Today we dissect the Playstation Delay machine. The biggest games, the largest delays, the where-the-fuck-is-it-now’s. Part 1.
The Date: March 7-9, 2007 The Event: Game Developers Conference The Place: San Francisco Moscone Center The Announcement: Little Big Planet and Playstation Home.
What we knew about Little Big Planet:
Its a 3D game played in a 2D plane. Physics based puzzles and platforming, while levels can be created with various sorts of materials for supposedly fun puzzle/platform based gaming.
On its announcement at GDC ’07, features like community sharing of levels, level editing and creation, youtube-like usability, were shown. Majority of the demonstration was how the gameplay worked – little shown of the back-end internet integration; even though Phil Harrison talks it up like the infrastructure and database system is going to be a simple task.
A release date was set to 4th Quarter 2007.
What we knew about Playstation Home:
Playstation Home is an ambitious Myspace/Second-Life game for the PS userbase to stay in and lounge around. Basically it looks like an MMORPG. You have a home, you run around interacting with people, you can play some mini-games, buy Sony products, invite your friends, etc. Its usefulness with regards to gaming, however, is in question.
At GDC ’07, multiple features, including in-game XrossMediaBar, inviting people to a lobby to launch multiplayer games were shown – which was pretty badly needed, really. (Normally you’d have to go back to the PS Menu and launch the game and find your friends somehow in a server list.)
Release date for public Home was announced to happen at September 2007.
What we now know about Little Big Planet:
A demo version of the game was planned for release on the PlayStation Network in the fourth quarter of 2007, but was delayed until 2008.
Original announcements pointed to a full release early in 2008, but Sony later said that the game has been delayed until September 2008 in the UK. However, during the Sony PlayStation Day on May 6, 2008 in London, Sony announced that the game has been delayed further and is now expected to be released in October 2008. – wikipedia
Since its announcement more than a year ago, and its bullshit release date of 4Q 2007, what have we learned so far?
Sony hasn’t really been showing much of this game for anything besides the random level or two. Have we really seen how the online functions work? Or are we supposed to just imagine it works? Clearly no real progress has been made on this game since a year ago. Are we supposed to believe this comes out soon at all? Clearly, if you actually had something to show, you’d show it.
Predictions:
Somewhere in the 4Q of 2008, after zero news of LBP release, Sony will casually mention it in a press conference somewhere that it will be released in Feb 2009.
Feb 2009, Sony will mention random reasons for another random delay to March.
April 2009. LBP will be released. It will have some problems with database servers, online integration, or something similar. All the kinks will be fixed in a few months.
What we now know about Playstation Home:
Home was announced at the Game Developers Conference on March 7, 2007 with a scheduled global public release in September or October 2007. During the Tokyo Game Show 2007, Home’s full release was announced to be delayed until “Spring 2008”. On 21 April 2008 Sony Computer Entertainment announced that Home would be delayed further and the closed beta would to be extended until “Fall 2008”. Kazuo Hirai, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, said that “Spending more time on the development and on the Closed Beta testing reaffirms our commitment to bringing a quality service, maintaining the PlayStation tradition.” – wikipedia
Shouldn’t that be more like “A bullshit release date would have been a much better promise than being honest, really.”?
Have we seen anything new about this thing anyway? Whats the news on In-game XMB? Why does it feel like this thing is moving in slow-motion? Why does Sony’s programmers look like they couldn’t program a silly version of Megaman in a year? No new features shown, no new parts of machinima shown, nothing. Maybe they should outsource the programming to Korea – they churn out bullshit MMORPG’s like Bunnies make bunnykids.
Fall 2008, doesn’t work. Before we get there, a small announcement will be made sometime in July-August. PS Home will be public in “early 2009”. Thats how they’ll word it.
Since its “early 2009” they can just sit on their laurels until June 2009. Around April, a very proud annoucement will be made: Home will be public in September. They’ll miss that by a month. PS Home will not have In-game XMB and In-game lobby, multiplayer launching. No Trophy system, and very limited useful features.
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didn’t know you were into console war propaganda. ;B
I try to criticize whatever I can – though admittedly the PS3 is such a lightning rod for crap these days. I wish Microsoft would do something stupid – or Nintendo – but then again, if I would write something about Nintendo, its about them ignoring the existence of the internet, and better graphics/games.
lets not forget killzone promises for sometime ago (2007) and the screens that people are feeding the people currently are more of a rip on the ps2 platform…
yeesh. lets admit it. sony sold the over with the playstation brand thru piracy. if it werent for all those pirated games none of us would have played ps titles and “expected” anything from these delayed moments.
on the lighter side of the sitation FF fans are still glued to the idea of some bad ass game for ps3 coming in january 2020. thats something to look forward to.
i just hope mgs4 is the gta4 of sony. thatll be something to cover for the mess their in.
that’s true. if there were no console piracy, i’m pretty sure there would be less GTA-loving retards and more MMO-loving retards.
and uhh, the PS3 has GTA4.
puff:
dunno, man, i don’t think these delays are making the PS3 any worse. i don’t even agree that it’s necessarily worse than the others in the first place. IMO, the 360 / wii’s game selections are just as terrible. guess it’s just the in-thing to hate on Sony, just as it was the in-thing to hate on Microsoft one console generation ago.
These delays aren’t making the PS3 worse, but it keeps them at a standstill while other consoles generate amazing title after amazing title.
Sony’s main problem is the long grace period between thier announcements and the eventual releases – obviously showing games off before they’re even ready to be played most of the time. And then telling overly-ambitious release dates that wouldn’t even be possible regardless of how fast they work on the project.
You’ll hear no complaints about Microsoft there. They’ll tell you about a game, mention the release date, which so happens to be 2 months later. Put out a demo a month before, and release the game, on time, this year – no delays, no bullshit, no next year, no year after that. They have a healthy schedule of games and they don’t bother showing you any game thats under 50% complete.
Realize that in the time they’ve been toting thier Final Fantasies, Metal Gears, Killzones, Gran Tourismos, Microsoft has been churning out Forza 2, PGR4, Mass Effect, Halo 3, Gears of War 1, Gears of War 2, Bioshock, Ace Combat 6, Ikaruga, C&C3, and Ninja Gaiden 2 – all games are already released or are to be released within the year. A claim not even Sony can do with ANY of these games except MGS4.
A Filipino adage best describes it: “Papunta palang ang Sony, pabalik na ang Microsoft.” (While Sony is moving forward, Microsoft is already on its way back.)
Its sad that Sony doesn’t have a strong enough release calendar to start toting games that would come out within the next few months or at least within the year – and thats what the real problem is, not the delays.
