原文


Editorial: Why I Bought a PS3
How Sony (and Microsoft) finally pushed an Xbox gamer back into the PlayStation fold.
by Ryan Geddes

January 7, 2010 - Last week, I bought a PlayStation 3. I never thought I would, but this is gaming. Things change fast.

It started at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, as these things usually do. I was live-blogging the Microsoft press conference two years back, the one where Duffy bombed her own Lips song and everyone pretended the lack of a new Halo announcement was no big deal.

Goldstein can sleep through anything.
Then, in between laptop battery swap-outs, I heard it. Final Fantasy XIII would be released on Xbox 360 as well as PlayStation 3. It was the announcement I never expected. The series that – for me – had come to define PlayStation was no longer a Sony exclusive. As the trailer played on the giant plasma screens, I tried to picture myself playing Square Enix's upcoming role-playing game on an Xbox 360. But I just couldn't wrap my brain around it.

As a hardcore 360 player who covered the console as part of IGN's Xbox Team at that time, I was heavily invested in Microsoft's machine. The 360 was my sole home console and I had a desk full of them at the office. I'd been an early believer, jumping Sony's ship when the original Xbox was released. There was something radical and refreshing about Microsoft's approach to the console biz, and I dove right in. That bet seemed smart when the Xbox 360 was released a few years later and the great games started rolling in.

But despite my heavy investment in Microsoft's gaming platform, something about a proper new Final Fantasy game appearing on the Xbox 360 felt horribly wrong, like dropping a Ferrari engine into a Buick body. Sure, she'll run, but the soul of the machine would just be off somehow.

In gaming, we deal with hardware and software, absolutes and ones and zeroes. In all our talk about graphics, versions, specs and framerates, we sometimes forget that so much of gaming is purely emotional. Why do we respond to some games and not others? Why does IGN editor Greg Miller celebrate the PlayStation 2's birthday every year, complete with cake and ice cream? It's because games talk to us, even if we sometimes can't understand what they're saying.

I was surprised by my reaction to the Final Fantasy XIII announcement. One of my favorite series (which I sorely missed after my jump to Xbox) was now coming to my platform of choice. Shouldn't I be happy? Ecstatic, even? If Microsoft had played its cards right, I probably would have been.


You're pretty. Please don't break my 360.

But the same company that gave me an incredible library of games and the most robust online console gaming experience to date also let me down. With a wink and a nod, it sold me a poorly constructed piece of hardware that consistently failed me. The Xbox 360 feels cobbled together. It breaks down and leaves me with a pile of unplayable games for weeks at a time. It's clunky and inelegant. It's Microsoft Windows all over again. And it makes me feel like a fool for relying on it.

But even my disappointment with the quality of the Xbox 360 doesn't completely explain my reaction to the Final Fantasy XIII announcement. I've been playing games long enough that I shouldn't be emotional about hardware anymore. Didn't my personal attachment to game consoles die when the Dreamcast did? Or did it just go dormant when Microsoft took over the world of hardcore gaming?

Microsoft is many things, but cool isn't one of them. There's a cloud of insecure awkwardness hovering over Microsoft's Xbox persona, and there aren't enough Kudo Tsunodas and Ryan Paytons on Earth to change that. Watching Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb on Inside Xbox is like watching your dad showing off his new propane grill. "She's a beaut, ain't she? There's Fanta in the fridge if you and your friends want some."

The Xbox 360 is a means to an end – for you, for me, and ultimately for Microsoft. I'm an Xbox gamer because I have to be. Microsoft hijacked the game industry, beat Sony at its own game and pulled the most software (and by extension, most gamers) into its orbit. Now, we're stuck in its gravitational pull, tumbling like asteroids.

To me, the PlayStation 3 represents an escape from the vacuum of Microsoft space. It's cool and Japanese. It's quietly confident. It's well-built and doesn't groan in protest when it tries to play games. It recalls a time when Japan was the center of the hardcore gaming universe, before it ceded that mantle to the West.

I'm not saying I'm unhappy that the 360 exists. It was time for gaming to move on, and its benefits far outweigh its annoyances. But the more I thought about the Final Fantasy XIII announcement, the more I realized that I was angry – at Microsoft for trapping me in a cycle of hardware failure, and at Sony for both pricing me out of a solution and failing to excite me as a gamer out of the gate.

Luckily, things suddenly started to change. First, and most importantly, Sony's game lineup began to look a whole lot sexier. Without some serious new publishing momentum, there's no way I would have considered a purchase. Along with Final Fantasy XIII, the PlayStation 3 had firm(ish) release windows for Gran Turismo 5, Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain, The Last Guardian, God of War III and White Knight Chronicles, to name a few. Added to an already solid back catalog, here were some Sony exclusives that I could get behind – and they felt characteristically PlayStation.

But great games aren't enough. The price had to be right, too, and Sony finally listened to the market and slashed the PS3's price, released a redesigned machine as well as simplified its crazy collection of consoles, all in one fell swoop. For me, it was the perfect combination of events, and I finally bought a 250GB PS3 and a handful of the system's better games.


Yes, you can go home again.

Did I buy a PlayStation 3 because I refused to play Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360? Certainly not. If I felt that strongly about Sony and Square, I would have bought a PS3 on launch day, $600 price tag be damned. But the E3 announcement had lingered in my mind since 2008. It had reached into my subconscious (past all the stuff about cheerleaders) and found my anger, passion and nostalgia. In the end, I suppose I finally bought a PS3 out of protest, hope and a bit of blind faith.

In essence, Sony finally reached into Microsoft's pocket, removed hundreds of my future gaming dollars and placed them in its own. Look for that to happen more and more in 2010, as Sony ratchets up its game and Microsoft continues to confuse its core market with talk of Project Natal.

Let's not kid ourselves. Owning two game consoles is a ridiculous idea. In the not-too-distant future, game consoles will be obsolete, a net positive result for gamers. But until then, I plan to embrace the decadence of a two-console lifestyle, splitting my time and money between them like recently divorced parent.

I'll still play my Xbox 360, and I'll still probably spend most of my online multiplayer time on Microsoft's system, because that's where most of my friends are, but there's something about having a PlayStation in my entertainment center again that just feels right. Sure, the PS3 still has its problems -- if you've read this far, you already know what they are -- but now I can rest easy knowing I'll be able to play Final Fantasy XIII in peace, confident that it won't grind to a halt in the middle of a boss fight.

And more importantly, I'll feel cool while I do it.

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以下A9翻译

Ryan Geddes从前是一名忠实的360核心玩家，是什么让他选择了PS3......

"something about a proper new Final Fantasy game appearing on the Xbox 360 felt horribly wrong, like dropping a Ferrari engine into a Buick body. Sure, she'll run, but the soul of the machine would just be off somehow. "
和前一位吐槽FF13的编辑不同，他认为将FF弄到360上就像是将法拉利的引擎弄到别克车

"Microsoft is many things, but cool isn't one of them"
他认为360只是将一些杂七杂八的东西平凑起来的缺少灵魂


很明显本文的个人情感色彩浓厚，但不可否认sony的一系列攻势已经让一些360核心玩家改变了主意，迎接这一切的将是竞争达到高潮的2010财年
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[posted by wap, platform: Nokia (E71)]

坐等看戏。

[posted by wap]

戏都结束了，上代ps2领先多少，这代ps3落后多少，当中的差额除2就是了

[posted by wap, platform: Nokia (E71)]

这文没啥意思。。不过对于ffb的欧美销量感兴趣。。。。

360确实让人感觉缺少灵魂。你很难说清楚这个主机上到底什么东西值得骄傲

玩台游戏机都看有没有灵魂了,

这境界啊.

[posted by wap]

360的灵魂明显是live和两千万活动金会员，就和ps3的灵魂是bd一样

I have no choice but buy a PS3

但是别克卖的比法拉利多啊

還記得IGN的「購買PS3的十大理由」嘛？

IGN墙头草

玩主机灵魂的境界真不是一般正常人能达到的~~~

早买了。。。。。。。。。。。。。。

有人玩匠气，有人玩灵魂，各取所需吧

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