Sony's new games console - although don't let them hear you call it that. The
Playstation 2 is their main contender for the upcoming battle to win consumer's living rooms, which they hope will give them a stranglehold over the services people use with
broadband internet access, and
DVD. Some have described it as a "
Trojan Horse" because of Sony's lofty rumoured plans for it. It was originally unveiled (after a fashion) last year with excessive fanfare and hype. Sony's main selling point is that the machine has a significantly faster
CPU. They couched this in risible
marketing speak, dubbing the chip an "
Emotion Engine" while neatly ignoring the fact that the
PS2 lacks many graphical features that PC games take for granted.
In the machine's favour, it is very fast, and Sony hope that the ridiculous fill-rate will help developers prop up its weak feature set with clever software routines. Whether developers will invest the time and money to do this, especially in the light of horror stories about the somewhat lacking development environment, is another matter. It also includes hardware DVD playback. There is room for expansion with networking and storage components as well.
There are many beefs that I have with this machine. Bear in mind that they are in some cases rather subjective, and there are very few that would actually prevent the enjoyment of a good, well-written game on the platform (should any appear).
First up is the ugly design. I don't know if it's a deliberate reaction against Apple's crazy idea of making consumer electronics aesthetically pleasing, but there are three things I do know : It's very big, It's very (Amstrad) ugly, and it's very cheaply made (the CD tray in particular being worryingly flimsy). Time will tell if the hardware limitations described above cripple the machine, but the games I have seen so far have all used a hideously low resolution mode with massive jaggies. Metal Gear Solid 2, while it looks like a very nicely designed game, is already buckling to these limitations - low-poly models, sparse textures and jaggies everyewhere. How can Sony describe this machine as even technically competent, let alone revolutionary?
The European launch of the machine has been widely criticised as being something of a dog's dinner, with Sony's pre-order scheme (devised solely for the purposes of hype) backfiring spectacularly, with the machine being repeatedly delayed, and numbers slashed to under 200,000 for the whole continent. Sony tried to dictate their terms to retailers (for instance an almost non-existent profit margin forcing many stores to bundle 3 or more games with the machine just to break even), while further damaging relations with them by setting up an online retail channel.
To prove that they really know about industrial-strength greed, they even bundled a version of BASIC with the machine to have it classified as a computer rather than a console, and reduce their import duty.
By way of comparison, Sega offer their Dreamcast console (which is technically slightly inferior, but has more texture memory to spruce up games - allowing, for instance, a full-detail version of Quake 3 Arena) along with a bunch of titles and a seperate, non-regioned DVD player for the same price as the gameless, regioned PS2. However, marketing will still likely win the day for the Sony camp, at least for now.
Basically, this episode has indicated that Sony Computer Entertainment have adopted Atari's attitude from the early 80's along with their business practices. Arrogance and complacency will likely prevent the machine from dominating in the same way as its largely competition-less predecessor. I for one will be sticking with my PC as the primary games platform, and waiting to see what Nintendo have to offer next year. If Sony's total lack of commitment to software quality control continues, they're long overdue for a bit of a backlash.
Update, Feb 2002
OK, the Playstation 2 is not as evil as I originally made out. Although it is definitely lacking some technical refinement (the resolution and lack of texture memory being most apparent, but Sony argue that the memory is set up to act as a streaming buffer rather than a conventional static repository of textures), and Sony were very slow to lower the price to a reasonable level, it has sold like hot cakes and now has a few excellent titles in its library.
Of course, having three main consoles to choose from means that it isn't going to be the natural choice for everyone, but Sony were quite canny picking the right time for once to bring the machine out. (Timing can make or break a machine.) In effect, the machine is a continuation of the PSX, catering for the wider market by cutting some corners. I never bought a PSX because it established itself as the 'only' choice but didn't cater for all genres. (Plus it was graphically shite.) The PS2 might have the same problem, but at least now there are viable alternatives with decent third party support.