Dear Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo…
What follows are three letters from an imaginary gamer (actually he lurks in most of our hearts) to Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft asking them for things that we really deserve to know the answers to, a few suggestions, and some general observations on their behavior of late.
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What follows are three letters from an imaginary gamer (actually he lurks in most of our hearts) to Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft asking them for things that we really deserve to know the answers to, a few suggestions, and some general observations on their behavior of late.
Dear Sony,
You’ve always been the bomb at getting us hyped in the past, so what’s going on now, why are you shutting us out? Haven’t we waited enough? Your machine launches in four short months and we still don’t really know anything about the PlayStation Network (or whatever it’s called).
We would also very much like to see more of the games you’re going to want us to pay for in November as well, for all we know Heavenly Sword could take place entirely in a sun-baked arena, Motorstorm apparently has only one track (that we’ve seen anyway), and we’ve only seen one level from Warhawk as well. We forgive you for all the CG videos you fed to us, but please show us the real games now.
Please don’t get greedy, we can’t help but see you heading down the same dark path Nintendo explored in the 80’s, the same bullish arrogance and self importance that quickly lead to their losing the number one spot. We know you’re the boss, the king, the big kahuna atop the great console heap, and that gives you the right to puff your chest feathers every once in a while, but do consider a little humility.
I guess what I’m trying to say is we need more from you, you’re asking a lot, and we’re willing to give… if you love us in return.
Dear Microsoft,
Thanks for the 360, thanks for G.R.A.W, Oblivion and Fight Night Round 3, thanks for Prey too, but um… we need more variety. Where are all the platformers, the third person action adventure games and the Japanese support? We really like first person shooters, sports games and racers a whole lot, and you’ve supplied those in good quantity, but a little variety is the spice of life y’know.
Hey, thanks for Live Marketplace as well, it’s totally awesome, I can download demos and game videos, which is cool, but why isn’t there more stuff on there? Shouldn’t the game videos page be updated almost every day, the same way Gametrailers.com is? Come to think of it there really should be demos for every game that gets released on Live Marketplace as well.
I like the idea of customising my Dashboard too, but it sucks that I can’t see the theme packs first… or the picture packs… or the… why can’t I see these things before I buy them again?
By the way, your games are a bit pricey, did you know that? Well, except for one or two.
Dear Nintendo,
Thanks for making the Wii cheap, we really appreciate that, but could you tell us exactly how cheap? We still don’t know when it’s coming out either, maybe we missed the memo or something, but if you could give us a solid launch date that would be ace, we’ll even line up!
Come to think of it, why all the secrecy? You’re positioning the Wii as something innovative and unique, which it may well be, but at this point you’re still asking us to take a chance on plonking down cash for an unknown and unproven machine. Now we trust you and all, but relationships are always best when the love flows both ways.
Please make strong ties with third party publishers this time out, I’d rather not have the flow of titles for my console dwindle to a trickle by it’s third year out, Mario‘s cool and all, but we want more.
You’ve probably noticed that Sony has by and large the longest paragraph dedicated to them, why? Simple, Sony’s asking more from everyone at this point, more money, more trust, more understanding and more patience, they have a lot more to answer for. Is the situation fixable? Entirely, of the three, Sony probably has the largest number of top selling franchises on consoles, all they need to do is start showing them to us.
Microsoft, while not entirely in a safe position themselves, have acquitted themselves better, with the Xbox 360 already at market, and a fair bit known of its bigger titles like Gears of War, Lost Planet and Too Human. What they need to work on is what they’ve already got in place, keep tuning Live, and work on getting a greater variety of games on the system.
As for Nintendo, they’ll mosey along quietly doing what they’ve always done, not paying much attention to the other fellas, they’re hardly in a pickle at the moment, but it wouldn’t hurt to let its loyal fans know a bit more about the systems launch statistics, available numbers, launch date, specific price, that sort of thing.
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