How Sony Became 'The Good Guy'
They Often Call it a Sucker Punch
While it was never intended to be unfair, the initial list of launch titles for Microsoft's Xbox seemed to be a bit on the unfair side largely due to the presence of what were at the time considered to be Angel Titles -- games from a series that already had a built-in following.
The result of this is that when the Xbox took its first swing at Sony in the form of its launch titles, it did so with something of an advantage in that the first tier of titles included the newest Dead or Alive game was well as a new title (that would prove to be wildly popular) called Halo: Combat Evolved, and a pair of fully licensed NASCAR games (NASCAR Heat 2002 and NASCAR Thunder 2002), and its plat de résistance, the well-followed American football powerhouse Madden NFL 2002.
With the exception of Halo: Combat Evolved, which was a new title and therefore an unknown quantity, the other three games were considered to be significant threats to Sony, but probably not for the reasons you might be thinking...The inclusion of Team Ninja's Dead or Alive 3 as a launch title for the original Xbox was viewed as a body-blow largely because the game that established the series -- Dead or Alive -- had been released on the PlayStation, while the sequel, Dead or Alive 2, had been released for the PlayStation 2.
Whether this actually hurt Sony or not is really a matter of opinion, but it certainly helped Microsoft in obtaining the street creds that the new console needed to rapidly establish if it was going to be taken seriously. It also did not help that it was a game in a genre and style that Sony had almost single-handily helped to establish within the console market.
While it really had no claim or expectation to exclusivity in terms of its relationship with developing studios, Microsoft's ability to convince Team Ninja / Tecmo, Treyarch / Activision, Angel Studios / Atari, and Electronic Arts to commit to its new console certainly helped Microsoft gain the initial street creds it badly needed.
This, by the way, is where we fold-in all of the previously historical information from earlier -- you see Microsoft had, like America during the first and second rebellions, carefully chose its time to strike when all of the players in the Console War were weak, being in the recovery phase, and nearing release of their next generation video game consoles.
The Sixth Console Generation
Video game console tech was moving parallel to but growing closer with PC Gaming Technology, and thanks to previous examples towards the end of the fifth generation, any modern console with a chance at domination in this market would need to have a key set of features, not the least of which being the following:
Optical Storage Media - PC-CD or PC-DVD.
Magnetic Storage Media -- Flash-based portable drives and hard disc drives.
Industry Standard Architecture -- Combined Mainstream CPU and GPU.
Robust and Predictable Memory -- Sufficient RAM for future expansion.
Microsoft understood the very same factors that Sony both sussed out and, ironically, helped in pioneering -- that the modern video game would be both longer and more visually appealing, and would include online elements up to and including Player-Vs-Player and Co-Operative game play elements.
It was also well understood that the nature of gaming was changing -- that while there would always be a secure place for retail-boxed media-based games, the day was rapidly approaching when game studios and console makers would not only need to concern themselves with a new form of retail distribution: down-loadable game titles, and the means for expanding those games via DLC.
For those reasons, a variety of storage options were critical -- particularly hard drive based storage, and not only that, but full support for Internet-based communication, which both console makers understood was soon to be the dominant form of gaming.
Efforts towards tackling these core issues was widely celebrated as being the difference between an uncaring, unfeeling, and greedy manufacturer (Microsoft) and an earthy-crunchy, generous, and caring creator of video game goodness (Sony).
These factors present as the foundation for the fan-based appreciation of the PlayStation, its morphing into a fan-driven public relations campaign could only take the form that it did because for Sony to actually and intentionally launch such an effort would have required an investment in cash so huge it never would have been recovered.
Sony rose to the occasion and, whether you see this as an intentional or legitimate approach or not, ended up garnering a massive positive image thanks to having adopting a number of tech fixes to issues that, while perhaps not entirely a product of consumer awareness, nevertheless allowed the Japanese multimedia empire to score some serious positive karma!
Game Save Tech: The use of removable memory cards for storing game saves and to a limited level game updates was originally mainstreamed by Nintendo, but by adopting the most modern formats Sony leverages this tech as a fan-appreciated feature on its PlayStation line.
Optical Media: Choosing to build-in not just CD-based storage (really Sony had no choice on the matter because the size of modern games at the time combined with the need to include embedded video, music, and other media formats made it a critical component --
The DVD Decision: At the time the cost per unit was within Sony's purview due to the fact that the company happened to own two of the three factories that actually had developed and manufactured the bulk of consumer tech in the form of DVD players / Appliances -- Sony's decision to not only declare the PC-DVD as the default optical media for the new console, but to include a DVD Media Client as part of the firmware cemented he tech as a Sony invention (it really wasn't).
Massive Media and Storage: Engineering the PlayStation 2 with a hard drive expansion slot (the base unit for the console did not include a hard drive) by combining the bus interface with the optional network connection format in the form of a 10bT Ethernet adapter rather than including the adapter as core tech for the base PS2 unit allowed Sony to control the per-unit cost while at the same time emphasizing that it understood where the future of console gaming was headed was a perfect marriage of high-tech and economics. Sony ended up smelling like roses from that one...
A Perceived Generosity of Gaming Magnitudes
Bearing in mind that Sony and its next gen games console the PlayStation 2 arrived on the market a year before Microsoft's original Xbox, it is very easy to understand how the gaming public viewed the many new and emerging tech features of the sixth console generation as being practically a gift from Sony to grasp how in spite of both similar and improved tech offerings, Microsoft somehow missed out on the momentum that Sony enjoyed from the process.
Bearing in mind that for most gamers, when someone in the home suggested renting a DVD and spending the evening indoors, watching the movie, in 9 out of 10 cases that meant watching it on the ONLY device in the home that was capable of playing DVDs -- the PlayStation 2 -- it is easy to understand how the game console transitioned from stricly a game console to much more than that.
The inclusion of a second gamepad in key markets, what appeared on its face to be extended support for game studios that took the form of easily available hardware expansion -- remember that while the PS2 did not include either a Network Adapter OR a Hard Drive, games like Square Enix's Final Fantasy XI not only included a massive (at the time) 40GB hard drive that installed behind the 56Kbps / 10bT expansion interface, and it truly felt as if the PS2 defined the cutting edge game console.
Note that very few games actually utilized either the hard drive OR the network interface, and bearing in mind that there was no social-network-based environment at the time for the PlayStation, and yet the console still retained a significant impression that it was both economical and caring -- that Sony took the time and made the effort to provide players with the things that they needed to be fully engaged in the games that they played -- unlike Microsoft who appeared to be more concerned with the extra nickle or dime it could gouge from the gamer.
There are still plenty of examples, and we could go on and on about this, but in the end the important thing is that you emerge from this experience firmly aware that for most gamers the notion that it was Sony that enjoyed the reputation -- whether it was a deserved one or not -- as being the gamer's best friend.
A boring, convoluted, overlong article that still manages to seem unfinished. What a letdown. Was this guy paid by the word?
Here's the deal. Sony didn't 'become' the good guy, they ENTERED as the good guy in 1995 with a system that was hugely popular, plus cheaper and easier to develop for than the Saturn and more interesting than the aging SNES. If Sony ever became the bad guy to anyone but fanboys of the other companies, it was in the PS3 era when corporate hubris caught up with them. And when Microsoft introduced the Xbox One with all its hugely unpopular features--coming off the 360 and its obscene failure rate--Sony quickly became the good guy again. There. That's what really needed to be said and I said it in one paragraph.
Hole load of garbage fell asleep 1 times
Too long almost fell asleep twice
this was utter self-felating, clickbait fanboyism.
you really picked a winner, supercheats
Way way to long when my cousins read this they said for me to read it I did.Way to long please make this shorter with as much info as you can.
I agree. The first 3/4 of it was totally irrelevant and interest - draining. Also, the American Revolution metaphor is thin, at best. Hardly warranted an entire page of explanation.
This article is far too long-winded for its own good. Just give me the article, hold the fluff