’s about to do gangbusters for Sony. And I hope with all my coronary heart that it is a wakeup name for the upper ups and never a one-off flash within the pan. 

Just lately, I’ve been writing a sequence of posts referred to as The Nintendo Report, the place I’m breaking down all of Nintendo’s IP and seeing how they’re doing right now. It was a lot enjoyable, I assumed it could be neat to do the similar for PlayStation, and let me let you know, writing these is MUCH extra miserable than doing it for Nintendo. The sheer amount of unique properties that Sony has produced over time with completely no followup is astounding. In the meantime, a Sony Exec just lately went on report as saying one thing to the impact of following Harmony, Sony simply would not have that many manufacturers to fall again on. 

Utter insanity. It’s Sony’s personal failure to foster their manufacturers that has put them on this place. Nintendo has the huge catalog they do as a result of they take the time to iterate and develop their video games. They do not all the time do an ideal job of it, however there’s a cause their properties are so effectively beloved, and so lots of Sony’s are merely forgotten. Alundra? Blasto? Leaping Flash? Heck, Jak & Daxter? Sly Cooper? The record of IP they presently personal is staggering, and darn close to rivals Nintendo’s. Sony owns Q*Bert! They made a complete profitable TV sequence out of Twisted Steel, however its final launch was over a decade in the past! The place the heck did Syphon Filter or Leaping Flash disappear to? 

Outdoors of Nintendo, the sport business goes via an actual tough patch. Video games have gotten too costly to make, and the notion that all the things must be some type of huge infinite cash printing “reside service” has turned off everybody to only how good non “AAA” video games can actually be. This yr, with the Swap on its final legs, we’re seeing a small scale Zelda recreation, an HD remake of Luigi’s Mansion 2 and Paper Mario: The Thousand 12 months Door, Emio: The Smiling Man, One other Code Recollection, and extra small scale tasks which can be doing nice for Nintendo. They aren’t raking in billions, however they do not need to, as a result of they didn’t value billions to make. And you already know what? Nintendo followers have been fairly darn glad. 

Sony must re-learn this lesson. They acquired off to such an amazing begin with PlayStation and PlayStation 2. The PSP was cool too, minus the absurd UMD format, and the PS3 was in the end a strong machine, regardless of my lack of curiosity in its prolonged library. (Their announcement of a $700 PlayStation 5 Professional would not precisely fill me with confidence). However now, right now, with the gaming panorama being what it’s, it’s time to cease chasing the infinite cash printing machines and get again to only making attention-grabbing video games that folks wish to play. Not play ceaselessly, simply play till the following one comes alongside. This must rake in all the cash as an alternative of sufficient cash is what’s positively choking this complete business, and it has to cease. It merely isn’t sustainable. We’re seeing the same factor within the Tv and Film areas, and it’s terrifying. Mass layoffs and cancellations occur each week, however the template exists to do that stuff proper. The wheel can proceed to be refined, but it surely doesn’t have to be reinvented. I need so badly for Sony to turn into the sort of firm who makes video games I wish to play once more. Fingers crossed Astro Bot is an indication of issues to come back.