1Up Pulls Through

Over dinner on this fine sunday…day, my lovely wife pointed out a very enlightening article to me. It is 1Up’s examination of the similarities between the launch of the PS2 back in 2000 and the PS3 just a few short months ago. You should definitely read the full thing, but I will point out some of the better revelations here.

It starts off on a shakey foot, comparing the Dreamcast to the Xbox360 because they are cheaper then their corresponding Playstations and came out about a year beforehand, but that’s really where the shaking stops. The shocking similarities between the two systems (in their respective markets) is really eye-opening. Both have much-sought after movie capabilities (dvd & blu-ray), both are backwards compatible with the Sony system previous to them (albeit limited), and both launched with roughly 400,000 units in North America when around a million units were promised (both times!). Probably least surprising is that both systems featured very creepy ad campaigns consisting of seemingly incoherent tv commercials.

I actually cried a bit when I saw the images you see at your right, with the “evolution” of Playstation controllers, and how that ever even made it onto this list. Sure the PS3 has motion sensitivity and is wireless, but was anything about those announced prior to Nintendo’s unveiling of the Wii? Did Sony’s controller department do ANYTHING for the last 6 years? Oh and of course no one should be surprised that Sony is supposedly losting $150-200 on every single PS3, the same amount they reportedly lost on every single PS2 ever sold. One major point of contention I had was that they claim the average e-bay price of the PS3 in November ’06 was only $600 (the same as the PS2 in November of 2000), but really this is from my memory of the end of the year so any proof otherwise and I’ll concede to 1Up’s awesome journalistic researching powers.

Even more interesting is, now that they’ve gotten you all excited and hopeful about the PS3 actually not sucking, they follow it up with the article: 10 reasons the PS3 won’t be able to repeat the success of the PS2. Now I really bow to the awesomeness of their journalism, they’ve set us up and now they’re really driving a point home!

Highlights from this article include the fact that DVD’s had no clear competition, while HD-DVD and Blu-ray are in a dead-heat battle. The absolute best part is when they talk about the Playstation systems’ competition, 1Up said for the PS3:

With Xbox 360 Microsoft now has a year headstart on Sony and a better online service; Nintendo has gone batshit insane in an attempt to become the ipod of gaming.