The history of video game consoles can genuinely be divided into two sections: thoughts during its lifetime and thoughts after it’s been long gone. That might sound basic, but it’s true. When the “newest console generation” is out, there’s enthusiasm around the consoles most times. Either they’re the “hottest thing on the market,” or they’re a “massive flop.” Something that every one of the major gaming publishers has had at one time or another. For PlayStation, they haven’t had a “flop” per se with their consoles, but they did have a letdown in terms of the PS3. Why? Its sales weren’t up to snuff.
If you recall, the PS2 is the best-selling console of all time. By 2022, it had reached the incredible height of 158 million units sold. That’s insane, and it made the system the definitive winner of that console generation. In contrast, the PlayStation 3 was a system that sold just above half that. Its lifetime sales were 87.4 million. Impressive, but not as worthy as its predecessor or its successor in the PS4, which sold over 117.2 million units as of now.
So why was the PlayStation 3 such a “downer”? Two points ring out even now. First, when it came out, it would cost gamers $600 to get, which was a massive sum to ask for with a console both then and now. Yes, it did get “trimmed down” a bit in price later, but to start, that’s what you had to pay.
The second reason was that the “chunky console” wasn’t the easiest to develop games for. Word of development difficulties has come from many people over the years, with the latest being the director of Devil May Cry and Dragon’s Dogma, Hideaki Itsuno. He’s a man who has been in the game industry since the 90s and has worked on many legendary Capcom consoles. But when it came to the PS3, it was hard to work on it in his mind.
During an interview, he noted that the first two PlayStations could use layers in specific ways to create special effects. But they couldn’t with the third generation of the system:
“On the contrary, we couldn’t do this from the PlayStation 3 onwards. Everybody struggled during that generation. We really felt let down,” he noted.
He specifically called out how for Devil May Cry, the process they used for effects was incompatible with the new system, which hurt them.
Sony worked through these issues with their next system and the PS5, but it’s clear that the PlayStation 3 was a low point for their console line.
Source: YouTube
