2009 was an eventful year for Sony’s PlayStation family with huge price drops, new hardware launches and announcements, and big exclusive games throughout the year. But how was it for you?
The year began with two diametrically opposed game releases: February blessed us with the poignant lyricism of Flower, while simultaneously unleashing the bombastic blitzkrieg of Killzone 2. Sony spread its major exclusives evenly through the year, with inFamous leaping from the rooftop in June, before Uncharted 2 (pictured) wisecracked into October and Ratchet & Clank timecracked into November.
At E3 in June we saw the PSPgo for the first time, months of leaked info and images notwithstanding. Sony also unveiled its motion controller, cunningly disguised as a lady’s bedroom toy. Then at Gamescom in August we saw the PS3 Slim for the first time, months of leaked info and images again notwithstanding.
September saw the introduction of the PS3 Slim along with a drastic price drop all around the world; in Australia this translated into a price plunge, from $699 to $499. Since then, PS3 sales have picked up dramatically. Meanwhile, the digital download-only PSPgo launched in October and, well, no one really noticed.
On the software side, the PSP seems to have undergone something of a renaissance towards the end of the year. Although the first big game was Monster Hunter Freedom Unite in mid-year, recently we’ve seen Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, GTA Chinatown Wars and LittleBigPlanet, plus the AFL and NRL sims.
The veteran PlayStation 2 kept plugging away. Its price tag fell into almost impulse buy territory at around $100 in some places – pretty soon you’ll see PS2s next to the tabloid mags and candy bars at the checkout of your local supermarket. Oh, and another hundred SingStar games were released for the “party starter” console of choice.
Finally, last month saw the digital TV tuner and PVR box, PlayTV, launch in Australia, along with the ABC’s iView service, allowing you to spend less time using your console to play games.
So, that was 2009 for the PlayStation family. I’m keen to hear what you thought of 2009 from a PlayStation perspective. Were you happy with your PS3/PS2/PSP lot this year? What were the highlights? The lowlights?
GGP
Monday, December 21, 2009 at 11:52 PMPSP Go was a real failure, why would anyone at all get one? Less features for a high price? Good luck Sony :)
PSP – bought a second hand one, used it on a trip and has sat in my drawer ever since. Giving it to my sister for Christmas. iPhone gaming has replaced it.
PS3 – Primarily used as a media player, but still has some great titles that have kept me playing: Buzz!, Ratchet & Clank (all 3), Uncharted (1&2) with some great titles on the way such as God of War.
iView is a great start, but we need to get some more unmetered video content. The Playstation Store is getting a bit more content, but generally speaking most of it is still rubbish.
Cerberus
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 2:46 PMPs3 getting the Joker in arkham asylum made it the Rise of the Ps3 in my eyes, they had to start fighting back and now its starting to work, though xbox could probably stay afloat on the fanboys which have to buy a new console every few months (I expect a generation out of my console not a year), this year itself consisted of many delays which make all of next year much more anticipated, though it appears in this slow software year, the hardware war kicked off to a whole new level.