The Seventh Generation: PlayStation 3

The third and final console to look back on is the world's best Blu-Ray player, the PlayStation 3.  All joking aside, the fortunes of the Playstation 3 were the exact opposite of the Xbox 360.  The PlayStation 3 had an extremely rough first few years on the market.  Coming off the incredible success of the PlayStation 2, Sony got complacent with the PlayStation 3.  Sony's ignorance cost the company as the PlayStation 3 fell far behind the competition.  It took a large price drop and a console redesign before the PS3 started moving off the shelves.  While Sony had problems getting consumers to buy the PS3, their first-party development in both the downloadable and retail spaces and their extensive library of third-party exclusives made convincing arguments for owning Sony's third console.  Once Sony turned their string of bad luck around, the PS3 became the console of choice for many gamers this past generation.

Out of the gate, the PS3 was struck with a seemingly never ending string of problems.  The over 600 dollar price tag was far too steep for most people even the most enthusiastic gamers.  Programming for the PS3 was much harder than the other systems of this generation due to the PS3's Cell Processor.  Sony executives were making outrageous claims about the PS3's "monster" sales.  Game developers and publishers from Valve to Activision were voicing their disdain against the system.  The one glimmer of hope in the early days of the PS3 was Blu-Ray's win over HD-DVD as the definitive format for high definition home entertainment.  Despite Sony's PR nightmare with the early years of the PS3, things eventually turned around for the system.  Even with the better standing of the PS3 in later years, there were still a good number of mistakes made by Sony.  One big problem with Sony in general is the company's lack of commitment to an initiative or product if it does not have immediate success.  During the life of the PS3, Sony relentlessly tried to shove two different initiatives down the throats of gamers only to completely abandon them less than a year after announcing them.  These two initiatives were the PlayStation Move and 3D compatibility.  The PlayStation Move was Sony's answer to Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Kinect.  Much like the Kinect, the Move tried to bring in a casual audience to the PS3 only to alienate the system's primary audience of hardcore gamers.  Sony tried their hand at 3D compatibility with the PS3 when stereoscopic 3D was all the craze back in 2009.  Sony put 3D compatible logos on all their major games and even released an extremely overpriced 3D monitor to get people to adopt stereoscopic 3D into their lives.  Both initiatives were just gimmicks that Sony used to extend to life of the PS3, but neither caught on and Sony ceased to promote them.

While Sony has made a good number of mistakes with the PS3, they have made some good decisions as well.  People made fun of using Blu-Ray discs as the default format for all PS3 games upon first release, but it is the biggest strength of this system.  While Microsoft faced numerous problems with their dual-layered DVDs for the Xbox 360, Sony's Blu-Ray discs are nearly indestructible.  One would have to make a considerable physical effort to damage a Blu-Ray discs.  Also the PS3 never felt the need to chew up games like the Xbox 360.  Apart from the great success of the Blu-Ray format, Sony's first-party efforts during this generation were among their strongest.  From established franchises like Ratchet & Clank and God of War to newfound properties such as Uncharted and Infamous to experimental titles such as Journey and the PixelJunk series, Sony's first-party had an incredible amount of variety compared to that of Microsoft and even Nintendo this generation.  This vast library of first-party titles was complimented by the great number of third-party exclusives especially in the later years of the PS3 such as Metal Gear Solid 4, Valkyria Chronicles and 3D Dot Game Heroes.

One cannot talk about the PS3 without discussing the biggest event in the console's life-- the PlayStation Network Outage.  This outage happened during the spring of 2011 when hackers attacked PSN causing Sony to shutdown all online functions for about a month.  This outage served as the biggest scare for gamers to this date as hackers got ahold of millions of peoples' personal and even credit card information.  The outage is considered one of Sony's greatest debacles, but personally this writer believes it is a significant turning point for the Sony PlayStation brand.  This outage was a wake-up call for Sony.  They nearly hit rock bottom in the eyes of the gaming community due to the outage.  Many people to this day do not fully trust saving their credit card information to any online store including the PlayStation Store.  This outage showed Sony the horrors of not protecting their customers and has brought forth a brand new direction for the PlayStation brand as a whole.  While Sony has not entirely turned the company's consistent problems around after the outage, they have made greater efforts to push games like the slew of Sony exclusive indie games and initiatives such as PlayStation Plus which actually please and benefit gamers rather than bring in the most cash.  Personally, this writer does not believe Sony would be in such a great position with all the good will surrounding the PS4 if it was not for the lessons learned during the PSN outage.

While things started out the worst possible way for the PlayStation 3, things eventually turned around for Sony's third outing in console gaming.  Hard lessons learned from the PS3 has definitely changed the PlayStation brand for the better as seen with the overwhelming success of the PS4's launch.  Although the PS3 may never be considered in the same league as its predecessors,  it is arguable the best console of this past generation.

E3 2012: Sony Press Conference Impressions

As the first day of E3 comes to a close, we saw Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft show their cards.  Some were more impressive than others, but ultimately today we saw what the future holds in gaming from the biggest publishers in the industry.  To close out day one is Sony to either end it with a bang or a whimper.  Surprisingly the result is somewhere in the middle.

The Sony Press Conference had a good starting and ending, but the middle dragged and bad.  The best thing about this year's press conference was that it was much better than last year's boring affair.  Sony gave a good amount of time to each demo, maybe too long for one in particular, and showcased some pretty solid games.  Much like Microsoft, Sony did jump from topic to topic with no sense of focus or direction and it ultimately hurt them and the conference in the end.  Some important topics such as meaningful additions to PlayStation Plus and pushing the PlayStation Vita as more than a port/sequel machine and game showings like The Last Guardian were no where to be found.  Sony's conference started out with the unveiling of Beyond: Two Souls, Quantic Dream's new IP.  It was a very interesting demo that showed off the game's very realistic graphics and gripping story, but like always I would have liked to see more gameplay.  As a first look of a game that will not come out until 2014, it was a good showing nonetheless.  That was followed by PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Sony's Super Smash Bros. clone, now for both PS3 and Vita.  It was a boring demo that really showed nothing new about the game.  They did reveal two new characters for the game in Nathan Drake and the Big Daddy, but who cares unless they make Kevin Butler one of the fighters.  After that Jack Tretton ran through a bunch of stuff no one really cared about before going into more demos of Assassin's Creed III and Far Cry 3.  While they were new demos for each game, they did nothing to outshine the demos Ubisoft already showed off at their press conference.  Maybe manning a ship in Assassin's Creed III is neat, but the demo really did nothing to make it look that entertaining or interactive for a matter of fact and Far Cry 3's online co-op had some obvious problems with lag and loading textures.  Right in the middle of the show, Sony decided to shift gears and target the casual gamers with Wonderbook, a neat concept that Sony will never fully support in the long run.  They demoed the J.K. Rowling's Book of Spells for Wonderbook, which was absolutely terrible and soo long drawn out that I almost fell asleep due to boredom.  Also on top of that the PlayStation Move was so finicky and non-responsive that it made the demo even worse.  That was clearly the lowest this press conference could go as things got much better with a demo of God of War: Ascension, which is really more of the same God of War experience, but still good.  To end the conference, Sony went with The Last of Us.  While the demo was very impressive yet looked like it played a lot like Uncharted, I thought Sony would save at least one surprise for the very end.  After The Last of Us demo, which has got me a little more interested, the conference just seemed to end and it felt odd.

Overall, Sony's E3 2012 Press Conference was a decent event.  It had quite a few good moments, but nothing that surprised me and got me excited.  Beyond: Two Souls would have been a big surprise only if Sony kept their mouth shut and did not reveal that Quantic Dream was going to announce it at their conference.  The big dip in quality right in the middle along with the omissions of some big topics and The Last Guardian, which I now believe sadly will not see the light of day, hurt this conference more than Sony has actually realized.

Grade:  C+

Launch Station: Sorcery

It has been a good two years since Sony showed off Sorcery as one of the big games for their PlayStation Move motion controller.  After that Sorcery nearly fell off the face of the Earth until a few months ago when Sony announced that it was coming this May.  Out today along with Dragon's Dogma and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Sorcery might just be the game that gets gamers to pick up their Move in months or be too little too late to save a product that has been dead in the water for over a year now.

Sorcery follows the story of young sorcerer's apprentice by the name of Finn.  The Nightmare Queen has broken an ancient pact with mankind and sends out here foul minions to cover the world in eternal darkness.  Along with Erline, a magical cat, Finn must journey through the dark Faerie Kingdoms and master the arcane arts in order to dispel darkness from his home world.  Sorcery is built from the ground up to use the PlayStation Move to the best of its abilities.  With the Move controller, Sorcery puts Finn's wand in the palm of your hands letting you perform numerous different spells.  As no two people are the same, every action you do with the wand from a flick of the wrist to a unique gesture with the wand adds to your own personalized style. Complete quests, rescue kidnapped children, recover ancient artifacts and aiding the local townsfolk are some of the things you are able to do as you travel across the Faerie Kingdoms.

Honestly when Sony showed off Sorcery way back at E3 2010, I was impressed with how the game played.  I have no doubt that Sorcery will be a solid game for the PlayStation Move.  I believe that it is far too late for Sony to catch up to the success of the Wii and even the Kinect due to their lack of actual support and promotion of the product.  While Sorcery will most likely get lost in the shuffle with the bigger releases of Dragon's Dogma and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, it looks like a great game for the casual PS3 gamer who already owns a PS Move controller.