With the month of November over, the staff here at Console Monster reflect back at the last month’s current events in the gaming world, as well as give a little insight of their gaming antics this month, and what they are looking forward to playing next month.
At E3 08, Sony claimed 2008 was going to be their blockbuster year. Seeing that their biggest game (LittleBigPlanet) never really hit the number one spot and that sales are still low compared to the Wii and 360, do we really think this was their year?
Craig: No. Quite simple. With the ever growing credit crunch hitting us gamers hard, why pay over-the-top prices when you can get a console for half the price with just as many, if not more games. Sony really need to start dropping the PS3 price if it is to succeed. You never know, 2009 may be Sony’s year.
Dave: Sony and Nintendo have been strangely quiet this Christmas. There are no games, with the exception of LittleBigPlanet on PS3, that really stood out and LittleBigPlanet failed to sell as well as the majority of the Xbox 360 titles released in November. I still believe the sales will pick up. I’m still on the look-out for a good PlayStation 3 bargain and believe 2009 could possibly be the year of the PlayStation.
Lauren: Hell no! I don’t know why Sony even made that claim, seeing that they only really had LittleBigPlanet to spam all over the place and that has not done well compared to initial reports. The hype machine strikes again!
While the PS3 is doing well in Europe, I still can’t see the attraction. The library of games are weak and the console is still very expensive. I can’t see many exclusive titles I would consider ‘blockbuster’ apart from Resistance and Uncharted, both older titles for the PS3. There has not been much released this year for our darling Sony console, until they start rolling out hot titles like the PS2, I have no interest.
Chris: This wasn’t really their year, no. LittleBigPlanet is really the only blockbuster title that is any good and with titles like Left 4 Dead not even being released on the PS3 it’s damaged sales considerably. Give them a few more years and they may end up having a great year.
Reece: This is called Sony trying to increase the popularity of their media machine as much as possible, heck they are even advertising the media machine to gamers now. With such a weak library of games, a weak online network and high cost – the PS3 takes a back seat once again as a games console; but hell it makes a great DVD player!
Anthony: I can’t get how PS3 is doing so well in Europe where most people I know own a Xbox 360 over a PS3 console. The price of the console is hurting their success; if they decided to drop the price to nearly £200 we could have had a hot console race this holiday season. I think they were hoping their winter line-up of titles would make units fly off the shelf, but with the crunch hitting hard that gamble hasn’t paid off sadly. Next year should be more interesting, I can see this time next year we’ll have both consoles at a similar price bracket with more features being promoted on both. 2009 will be a good year for the gamer.
Rob: Sony is really failing for me. Granted LittleBigPlanet is a hit and a good title for them, but apart from Resistance 2 and MotorStorm it is very quiet on the console. Even at work (I work in Game) we struggle to shift the console especially with high prices, and the games aren’t that popular either.
So that is the view of the Console Monster staff; what do YOU think? Was Sony successful in claiming this year as their year for the PlayStation 3? Disccuss by leaving your views in the comments. Tomorrow we wrap-up our Monster Month with our views on what will be this year’s Christmas number one game and console.
