Lure of the Past
I've just been reading this months EDGE magazine.
There's an article on the PS3 in there in which Ray McGuire, MD of SCEE, defends Sony's position on making the new PS3 model lose it's backwards compatibility.
This was done to try reduce the costs involved in manufacturing the PS3 which costs Sony - the company loses money in selling PS3.
Now I get reducing specs to reduce the cost (the other features missing from the new model include 2 less USB ports, 20Gb less hard drive, and the memory card reader) but I'm afraid that, for me at least, the backwards compatibility is non-negotiable.
We all know that updating and improving consoles doesn't necessary mean that games are also improved. Games like Space Invaders, Defender, Tetris, Super Mario Bros, Secret of Mana, Sonic, Metroid, Zelda to name but a few are regarded as classics on the systems that they first appeared upon. That's not to say that new consoles don't bring improved gaming to existing IP (and some of the games in that list have been improved in later years) - original games don't necessary lose their appeal just because a new console has been released.
And being able to play the old games on improved systems is something of an appeal.
Nintendo and Microsoft think so hence the Virtual Console and XBLA, and Sony used to think so.
I offer my gaming past as an example.
Converted to Nintendo at a young age, I owned an original Game Boy and a SNES. About my mid teens, I had discovered beer and girls and lost interest somewhat in the whole gaming thing. Both were sold off and the money went off to valuable causes (beer and rent)
It was in my second year that a friend of mine switched on his original Playstation and allowed me to play Resident Evil 2 for the first time.
I think I bought my own console within a month (what else was my student loan for?) with my own copy of RE2, along with the original Resident Evil game.
Somehow my then girl-friend (and my now-wife!) watched me playing those games and became hooked herself on that title. She's not overly keen on actually playing survival horror titles (though we double-teamed Obscure) but she loves to watch.
PS2 came out and there were three things that sold it for us (once the price had dropped from it's initial value) - a DVD player (which we didn't have at the time), Resident Evil Code Veronica (which I wasn't buying a Saturn for) and the backwards compatibility. We could sell the old PS but still be able to keep all the titles we liked (Res Evil, Dino Crisis, Parasite Eve, Medieval (noticing a theme?) and Crash Team Racing). Cool.
When the Res Evil series moved onto GameCube, we duly purchased one (actually we (SHE!) bought Resident Evil Remake before the console. Somehow, we avoided purchasing Resident Evil 4 until it's PS2 release (I think Prince of Persia and God of War helped there :-])
So, that's the current situation. We have two consoles under the TV and a shelf still has PS1 games alongside GC and PS2.
Now, at some point we will buy a Wii. The ability to play Gamecube games is a big plus and not even having to learn a new control system is good. The Virtual Console is another plus (I'm really hoping that Secret Of Mana gets confirmed for this) - though having to buy a different controller for this is (or will be) something of a pain.
It's a fairly good bet that we will also purchase one of the other big 'next-gen' consoles also. But this is where things get less predictable.
I can pretty much guarantee that once Resident Evil 5 comes out that we will have a console that can play this in pretty short order.
The PS3 has one main advantage over the 360 at the moment in that we'll still be able to play all the old titles (that, by the way, is 53 titles on my shelf RIGHT NOW - 53! I've just counted 'em). Sure, some of those titles will be traded in at some point but that's a lot of old titles and some of those will not be thrown out (the entire Resident Evil Series on PS1 and PS2 bar the appalling Survivor 2; Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Prince of Persia, God Of War, Dino Crisis)
To be able to play those titles and more is the only reason that we haven't purchased a 360 yet. The Elite model looks good, has a decent spec, some very appealing games, and my best man waiting on xbox live.
If the PS3 drops its ability to play the old games, it won't take much convincing to purchase the 360 and just keep the PS2. With the price of the PS3 where it is, it wouldn't cost much more to do this and I can guarantee that She won't allow for the Resident Evil games to be abandoned - and it seems a little pointless to purchase newer versions that are no difference to the original, such as the flood that appeared on GC while the series transferred.
Nor should we have to abandon them. Another good reason for leaving gaming when I did was that the new (at the time) N64 and Saturn machines couldn't play the older games. It seemed pointless to upgrade for flashy graphics when the games I enjoyed and had bought could not be enjoyed on the new systems.
It still seems pointless now. Purchasing a 360 and a Wii still seems to make more sense than a PS3 and Wii. In an ideal world, we would get all three but I've yet to see any titles that are really pushing the PS3 (God of War 3, and Metal Gear Solid 4) - most of the games I'm currently interested in also have a 360 version (Assassins Creed, UT3, TimeShift, Dead Rising, Gears of War, Lost Planet)
I suspect that we'll probably purchase a PS3 first while we know backwards compatibility is still available for the games that we own. I'd rather wait until the price comes down and the HDD capacity goes up - then of course that one appears to be a simple retrofit; going off-topic but our DVD player has a 400GB HDD - why are consoles supplying a HDD that is so stingy?
Just remember my list of reasons to buy the PS2.
Well, this time, the Blu-Ray format is not pervasive enough, andResident Evil 5 is not a Sony exclusive.
That only leaves backwards compatibility.
And by the way I have no plans to purchase a PSP to be able to pay again to download PS1 games that I already own (or acquire illegal cracking software).
Sony are going to have to be very careful at the minute but it's really looking like Microsoft and Nintendo are going to win this generation of consoles.
There's an article on the PS3 in there in which Ray McGuire, MD of SCEE, defends Sony's position on making the new PS3 model lose it's backwards compatibility.
This was done to try reduce the costs involved in manufacturing the PS3 which costs Sony - the company loses money in selling PS3.
Now I get reducing specs to reduce the cost (the other features missing from the new model include 2 less USB ports, 20Gb less hard drive, and the memory card reader) but I'm afraid that, for me at least, the backwards compatibility is non-negotiable.
We all know that updating and improving consoles doesn't necessary mean that games are also improved. Games like Space Invaders, Defender, Tetris, Super Mario Bros, Secret of Mana, Sonic, Metroid, Zelda to name but a few are regarded as classics on the systems that they first appeared upon. That's not to say that new consoles don't bring improved gaming to existing IP (and some of the games in that list have been improved in later years) - original games don't necessary lose their appeal just because a new console has been released.
And being able to play the old games on improved systems is something of an appeal.
Nintendo and Microsoft think so hence the Virtual Console and XBLA, and Sony used to think so.
I offer my gaming past as an example.
Converted to Nintendo at a young age, I owned an original Game Boy and a SNES. About my mid teens, I had discovered beer and girls and lost interest somewhat in the whole gaming thing. Both were sold off and the money went off to valuable causes (beer and rent)
It was in my second year that a friend of mine switched on his original Playstation and allowed me to play Resident Evil 2 for the first time.
I think I bought my own console within a month (what else was my student loan for?) with my own copy of RE2, along with the original Resident Evil game.
Somehow my then girl-friend (and my now-wife!) watched me playing those games and became hooked herself on that title. She's not overly keen on actually playing survival horror titles (though we double-teamed Obscure) but she loves to watch.
PS2 came out and there were three things that sold it for us (once the price had dropped from it's initial value) - a DVD player (which we didn't have at the time), Resident Evil Code Veronica (which I wasn't buying a Saturn for) and the backwards compatibility. We could sell the old PS but still be able to keep all the titles we liked (Res Evil, Dino Crisis, Parasite Eve, Medieval (noticing a theme?) and Crash Team Racing). Cool.
When the Res Evil series moved onto GameCube, we duly purchased one (actually we (SHE!) bought Resident Evil Remake before the console. Somehow, we avoided purchasing Resident Evil 4 until it's PS2 release (I think Prince of Persia and God of War helped there :-])
So, that's the current situation. We have two consoles under the TV and a shelf still has PS1 games alongside GC and PS2.
Now, at some point we will buy a Wii. The ability to play Gamecube games is a big plus and not even having to learn a new control system is good. The Virtual Console is another plus (I'm really hoping that Secret Of Mana gets confirmed for this) - though having to buy a different controller for this is (or will be) something of a pain.
It's a fairly good bet that we will also purchase one of the other big 'next-gen' consoles also. But this is where things get less predictable.
I can pretty much guarantee that once Resident Evil 5 comes out that we will have a console that can play this in pretty short order.
The PS3 has one main advantage over the 360 at the moment in that we'll still be able to play all the old titles (that, by the way, is 53 titles on my shelf RIGHT NOW - 53! I've just counted 'em). Sure, some of those titles will be traded in at some point but that's a lot of old titles and some of those will not be thrown out (the entire Resident Evil Series on PS1 and PS2 bar the appalling Survivor 2; Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Prince of Persia, God Of War, Dino Crisis)
To be able to play those titles and more is the only reason that we haven't purchased a 360 yet. The Elite model looks good, has a decent spec, some very appealing games, and my best man waiting on xbox live.
If the PS3 drops its ability to play the old games, it won't take much convincing to purchase the 360 and just keep the PS2. With the price of the PS3 where it is, it wouldn't cost much more to do this and I can guarantee that She won't allow for the Resident Evil games to be abandoned - and it seems a little pointless to purchase newer versions that are no difference to the original, such as the flood that appeared on GC while the series transferred.
Nor should we have to abandon them. Another good reason for leaving gaming when I did was that the new (at the time) N64 and Saturn machines couldn't play the older games. It seemed pointless to upgrade for flashy graphics when the games I enjoyed and had bought could not be enjoyed on the new systems.
It still seems pointless now. Purchasing a 360 and a Wii still seems to make more sense than a PS3 and Wii. In an ideal world, we would get all three but I've yet to see any titles that are really pushing the PS3 (God of War 3, and Metal Gear Solid 4) - most of the games I'm currently interested in also have a 360 version (Assassins Creed, UT3, TimeShift, Dead Rising, Gears of War, Lost Planet)
I suspect that we'll probably purchase a PS3 first while we know backwards compatibility is still available for the games that we own. I'd rather wait until the price comes down and the HDD capacity goes up - then of course that one appears to be a simple retrofit; going off-topic but our DVD player has a 400GB HDD - why are consoles supplying a HDD that is so stingy?
Just remember my list of reasons to buy the PS2.
Well, this time, the Blu-Ray format is not pervasive enough, andResident Evil 5 is not a Sony exclusive.
That only leaves backwards compatibility.
And by the way I have no plans to purchase a PSP to be able to pay again to download PS1 games that I already own (or acquire illegal cracking software).
Sony are going to have to be very careful at the minute but it's really looking like Microsoft and Nintendo are going to win this generation of consoles.
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