Without exception, the one thing about the PS3 that has always stuck me as odd is the slim amount of game demos that can be found on PSN at any given time. While it’s certainly more that what Nintendo has decided to give us, it is just about obliterated by what can be found on Xbox Live.
I’ve found myself pondering over the reasons for this more than once over the past few months, but I never was able to come up with anything to justify it — even if Sony’s PSN is still in its infancy, and free.While I’m still not sold on the reasoning, at least I now have answers — as the result of a phone interview that Sony’s director of product development, John Hight, had with MTV’s multiplayer blog.
Ready for reason number one? Well, it would seem that they haven’t been as profitable as expected:
We did a demo on Blast Factor and I’ve got 600,000 people playing that demo but I haven’t translated that into 600,000 people buying the game. … I think the demo kind of hurt it in a way and people got satiated.
That’s a fascinatingly simple way of looking at it, but isn’t it logical to presume that Microsoft has the same problem on the Xbox 360? Of course not everyone is going to run out and buy the full game based on the demo. However, it unquestionably makes a difference. From a customer’s standpoint, trailers can only go so far; it’s actually playing part of the game that can help us decide if it’s right for us.
Hit the jump, and you’ll find more on this — as well as some good news:
This of course, brings us to the second part of the reason that Sony has decided to limit the amount of demos on PSN: proliferation vs. polish:
“I thought we’re back in the same cool space as the early 90s, where kids can take their own savings, or, as [Everyday Shooter] creator Jon Mak did, work on this thing on his own, and find a place to publish it. And have it perceived maybe in the sense that it’s creative, fun and free and a new idea — but not something dangerous that’s going to crash your machine or leave you a really bad experience… It has a level of polish, but not so much polish that it feels like its commercial. The resulting PSN service hasn’t been overwhelmed with games.”
“We’re very careful about the stuff we add to our catalog. Early on as a company we decided it’s not going to be about giant numbers and ‘Hey, come to PlayStation Network and you’ll have 5000 games, maybe three of which you actually want. Go ahead and find that needle in the haystack.’ It’s more about each one of these experiences is something special.”
Still not buying this argument? Neither am I. Nonetheless, I can appreciate that Sony cares about having polished games for us to enjoy online. The only problem with this, is that Microsoft has managed to do it — and has given us many more to enjoy in the process. In the case of third-party, multiplatform games, I just can’t think of any good excuse not to offer demos for both formats.
So what about this supposed good news that was promised earlier? Now this is something that certainly trumps what Xbox Live currently offers, and the topic itself has been a point of contention for Xbox 360 fans ever since the size restrictions were first imposed on developers:
“We’re not going to repeat ourselves. You won’t see sequels. We’re doing more content, so more experimental [games], but on balance you will see some somewhat bigger budget titles come in. The biggest thing I’ve got going now is about 2 Gig. That’s 2.5 times the size of Warhawk, and more in the ballpark of GT5 Prologue.”
Now that sounds more like it, and a step in the right direction for Sony. With background downloading now an option for PS3 owners, there’s no reason for the restrictions (hear that, MS?). Just call it a hunch, but something tells me that the mystery title in question is a third-person shooter by some company that calls themselves Zipper Interactive.
So where does this leave us? From the looks of things, I’d say somewhat for the better, and yet somewhere right smack dab in the middle of where we’ve been all along. We all know that Sony is going to get the message, and up the ante on the PSN side. We’ve seen inklings of this with ambitious home project, and now the download size increase. We’ve also seen PSN evolve since its inception, and it’s just a matter of time before it more closely resembles (and perhaps surpasses) the Xbox Live experience.
Microsoft set the bar pretty high, and was able to persuade most of us that the cost of admission was worth it. Now we just need to convince Sony that more needs to be done on their end when it comes to giving us demos. They listened to us when we complained about price of the PS3 (we didn’t buy them), and they made it cheaper. We’ve been buzzing about in-game XMB, and we pretty much know that’s coming too. The PS3 is doing much better now, but it still has a long way to go in order to keep up with the other guys. Just keep that in mind, Sony. We’ll be sure to do our part, and remind you along the way– it’s our job. How’s that for a symbiotic relationship?
