You know, I recall a time when Sony as a whole had a clue; they had a grasp of what they wanted to do, and even back when they were still stealing stuff (hello, Super Nintendo?) they at least had one foot in reality. Since the announcement and eventual release of the PlayStation 3, I’ve watched my once beloved company become the most egotistical, nonsense gushing, band of idiots to ever grace a talking point.

 In the May 2007 issue of PSM, Jack Tretton is interviewed about the PS3’s current state and looks back on the previous two systems, as well as his rivals. Below I have taken excerpts and provided my own insights and corrections to his statements.

 On comparing the PS3 to the days of the PSone (he’s describing the PSone):

Tretton: In 1995, it was like, “My God, these guys are putting games onto CD. They’re targeting a more mature consumer, you know, early twenties. They’re bringing 3D graphics to a world where it’s all about 2D gaming…and did you know this thing plays audio CDs, as well?”

Apparently Jack never took a step outside of his house earlier on in life. Prior to the PlayStation, Sega’s Saturn, the 3DO, the Atari Jaguar, Sega CD, and the Turbo Grafx-16 all had a CD player either in them or attached to them. CD Games should not have been such a surprise to him.

The Sega CD’s launch era games included the adult rated game Night Trap which pretty much awakened the mainstream consumer to a more mature game player audience, and brought gaming all the way to congress. Don’t even get me started on the licensed 3DO porn games.

Pretty much everything I listed played music CDs. Heck, the TG16 and Sega CD even played CD + Graphics discs, which the PlayStation didn’t support.

Finally, the 3DO had 3D Games (it freaking came packed with a 3D racer), the Genesis, Sega CD, and 32x all brought polygons to the 16 Bit platform, even Nintendo had the SuperFX chip to make multiple 3D polygon games.

Well, Jack’s 0 for 4 so far…not a good sign, nor start.

 On the length of a system’s life:

 “When we ask you to put down your money on day one, we intend to pay back on that investment over a ten-year period.”

The PlayStation did indeed go 10 years; however, the PS2 is only now reaching its 7^th year, with a rather slim release list heading into September. That would mean they’d have to sustain the system for 3 years on thin releases, or worse, budget titles that swamped the poor PSX. Second, if customers did support the PS2, it would mean less support for the PS3, which needs all the help it can get.

 “We had a great relationship with the consumer…”

 Key word? Had

 Concerning newer system construction and internals:

“I think something that’s got a big, external power source, I think of something that’s a little bit dated. Couldn’t they make it more sleek?”

 Apparently his company’s own PStwo external power brick that’s 1/3^rd the size of the system is a wee bit dated.

Moving onto the PS3 launch events, concerning system glitches:

 “There were clearly some witch hunters out there, so if problems could be found, somebody would find them.”

 Most of them were found the same way; by turning on the system. This was particularly true in the backwards compatibility department.

 Here’s where the real fun begins, and where I began to froth like a mad dog. Tretton goes on to talk about the PS3 value and comparing it to the Xbox 360. In his comments about what the PS3 supports and includes:

 “…in that we don’t want to force feed technology down a consumer’s throat; we want to let them discover it.

 That translates into, “Well, I guess if I paid the $200 for the Blue-Ray drive, I might as well use it.”

He then makes a bizarre, almost ironic parable of comparing accessory purchases to a car purchase and makes it all an allusion to the Xbox 360. This is the man who represents a system where you have to buy your component, HDMI, and memory card adapter separately. All after the PS2 where you had to buy the multi-tap, memory card, network adapter, and (unsupported) hard drive separately.

You think Jack was ever a used car salesman?

“I think we’ve done revolutionary things with PlayStation Portable that people never thought possible in a handheld gaming system before.”

Like dropping the shipments 72%? How it’s mainly used for playing other system’s games? Or how you could waste the battery on load time alone?

But the one that kills me the most in this area:

“Well, what the PlayStation Portable did for you on day one was to take a console gaming experience and put that in the palm of your hand. That’s something that’s never been done before.”

Are you kidding me? Uh, Sega’s Nomad and NEC’s Turbo Express did this a DECADE earlier, and they used the REAL CONSOLE GAMES. You didn’t even have to buy $50 versions of $20 console games. Even better; The Nomad WAS a console and could be hooked up and played on the TV. I don’t see that anywhere on the PSP.

And finally, the very large font, bolded comment that knocked me out:

“I don’ think there’s any one game that can make a console successful.”

Apparently, the words ‘Halo’, ‘Mario’, ‘Sonic’, or ‘Final Fantasy VII’ have never graced this man’s ear drums. Sadly, it looks like this time around we can underestimate the PlayStation…at least its future.

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