It turns out my last
anti-Sony rant, while beautifully written, may have been premature and
unfounded. So the downloads may be optional. Ok, that's actually a nice feature, then.
To make up for posting the positive news, I'll link to
these three stories from Evil Avatar about Sony's online plan. Which apparently is non-existant, or at least so convoluted that none of the developers can actually agree on how to use it. All you have to do is read about EA's online service for the 360 to know what can happen when a developer tries to do its own thing. With the 360 it just doesn't make sense, because from all accounts the XBox Live service is fantastic. For EA to ignore it is just plain stupid. On the PS3, developers don't really have a choice. So instead of an online system that runs smoothly with most games, you'll have a mish-mash of services that may or may not be ideal for playing games. It could work, but what a pain in the ass. Again, it's just extremely complicated for a console. The whole point of a console is simplicity.
Add to that this
developer's opinion that the 360 and PS3 are nearly identical in power. Take
that, Sony! Your system comes out a year later and costs $200 more, it had damn well be a more powerful system on all levels. Instead, the power gap is marginal at best. This opinion comes from someone at Silicon Knights, a company that gives a lot of credence to gaming power. I know this because they abandoned Nintendo for a more powerful system, the jerks.
There's nothing in the PS3 that seems to create confidence for the consumer. I believe anyone who buys this system on day one is a sucker. This is a system that needs to be observed from a distance before any amount of money is spent on it.
"Marmaduke is pursuing a vacuum cleaner possessed of tremendous speed, independent mobility, and a power cord of apparently infinite length. Of these properties, a behatted onlooker finds only the former worth remarking upon."
