Dave Perry, founder of Shiny Entertainment and designer of Earthworm Jim, has put his stamp of approval on the PS3 as a superior game console, proclaiming that it is "the best piece of hardware, without question," in an interview with to GamesIndustry.biz. But as the story goes for many proponents of the PlayStation 3, he also criticizes Sony for placing the console out of reach from many consumers with its high price tag. It’s an old story, but one that refuses to go away, no matter how much Sony wants it to disappear.
He had high praise for the PS3, as far as technological muscle. "It’s absolutely insane hardware, and most people don’t really understand that. I’ve been to the technical summit, I’ve sat there and listened to complete disclosure of what’s in that machine. Being a programmer, it made me just sit there."
But he also pointed out that much of the horsepower of the machine was still untapped. "We’re stuck in this time loop. It happens every single time [like the PS2]–we know the games are going to be really bad at the start, and then God of War comes out at the end, and you go, ‘The PlayStation 2 hardware can do God of War? It looks incredible!’ The point is you’re not going to get to see the PlayStation 3 for probably a couple of years, and then you’re going to go, ‘Wow, that’s incredible.’"
Perry was frustrated as a programmer because he understands the immense potential of the PS3 and sees the strength being largely underutilized. "I haven’t seen a single game that shows me the power of PlayStation 3. I haven’t seen anything even close to what the machine is capable of doing. So that’s the sad part for Sony–I feel really bad for them that somebody hasn’t really stepped up to show us the hardware all singing, all dancing."
Some early adopters of the PS3 have taken their machines home and have basically been under whelmed by the performance of the PlayStation 3, leaving them to wonder what they paid so much for. Perry agreed that consumers will continue to feel this way until things start ramp up for the machine, as far as software is concerned.
"Sony is charging the price for the [machine] at the end of the cycle at the start of the cycle. You’d be willing to play the price at the end of the cycle, because it would be absolutely worth it, but at the start, you get home and you’re like, ‘Okay, I’ve got it now! I’ve put down $800 for the games and everything else, here we go!’ And you fire it up, and it’s just not that $800 experience. The price is what’s going to kill them every time. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how great your marketing is–are people going to show up with that kind of money"
He described an equation for the successful sales of any new game console, saying that Sony is far from those figures. "The farther you get from $150; it’s like a cliff that you head for. They threw the 3DO off the cliff, they did exactly the same thing [as Sony has] but worse–they released it very expensive with dreadful games."
Whether they want to admit it or not, Sony seems to have given in to the cries of gamers who have complained about the absence of the beloved rumble feature in the PS3’s Sixaxis controller. With the relentless barrage of the press, industry analysts and gaming community constantly bringing up the subject of the PS3’s high price tag as being the prime factor for people not buying the PlayStation 3, Sony may eventually have to bite the bullet and cut its price tag to improve sales.
