It’s a red-letter day for consoles.
First off we have Phil Harrison spouting off at German mag Der Spiegel with the following statements:
We believe that the PS3 will be the place where our users play games, watch films, browse the Web, and use other computer functions. The PlayStation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC … In a certain way, I understand why people would say such things [about the similarity of the PS3 controller to the Wii’s], but it is stupid, if you’ll forgive me saying so. We have already worked on it a long time, and Nintendo almost certainly has done likewise with something similar. It is perfectly naturally for two companies to work on identical devices. It’s like that with technology.
Shits and giggles all around in the Sony camp I figure. There’s got to be something in the water there for them to think that not only is the PS3 priced accurately for what it’s worth, but that it’s probably too cheap for what we’d get. After all, we should be thankful that they’re even allowing us to have the opportunity to buy the PS3, because they have hordes of loyal customers waiting to buy them all out.
This on top of the rush job these guys had to do after Sony sprang the “new” Dualshake controller on them, which some have referred to as having merely tacked the ability onto their old controllers.
On the other side of the next-generation camp, Microsoft VP of Gaming Peter Moore told Kikizo games that nobody gives a crap about backwards compatibility on the 360.
Nobody is concerned anymore about backwards compatibility. We under promised and over delivered on that. It’s a very complicated thing… very complex work. I’m just stunned that we have hundreds of games that are backwards compatible … more are coming, but at some point, you just go, there’s enough, let’s move on, or people aren’t as worried about a game being backwards compatible – and I like to think we’ve upheld our end of the bargain in making at least two or maybe three hundred games backwards compatible.
Here’s the list. Notably missing are Project Gotham 2, Blitz: The League, The Warriors or any of the 2K Sports series except World Series 2K3. On the bright side, all of the die-hard gamers that were clamoring for Barbieâ„¢ Horse Adventuresâ„¢ Wild Horse Rescueâ„¢ have been satisfied.
We should all be more thankful that the console companies know us much better than we do.
