The wow starts now
Today I have spent most of my day staring at a screen, saying Wow! In fact that is not totally true, sometimes, instead of Wow! I would say Amazing! or Holly cow! Before you ask, no, I did not install Vista on my laptop. That would be a total waste of time and it wouldn’t justify a single expression of amazement, I am much too familiar with the kind of garbage Microsoft produces to be surprised.
What happened is that today I got a brand new 1080p 60” plasma television installed in my living room. If you have been reading my blog you may now that I have been watching less and less television and you may therefore wonder why on earth I would spend good money on a new TV set. You are right, I didn’t buy it to watch television. That is good, because regular channels do not look very good on such a huge screen and I only have about ten HD channels, most of which are extremely boring.
What I really wanted was to be able to view the output of my PS3 the way it was meant. You see, until recently I have been using my console primarily as a Blu-Ray player. That by itself justifies a large screen, but what really convinced me were some of the recent titles released for the PlayStation 3. One clear example is Uncharted:Drake’s Fortune. This is a typical platform game but incredibly well executed. It is the first time that I have found myself spending time just looking at the amazingly beautiful landscapes instead of running to the next level. It is that gorgeous. The same happens with Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction and even simpler games such as Super Stardust HD.
Many do not even imagine how much current games cost to develop. As you probably already know, there are many games that cost more to produce than a feature film. I am not surprised, when you see modern games you see that they are the future of entertainment. That doesn’t mean that I expect movies to quickly become obsolete. For that to happen, many problems need to be solved first. For starters, computer games still cater to a relatively small audience, primarily young males. That needs to change, quickly. The second problem is more complex. Consoles have become very good at online gaming. However, that does not really mean playing with others, it generally means playing against others. That is why consoles do not provide the same kind of feel good experience as going to the movies with the family. That is why most generally play alone and watch movies in group.
That dichotomy is, from my point a view what is causing problems for Sony. It is clear that the PS3 was designed to conquer the living room. That is why they included features such as HD movie playback, picture browsing, music sharing, etc. The problem is that if you are a hardcore gamer you do not want to put your console in a place where you may not be able to play, simply because other family members are sitting there to spend some quality time together. I strongly believe that the PS3 would have been much more successful if it had casual games that can easily be played in small groups of people across gender and age barriers. That would be much more consistent with the way Sony’s console has been marketed so far. That also means that even though I am looking forward to Metal Gear Solid 4, I think that Sony needs to release more games like SingStar or SceneIt to make major inroads into the living room.