Hello Darkness! The Official Blog of Helen Keller

The Sony Playstation 3 (or, The Video Game equivalent of removing the blindfold to find out you're fucking your sister)



The Playstation 3 was billed by Sony as the ultimate game machine. Supposedly, it would let you play powerful HD games online, for free, had amazing exclusive titles, included a wonderful new motion-sensing controller, could browse the internet, play Blu-Ray movies, land the space-shuttle, cure AIDS induced schizophrenic cancer, be a laser-powered karate-dinosaur and a vibrating dildo all in one.

Sony ended up delivering a way overpriced hunk of shit Trojan Horse Blu-Ray player that appears to have the gaming strength equivalent of a spina-bifida child that just took a soccerball in the head. Want to know why? Me too. Let's journey together through the turgid poop-fields to the Mecca of Hubris, Dale Earnhardt's last race of a system, a real Hindenburg of a Titanic...the PS3.

The Games

Sony blasted out of the press-gates with a whole host of third party exclusive titles guarenteed to bitch-slap the available X360. It had: Resident Evil 5, Metal Gear 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, Virtua Fighter 5, Assassin's Creed and Final Fantasy XIII. Of those exclusives, only Metal Gear 4 and Final Fantasy XIII remain. The others recognized the rocky shores upon which the PS3 was about to smash teeth-first and jumped ship. Game companies have realized that the PS3 is not the hot-seller its two sister machines were and blockbusters now cost millions of dollars to produce. It doesn't make sense to limit one's games to a smallish audience and limit sales when the X360 can easily handle the same games. Thus, a game company increases its sales by allowing more people the opportunity to purchase it. It's a no brainer. Sony has first-party exclusive titles, like God of War and Ratchet and Clank, but neither of those games can move a system like Halo can. No matter what propietary property Sony lists, Microsoft will always be able to utter: Halo. I'll bet your left nut that the other so-called exlusives bolt to Xbox 360 by years end: Metal Gear 4, Devil May Cry 4 and Final Fantasy XIII.

The HD

Both Microsoft and Sony realized that HD televisions are really starting to move. They're increasing in market-share and pretty soon, HDTVs will be the predominant format. However, Microsoft made a smart move whereas Sony made a potentially dumb move. Not all HDTVs are capable of displaying both HD displays, 720p and 1080i, let alone Full HD 1080p. Microsoft include a scaler chip in the X360. This means that if an early HDTV adopter's TV only natively displays 480p and 1080i, the X360 can convert the 720p signal to 1080i and the person enjoys HD X360. Sony didn't include a chip. So, for every early adopter of HDTV, Sony just blasted a load of contemptuous semen right in your eye. If your HDTV can't display 720p and the game isn't programmed to play in 1080i, no HD game for you. It'll drop down to progressive scan TV. Sucks to be you. Wanted to use your Blu-Ray player, crammed down your fucking throat by Sony at a butt-load extra charge? If you can't do 720p, you may as well shit in the PS3 and watch that. HDDVDs work on the X360's player adaptor on all HDTVs.

By the way Sony, thanks for not including the HD cables in the box, you lousy cheap fuckers. Expect to spend another $40 for cables to make it run in HD.

The Blu-Ray player

Once again, Sony ventures dangerously into the propietary format realm which it has so often and so completely fucked up (Beta, UMD, MiniDisc, DAT and Super CDs) Co-developed with Phillips, Blu-Ray stands a chance of actually beating Toshiba's HDDVDs. At least more people are buying Blu-Ray discs than HDDVDs, but that isn't saying much. More studios have signed onto Blu-Ray than HDDVD, but right now, that isn't saying much. But, in the video game world, Sony pulled a sneaky cornhole punch. By making the PS3 a Blu-Ray format machine, it intended to place a Blu-Ray player in every home. If they could sell PS3s like they sold PS2s, they would laugh themselves to the brink of hell. But Blu-Ray, being propietary, isn't cheap and neither is the player. Sony is taking a massive loss on each PS3 sold to push the format. If a supermarket advertises that it has apple-pies on for 99 cents, it's a good loss-leader; the supermarket isn't losing much. Sony is going to lose 1.7 BILLION dollars this year on its gaming division. Stand alone Blu-Ray players cost more than $1000 while HDDVD players can be had for roughly $600.

And all of this is assuming one thing: the populace of North America is ready to reinvest in a new movie library. DVDs can give a pretty sharp picture, especially when cleaned up in progressive scan on an HDTV. Given their prices, it's unreasonable to presume that right now, people also want to invest another thousand bucks for a movie-player that isn't supported in Blockbuster or Rogers. See where the PS3 being a Trojan Horse Blu-Ray player comes in? Too bad that so far, it isn't working much better than force-folding your own knee backwards.

The Motion Sensor Controller

Sony wants you to believe that this was on the drawing board since day one. I think that Nintendo beat them just as though they threw a lawn-dart into Sony's cock. Sony's new controller doesn't vibrate, the motion sensing sucks ass and the Wii has it beat hands down. It looks like a tacked on gimmick.

The Price

So how much is Sony charging you for the pleasure of letting it stick its arrogant dick up your ass? A cool $700. Actually wait, since the sales of the PS3 have been so lousy, it has already had a price-drop in a record-breaking four months. $50 has been knocked off the price, Blu-Ray movies have been included in addition to another wireless controller. If that isn't enough to make you shit your collective pants, I don't know what will. Maybe getting a whiff of Judi Dench's stale crotch-growler would.



And that folks, is just a small sampling of the colossal error that Sony made. Can it be fixed, can I be wrong, can the world still move along?

Who fucking cares?