Epic Games' Mark Rein Steps Up For Sony
Not that there's just a surplus of folks speaking out in Sony's defense these days, but there are some practical realities that exist outside the current watershed environment that seems to be so focused on either loving or hating Sony (with a considerable focus on the latter). While their mistakes have been numerous and grievous, and their inability or unwillingness to be forthright about many of those problems leaves Sony exposed for only more scorn, a few industry folk are trying to set the record straight. Epic Games' Mark Rein, for instance, who's made a basic but bold assertion:
"Sony has a very, very strong brand, so in my opinion, they're still the one to beat."
He explains further:
"The Wii is an impressive piece of hardware, but as you get the visually more impressive games coming out for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, as the marketing dollars get turned up to support the larger quantities of machines, with potential price drops and titles like Singstar which appeal to the larger market... Those machines will ignite, they'll take off, and they'll sell just fine."
I think the phrase to focus on here is "sell just fine," which is a far cry from "eat the Wii and kill its babies." While other consoles are selling faster, the PS3s price will go down with time, and its snafus will be improved - at the very least, it won't get worse. Even the European backwards compatibility drama relies mostly on the March 23rd update that will answer some, if not all, of our compatibility worries. Not that it'll be a sure thing, but you can see the direction in which Rein is looking: Sony will, at some point, start picking up the slack. (At least, it better.)
What say we all?
tiny dancer
Posted to Miscellany on 14 March 2007
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: epic games, mark rein, ps3, sony
oh here we go, Yogi Bear can't release a single soundbite without slammin' Nintendo.. -be it ever-so-subtly. This guy has made himself a million enemies but he just can't stop obsessing over the Big N.
Isn't the announcement of Home, LittleBigPlanet, GoW3, bringing back rumble and moving to 65nm technology already the start of Sony picking up the slack?
When they shipped Krazy Ken off to some obscure department, wasn't that at least a start?
Not to rag on it, but Singstar flopped here in the states and it's exactly a great standard for sales.
While all the things Sony made an issue of at GDC are great things people should enjoy, until that price drops to something fathomable, I can't see too many people getting excited.
I think what Sony (and devs like Mr. Rein) are forgetting is that there are so many great games out right now, across all platforms. I know I'm still working a backlog of games that span the ps2, xbox, gc, even the GBA! The additional features Sony just announced just that additional features. They still haven't got the games to lure me away from the games/consoles I already own. At it's current price, the "8 out of 10s" they've currently released don't have that much pull.