For my part, I enjoy approaching video games from a more academic point of view and as any person, gamer or otherwise, can understand each system has it's pros and cons. There are certain things about the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii that make them absolutely excellent systems. However, on the flip side, there will consistently be flaws that either ship with a system or become glaringly apparent over a period of time as a company attempts to adapt a console to an ever-shifting marketplace. Being a proud owner of a 360, a Wii and at one time a Playstation 3, my hope will is that my reasoning will become clear over the course of this piece. Additionally, it should be taken into consideration that I do still own my Playstation 2 and have a huge collection of games for it and it's previous console. But at the end of the day, there were just a few decisions on Sony's part that honestly didn't make me feel comfortable owning their 'latest and greatest' console anymore, and out of that came the top 5 reasons I will not own a Playstation 3.
5. Lack of Backwards Compatibility: I'm not sure how many people in the gaming community felt that an awkward cord was struck when Sony announced that it would be phasing out backwards compatibility. As an initially promised feature in the 60gb Playstation 3, it has since made them rarer than a t-shirt at Mardi Gras. While there have been people who have kindly pulled me aside and attempted to convince me that it isn't a big deal or that ditching it in favor of downloadable content from the Playstation Network is a progressive step in the right direction, I'm still not convinced years after the fact. It seems to me that at the beginning, following the initial release of the PS3, Sony realized that not only were the systems not selling, but even if they did it would be at a loss. So, the profits that couldn't be garnered there certainly had to be made up otherwise and in the infinite corporate wisdom that the company has demonstrated countless times throughout this generation of consoles, Sony announced that they'd be releasing all of your favorite original Playstation and Playstation 2 titles on the PSN for download. Some people rejoiced with the amount of convenience this perpetuated. However, it immediately struck me as odd, especially with the removal of the ability to play those original games from the disc in my PS3. Certainly if the technology existed for me to play a title that had been created years ago on the system I just downloaded it to, I could still play it from the disc nestled gently on my shelf. Absolutely not. It seemed that this was the first thing Sony saw they could remove and in doing so sent a very clear message to those who had been quietly loyal to the company for years; We have no problem charging you for something you've already paid for. It was a move that made me cling to the Sony that told me I could happily play Tekken 2, Final Fantasy VII or GTA 2 on my Playstation 2. But as time went on, I realized that the worst was yet to come and that the Sony I had known and loved wasn't the same company anymore.
4. Playstation Network (Online Gaming):This isn't the part where I applaud Sony for giving me the ability to play online for free, because if I've learned anything in my years as a consumer it's that you get what you pay for. I can let a random disconnect from a service slide when it happens once in a blue moon. But when occurring consistently to the point that online play is an exercise in frustration, that's when I finally give up. On the other hand, the amount of content is staggering in that there is always something new to check out, pending it isn't a release of something gamers saw on disc over a decade ago. Though for a system that touts it's wireless ability so strongly, it takes forever to download larger files - even on a stable, strong wifi connection. This wouldn't be so much a problem if the updates didn't spiral into ludicrously large sizes at times. And while it's understandable to suffer for what you love, in the case of consumer electronics, it becomes an exercise in futility that will only piss people off at the end of the day. Sure, it's cool that Sony doesn't want to charge for you to play a game online. That's cool. But then you lose the ability to complain when it doesn't work Moreover, I can understand a resistance to charge for online when the initial investment for a system was originally $599 US dollars - before a game was even thrown into the mix. But now that the system price has come down significantly, which is in-part thanks to a removal of certain features I consistently fail to understand why Sony doesn't just move the PSN and all the games playable on their servers in house so that their users ultimately have a better experience. That is unless they're still too busy screaming about Uncharted 2 from the rooftops.
3. Updates Removing Features: This is perhaps my biggest issue, because Sony has done it and has put a universal fear in anyone who really understands the magnitude of the situation, primarily because there is an excellent chance that they could very well do it again without so much as letting PS3 owners know. Once upon a time, back when Sony was selling fat Playstation 3 consoles, you had the ability to install an alternate OS to the hard drive of the system. This opened the door to not just people who wanted to run Linux distributions to their consoles, but even caught the attention of the Air Force who went as far as purchasing 2500 of the systems to set up an experimental Linux cluster just to see if they could do it. But with a single update, Sony decided that they could take this feature away. And not only take a feature away, but a feature they initially touted as a console standard in the same way a car dealership brags about the leather seats, stereo and air bags that come in that Escalade you bought for your wife to get her and the kids from A to B. Sony's official reasoning for this was for the sake of 'security', which I buy as much as a TSA official telling the six-year-old kid with leg braces he has to walk through the metal detector without his crutches because of 'the 'times we live in'. Even if this was due to a security reason, Sony opted to take the ball away from every kid on the playground and go home instead of patching the system via an update that would look for the OS that could potentially cause harm. It just goes to show you how content Sony is with the laziness pertaining to it's online environment and even worse is a blatant example of the disconnection that exists between the loyal Sony gaming community and the corporate entity that exists on a relatively same plane. It is a perpetuation of the thought that SCEA is completely content with telling users what they want as opposed to listening to what they're asking for.
This feature editorial concludes on the next page, please click below to continue with my top reasons not to purchase a Playstation 3.
