Sony's Reasoning for Cutting BC from PS3

So the theory is that if you remove the PS3's ability to play great PS2 titles, consumers will purchase shitty PS3 titles to fill the void?

This is starting to get really pathetic.

This seems like some form of desperation. The PS3 is ahead of its time, sure, but that won't matter if it doesn't live to see that time.

the reasoning in his mind is fucked, i knew from the start that the ps3 would die and this pretty much proves its death is almost imminent.

And the chances of me (and other people I know) wanting to be a ps3 any time in the future have dropped from 75% to 30%. Way to drive away anybody who'd buy it Sony. 😛

I saw someone in a topic about this say it's like a little kid touching a stove. You tell him not to do it, but he just puts his hand there and touches it anyways.. haha

You're all wrong. The 40GB model lacks BC, but the 80GB model has it, as does the 60GB and 20GB if you can find it. So if you want it, you can have it, atleast for now. But it's honestly not a big deal. They do have a point, you likely already own a PS2 anyway. While it is handy to "upgrade" or get rid of the PS2 and just have the PS3 for all your Playstation gaming, it's not a big deal to most and if it is to you, spend 100$ more on the model that will.

This does create some confusion. But in the big picture anything you can do to cut the entry price helps.

Really, how many of you are affected by this? Which of you was going to buy a PS3 and suddenly won't because of this news? And don't lie, if you don't have the money, you weren't going to be buying it so your opinion doesn't really count now does it.

I wouldn't mind having a PS3. I also wouldn't mind getting the 40GB model for 400$ which can't run PS2 games. It's not like I don't have a PS2. So I'd rather save 100$ to buy games than spend an extra 100$ to play the same old games.

You guys are just enjoying beating on Sony, which I can't really blame you too much for that cause it is fun. But I don't think you can claim they are losing so early on. We have the upcoming Holiday and many things coming out next year. I think the $400 model will do well since it puts it on equal footing (more or less) with the Xbox 360 price wise. This holiday season will likely validate their move to get a cheaper model out there.

Sony has its problems, but they still command a huge part of the market, with the PS2 still making them alot of money.

Mott has a point but I really do enjoy beating on Sony.

"Sir! People are buying more PS2 games than PS3 games, what do we do?"

"Uhhhh let's quit supporting the PS2 platform on the PS3 that'll do it!"

"Sir! Wouldn't it make more sense to create some stellar lineup of exceptional games that the competition can't offer to choke them out like we did with the -- *gack* *cough* *slump*"

"I find your lack of my marketing genius... disturbing."

Basically if I buy a PS3 I want it to play PS2 games because one day my PS2 will break, and I'm willing to assume that it is reasonably likely that a new PS3 will last longer than an old PS2. However, I'd rather spend $500 on a better TV so my current consoles look better.

Sony really doesn't seem to get it.

Yeah the whole thing is just stupid. There is literally no reason to do this. It saves them next to nothing. And yeah, I wouldn't buy it strictly because of this. I don't want to have my PS2 eternally plugged in just to play those games again. Not to mention, I only have so many ports on my TV. Right now, Wii and PS2 are taking up my TWO Component inputs. If I want to plug anything else in that's Component, I need to ditch one. And yeah, if the PS2 breaks down, I'd be screwed.

AtmaWeapon wrote:"Sir! Wouldn't it make more sense to create some stellar lineup of exceptional games that the competition can't offer to choke them out like we did with the -- *gack* *cough* *slump*"

"I find your lack of my marketing genius... disturbing."

Kupos to you for the Star wars reference, Atma.

And with this...Sony's gaming division has just dug it's own grave, shot itself in the foot, and finally buried itself from the inside of the hole.

:P Removing backwards compatibility? Not a good plan. When the PS2s have all died, then how will people play these great games again? It was bad enough when nintendo cut off the old school gamboy games fro the DS, but this...This is Sony shitting on it's loyal customers yet again...

The difference though is my Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, and all 3 of my Game Boy Advance units are still going strong. They don't have moving parts, so really the limit on their life is the buttons.

The PS2 has moving parts and a reputation for failing after a while.

Really though the biggest problem facing people who look forward to nostalgic gaming in the PS2 and Gamecube era is analog sticks. My N64 controllers could last maybe 6 months. Gamecube controllers seem to last a year or so of heavy use. My PS2 controller seems to losing its thunder in the up direction. What do we do when there aren't any more controllers? 😞

im not buying a PS3 because they are now trying to use a business model that minimizes features instead of maximizes features..

if we support them then all companies and future consoles will work the same way and in the end the consumers will be the ones hurt.

Slightly off topic, but I just saw this.. wow:

What the hell did they do to the PS3 version?

there not a screen shot of the same frame, so its a dud comparison.

This raises an interesting question:

When constructing a gigantic piece of war machinery that walks upright like a person and spits death from both arms, the chest, and sometimes its weiner... why do you put brake lights on it? Are you concerned that the motorists behind you might not know that you are about to stop and you want to give them warning? Wouldn't they be more concerned with shooting you than safety?

*edit* Also tank treads for a nutsack???

MottZilla wrote:Hey guys, I'm white knighting a $499 console with no good games

I'm not interested in the PS3 at all. I can easily enough afford either models, but it's just not worth the price tag. PS3's online play is horrible and the graphics aren't that much of an improvement over my 360. I'd rather spend $179 on the HD-DVD addon for the 360 and the rest on fun games.

The next Final Fantasy, which used to be one of the largest reasons I purchased a Playstation, doesn't even look that appealing.

Alex, I'm just pointing out how people blow everything out of proportion with PS3. The BC cut isn't such a big deal. I'm sure you'll be able to play PS2 games again when the PS4 comes out and emulates them. 😉

And wow that Lost Planet comparison is sad. Even though they are not the same frame, the PS3 looks to have really bad texturing and lighting.

I just think it's silly to bash Sony and then declare them dead. They still have time to go before you can really declare them dead. Still, aside from the hardware issues and lack of blue laser technology, I support the X360 more than anything. But you have to remember that Sony is M$'s competition, and you can't have Sony lose. If they do, then M$ owns the market, and then everything gets shitty.

MottZilla wrote:If they do, then M$ owns the market, and then everything gets shitty.

I tried using that excuse about Nintendo vs. Sony when there wasn't a Microsoft to worry about, and again when the XBox was a joke. The response?

HURRRR GAMECUBE SUCKS NINTENDO SUCKS WHY DON'T YOU GO PLAY SUPER SMASH HELLO KITTY YOU LITTLE BOY AHAHAHA GAMECUBE SUCKS GAMECUBE SUCKS.

You know what? PS3 sucks. The XBox 360 is superior in every way, and it is surpassed by the Wii in several ways as well. The XBox 360 delivers better graphics at a cheaper price with inferior hardware. XBox 360 delivers a better online play experience. XBox 360 is almost fully backwards compatible with the XBox, and Microsoft is committed to maintaining the backwards compatibility.

What's the PS3 got over the XBox 360? Blu-Ray and games from franchises that jumped the shark 5 sequels ago.

The Wii delivers a library of games you can't put down. You hate the Wii because you hated the Gamecube because you hated the N64 because it didn't have violent games on it. Let it go. Even though the Wii supposedly has worse games, worse graphics, and actually has no online experience, want to know what the Wii can do that PS3 has been completely unable to do? Sell enough units to empty the stock of every store in a region. Sony had to go so far as to pretend PS3 had done so to keep their feelings intact. So even though I have to admit the hardware is many times inferior to the PS3, you cannot deny that the games are fun and the system is cheap, which is precisely what has always brought success to a gaming company.

Even though you think PS3 is God's gift I assure you the reason that people hate on it has nothing to do with a predetermined bias and everything to do with these handy bullet points:

• Less features
• Higher price
• Marketing people that spin the above two as "more valuable features!"
• A continuous backpedaling on BC support, arguably the cheapest element of the system
• Inferior graphics
• Lack of compelling games

Yeah, Mott, you seem to be missing the point of why most of us are mad. Sure, the BC would be great, and it's a bad buisness move on their part. But the thing that really makes me hate Sony is the reason behind this move. They did it in order to push the new, crappy PS3 games. Instead of actually producing quality stuff for it, they just want to cut off the alternatives.

Yeah, I'm a die-hard Nintendo fanatic and a Microsoft hater to boot, and even I say that the 360 is an amazing piece of hardware.

AtmaWeapon wrote:Shut up.

I tried using that excuse about Nintendo vs. Sony when there wasn't a Microsoft to worry about, and again when the XBox was a joke. The response?

HURRRR GAMECUBE SUCKS NINTENDO SUCKS WHY DON'T YOU GO PLAY SUPER SMASH HELLO KITTY YOU LITTLE BOY AHAHAHA GAMECUBE SUCKS GAMECUBE SUCKS.

Not my fault if people are idiots man.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
You know what? PS3 sucks. The XBox 360 is superior in every way, and it is surpassed by the Wii in several ways as well. The XBox 360 delivers better graphics at a cheaper price with inferior hardware. XBox 360 delivers a better online play experience. XBox 360 is almost fully backwards compatible with the XBox, and Microsoft is committed to maintaining the backwards compatibility.

Not everyway, but in most it is. The 360 has some bad points, like DVD storage limits, lacks of harddrive standard for caching, and poor hardware reliability. But that's about it, and indeed destroys PS3 in other areas like ease of development, unified memory, online play.

The 360 does BC via software, so it's not like they can't afford to put it in every model. Anyways..

AtmaWeapon wrote:
What's the PS3 got over the XBox 360? Blu-Ray and games from franchises that jumped the shark 5 sequels ago.

Blu-ray and a standard hard drive too. But yes, it doesn't really have anything new and exciting. But it will take time, afterall look how late into PS2 many great titles came out. I don't think they can beat the Xbox now though. But you can't just consider the PS3 a flop. You are over estimating the intelligence of the average consumer.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
The Wii delivers a library of games you can't put down.

The Wii has some cool games, but it has some horrifying ones too. See Red Steel.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
You hate the Wii because you hated the Gamecube because you hated the N64 because it didn't have violent games on it. Let it go.

Really? Funny because I loved the GameCube. And I loved the N64. And I played violent games on both. Got anything else left?

AtmaWeapon wrote:
Even though the Wii supposedly has worse games, worse graphics, and actually has no online experience, want to know what the Wii can do that PS3 has been completely unable to do? Sell enough units to empty the stock of every store in a region. Sony had to go so far as to pretend PS3 had done so to keep their feelings intact. So even though I have to admit the hardware is many times inferior to the PS3, you cannot deny that the games are fun and the system is cheap, which is precisely what has always brought success to a gaming company.

Just remember, Nintendo is a business and employs a "just enough" type strategy. It would work against Nintendo to ramp up Wii hardware production as high as possible. It benifits them to make and ship just enough that they will all be snapped up immediately. I would certainly disagree with the statement that the Wii has worse games than the PS3. We all know that's not true. The Wii has some very cool games. I never said the Wii sucks ass and has no good games or anything like that. I also think it's relative to say the Wii is cheap. For $250 I could get much more advanced hardware. I think it's too much for me. But like I said before my main interests in games these days are online play and massive scale games.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
Even though you think PS3 is God's gift I assure you the reason that people hate on it has nothing to do with a predetermined bias and everything to do with these handy bullet points:

• Less features
• Higher price
• Marketing people that spin the above two as "more valuable features!"
• A continuous backpedaling on BC support, arguably the cheapest element of the system
• Inferior graphics
• Lack of compelling games

I understand that perhaps it hasn't had enough time to gather an impressive game library because it takes a long time to make games these days. That's a hole you next-gen jerks dug yourself. The more complicated you want your stupid graphics to be the longer you're going to have to wait for your mediocre games. You've helped would the PS3, congratulations.

Why did I say PS3 is god's gift? That just your Sony hate right there. Less features? Less than what? I find this is just related to the killing off of PS2 BC in the 40GB model. Higher price, well DUH! This is the #1 problem.

The marketing sucks, we've known that since the PSP came out.

The cutting on BC is understandable when the system came out at $600 and sold at a loss. Remember that the PSTwo retails at 130$ and contains primarily the same EE+GS that is in the original PS3. So it would be adding a significant cost to them. So they cut it down to just the GS and emulate the EE via software, which I believe worked just fine. The real problem is them being cheap and cutting out the GS.

Inferior graphics isn't the hardware's fault entirely. Alot of the PS3's problems are the result of poor development tools (just like PS2). This situation could and should improve.

The lack of games, it's comparable to the Xbox 360's first year really. For the first year I played Perfect Dark Zero, Dead Rising.... And then finally around the year mark Gears of War came out. Now lets see what does PS3 have. Well it has Ninja Gaiden Sigma, even though it's the NGX update, if you didn't have an Xbox it's still new to you. It's got that Resistance game. It's got alot of multiplatform titles. I really don't think the game selection is as bad as people make it out to be, as they act like it's permenant.

Oh and this thing about next-gen games taking so long to make? Assassin's Creed has been in development for 4 years. Hm, fucking Zelda OoT was in development for atleast that long. And there wasn't anywhere near the amount of content. You may love the Wii, hate the PS3, and make love to the X360 in the dark shadows were no one can see you, but some of us don't have to swear alligance to one console. Some of us can see the faults and positives of each console and don't feel the need to jump all over and hate a particular platform for no real reason.

Edit:

AMaster, I understand people being made they have to pay more for BC. But I already made my point that if you want BC you can get it still. But people act as if this is the death of Sony. That's just foolish. People are too jumpy and eager to shout disaster. I agree that cutting BC to force people to buy PS3 games would be a bad idea. But that's a lie. The real reason it was cut was for cost, to get a lower priced PS3 out for the holidays. It's not Sony being evil. It's Sony trying to listen to consumers. Consumers say PS3 costs too much. Consumers also generally own a PS2 already. Solution, cut PS2 support from a new PS3 SKU since they don't NEED it. But remember so far they aren't cutting BC from all units. The 80GB ($500) SKU still supports it. And the 60GB can still be found for $500 or less and has both the EE+GS. Jack Tretton is a douche bag and not in charge of anything. Sony of Japan makes all the decisions.

MottZilla wrote:The Wii has some cool games, but it has some horrifying ones too. See Red Steel.

See every single game console ever made. EVERY console has shitty games. It's the ratio of good to shitty that you need to look at.

That's true, but alot of you are neglecting to really look at the good titles that you could get on PS3. There are good titles. Yes alot are also on 360, but it doesn't take away from the PS3 unless you have a 360.

Alot of you seem to act that you want to see Sony curl up and die. While I can understand the hate for their attitude like they had early on with PS3 and PS2, I don't think it would help if Sony bit the dust and no longer made Playstation products. They certainly will be getting a much needed ass kicking/reality check, but don't forget how many of you own Playstation products. Wouldn't you want them to improve? Or do you just want a 2 party system where you have Nintendo making Wii games and Microsoft owning everything else?

I don't think wanting them to succeed because you don't want Microsoft to succeed is a very good reason :P

No, we don't want M$ not to "succeed". I want them to do very well. But outright domination would potentially lead to problems.

MottZilla wrote:That's true, but alot of you are neglecting to really look at the good titles that you could get on PS3. There are good titles. Yes alot are also on 360, but it doesn't take away from the PS3 unless you have a 360.

Alot of you seem to act that you want to see Sony curl up and die. While I can understand the hate for their attitude like they had early on with PS3 and PS2, I don't think it would help if Sony bit the dust and no longer made Playstation products. They certainly will be getting a much needed ass kicking/reality check, but don't forget how many of you own Playstation products. Wouldn't you want them to improve? Or do you just want a 2 party system where you have Nintendo making Wii games and Microsoft owning everything else?

I'm going to add to this something very important. If the PS3 is way more powerful than the 360, then if a game goes to both consoles, it is more than likely that the PS3 version will be way better.

Hell remember back when DOOM was on just about every console including the SNES? Or when just about all NES/SNES games were ported to the gameboy? How many people said, "I don't wanna buy an SNES because I can get mortal kombat on gameboy"? Very few, if any, would have said that. Yet here we are, with 2 systems that huge such a big power difference, arguing against the higher powered one because primitive versions of its games can be found on the lower powered one. Does that make any sense?

Anarchy_Balsac wrote:I'm going to add to this something very important. If the PS3 is way more powerful than the 360, then if a game goes to both consoles, it is more than likely that the PS3 version will be way better.

shame the xbox so far has the better game quality when it comes to multi port games 😉

it depends entirely on the engine/architecture that the game was originally based on.

Anarchy_Balsac wrote:I'm going to add to this something very important. If the PS3 is way more powerful than the 360, then if a game goes to both consoles, it is more than likely that the PS3 version will be way better.

Hell remember back when DOOM was on just about every console including the SNES? Or when just about all NES/SNES games were ported to the gameboy? How many people said, "I don't wanna buy an SNES because I can get mortal kombat on gameboy"? Very few, if any, would have said that. Yet here we are, with 2 systems that huge such a big power difference, arguing against the higher powered one because primitive versions of its games can be found on the lower powered one. Does that make any sense?

PS3 is *not* more powerful. If anything, it's convoluted system archetecture makes games more difficult to develop and generally looking worse than 360. It has *potential* to be better, but this is maybe 6 years down the road, by which time it won't make a damn difference.

exactly, the 360 would kill the ps3 before anyone becomes proficient in coding for the ps3.

Warlock wrote:PS3 is *not* more powerful. If anything, it's convoluted system archetecture makes games more difficult to develop and generally looking worse than 360. It has *potential* to be better, but this is maybe 6 years down the road, by which time it won't make a damn difference.

That's odd, PS3 is ahead of its time, 360 is not, and yet despite this, it isn't more powerful. Very weird indeed.