State of the Gaming Nation for Sony

Ah well. Where should I begin? Sony had a fantastic year. Hardwarewise, the PS3 sales are still trailing the 360 and Wii, but the quality titles are there. There is the PS3 slim out now, so now anyone can join in on the fun. On the PSN side, there were some great titles. Flower, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars and Burnout Paradise were great (the latter two for online play especially). Popcap released Peggle on PSN recently as well. Rag Doll Kung Fu was a great game even though there was no online play. This was also the year for PS3 exclusives. Uncharted 2 (which had over 20 perfect scores), Infamous and Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, Killzone 2 are examples of such exclusives. I tried the Infamous demo and I must say that I enjoyed the game. We even got a glimpse of Gran Turismo 5 with the release of a Time Trial of the Indy racetrack. As crowded as the game scene was for Sony this past year, next year will be big as well with exclusives like Bayonetta, God of War III, and hopefully the final version of GT5. There were a few updates this year. We have a facebook app (even though we can get to it via the PS3 browser) as well as modifying the friends list to look nicer. The Playstation brand was rebranded and thus the xmb looks better (look at the firmware updates for more). The psp continues to be revitalized with original titles. There is also a new section called psp minis. Check those out. Playstation Home has expanded. More spaces are available and Home now has a free MMO called Sodium. There are new games to play in Home and I personally love it. So much to do. So where does Sony land in 2010? Well we will see, but it will be great regardless. I do predict that the PS2 will finally have no new games coming out for it as the ten year cycle ends in 2010. If I had to pick a timeframe, I would pick around summertime that PS2's will stop being produced.