November 17 is a special date for us at SCEA because, as many of you fans know, it’s when we launched PLAYSTATION 3. Two years ago today, we delivered our next-generation console, providing consumers with a gaming and home entertainment system unlike anything in the market – the power of the Cell Broadband Engine, out-of-the-box HDMI support for 1080p resolution, and a Blu-ray drive for high-definition movies and expansive games. The PS3’s launch was also when the Resistance franchise was born, and the original title’s success has spawned a blockbuster sequel with Resistance 2 and a unique PSP installment with the upcoming Resistance: Retribution.
But that’s just what we started with, and PS3 has come a long way since November 17, 2006. If you stood in line the night before launch, the PS3 that you took out of the box when you got home isn’t the same system that it is today. We’ve added new features and enhancements that you all have asked for, such as Trophies, XMB access in-game, Remote Play with PSP, DLNA Media Server capability, and BD-Live support, to name just a few. Along the way, we became the first gaming system to be recognized by Guinness World Records for Folding@Home and, because of the strong PS3 install base, helped Blu-ray win the format war.
PlayStation Network has truly hit its stride with unique downloadable games and a video delivery service featuring movies, TV shows, and original programming that you can watch in HD with your PS3, or bring with you on your PSP. And with 14 million active accounts and 273 million pieces of content downloaded, we know that you’re thirsting for this digital entertainment.
Of course, most important to all of you is the game library, and we’ve seen exclusive titles launch that showcase the PS3’s capabilities, from Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots, which takes full advantage of Blu-ray’s massive 50GB capacity to deliver the best installment in the storied franchise, to LittleBigPlanet, whose infectious charm and user-generated content make it a genre-defying experience. There’s something for every type of gamer on PS3, and the efforts of SCE’s first-party development studios (the industry’s largest ) along with our third-party partners will continue to deliver knock-out titles.
Thanks to all of you, PS3’s momentum is stronger than ever. There are nearly 17 million PS3 systems around the world, and in the United States, PS3 hardware sales are up nearly 100 percent from where we were at this time last year. Software sales have tripled from a year ago. Yes, we’re proud about everything we’ve accomplished, and we’re even more psyched about where we’re going with our holiday software lineup (our best to date) and the new Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune PLAYSTATION 3 Bundle, which features a 160GB PS3 and is available now.
We wouldn’t be where we are today without your continued support and all of the feedback you’ve provided here on this blog. We don’t have a crystal ball, but we know that you can look forward to many great games and PS3 enhancements over the next 12 months, starting with the upcoming launch of PlayStation Home’s open beta, which will bring the PS3 community closer together. Then, just around the corner, you’ll have Killzone 2, inFAMOUS, and tons more. So please join me in wishing a happy second birthday to PS3!
oh BTW
“Something for every gamer on PS3”
yes 3 RPG’s counts as something ><. WE NEED MORE RPG’S!!! As much as I like Eternal Sonata and Valkyria Chronicles I need something that is truly Epic. I can’t believe Sony is letting titles like The Last Remnant get delayed while the competitions machine gets first crack at it.
There have certainly been ups and downs. A lot of good can be said about the hardware and improved online experience.
However, I can’t remember any system losing such big feature from its launch configuration as the PS3 did with PS2 backwards compatibility. The price of the hardware will come down, but lets hope they can bring back the complete feature set of the system.
Happy Birthday P3!! Hail to everything Playstation.
Got mine on launch still working great after two years. Keep putting out quality products!
Happy B-day PS3, I just got my PS3 a few months ago, and it has definitely been an experience I will not forget…..
Happy birthday i guess, though this is a somber one in my opinion.
2 Years ago the ps3 had Full B/C, last year partial B/C, now none.
2 Years ago i was a sony fanatic, saving 10$ here and there to get myself a 60 GB, last year the same scenario only for the 80 GB, but this year i find myself refusing to get a ps3 because of the loss of backwards compatibility and my unshakable loyalty now gone.
I’m using this true statement as an analogy for alot of former fanboys (myself included) who view this as sony going back on their word to the fans about backwards compatibility (before you say it, i have 2 working ps2’s and a working ps1, that’s beside the point).
The fact is we could care less about the extra GB hard drives, me and most B/C enthusiasts wouldn’t buy a ps3 without B/C no matter what, since at this point we can’t trust sony.
I’m making this statement in the hope you would reconsider your actions, though i doubt that’s the case, just realize that no matter what amount of bundles you put out it will never replace B/C and could also cause you to lose more fans.
@JAMESZIGGSYO007
I agree that 8 days, a ps3 exclusive being developed by the London studio, should not have been canceled. However, I think they should make eyepet and see how much of a headache it will be to keep profane drawings from appearing in that title as well. After they do this or, if resources permit, while they do this, they should reinstate 8 days and work on that Gangs of London ps3 exclusive game that they were developing as well. I certainly hope these 2 titles have online multiplayer.
I agree with KazeEternal. I find it very sad that in a retrospective about a game system, the #1 feature issue wasn’t even mentioned. You’d better believe you can’t just not talk about it and expect it to go away.
Happy Birthday PS3
Happy birthday PS3! I wish you to grow like best!
Don’t make it sound like the PS3 has won or something because the WII is the winner and the Xbox 360 is the one with the RPG’s, games I’m still missing!!! So happy birthday PS3 but I hope your third year will be much more mature and most of all filled with many games including RPG’s! You’re not only a blu ray player, but also a console for game fans! Oh and PS3… the price tag on your body? Really needs to drop buddy, if you want to crush the 360.
@tatsuya kai
Please give the crying about ‘don’t want bigger harddrives’ BS a rest.
It is the nature of the harddrive market that prices stay the same while capacity increases. And the smallest drives like the 20,40, and 60 gig stop being bought in bulk and start to go up in price. So manufacturers actually end up having to pay more for smaller drives than the next step up.
It has absolutely nothing to do with some sort of ‘trade off’ to screw you out of backwards compatibility.
The PS2 was insanely advanced hardware when it came out. The insane bandwidth in the RS was one of the main reasons the PS2 was able to stay neck and neck with the Xbox last gen even though the PS2 hardware was finalized two years before the Xbox hit the market. Emulating the RS with its 50GBs bandwidth is not a trivial task even for the PS3.
Oh and PS3, honey… can you kick Sony’s butt to make more effort for games for us, instead of winding up as (timed) exclusives on the 360 while it should be played in your beautiful body (as well)? Plus I hope the term delaystation won’t be longer relevant for you, but hey, I don’t really blame you for that ;-)
@Onna76_NL
Go away troll. No one cares.
Sony has some 20-21 first party development studios and that doesn’t include all of the PSN exclusive developers.
Nintendo only has 10.
And Microsoft only has 3.
Go back to teamxbox or what ever bridge you crawled out from under.
“Remember how we promised and offered B/C? but 2 years and 6 SKUs later we dropped memory card readers (on premium models only), PS2 B/C (because we wanted to sell more PS2’s and screw late adopters to thje PS3), 2 USB ports, SACD support… oh and we haven’t solved the 1080i-only HDTVs problem”.
How bout bringing back what you promised, teased us with, and rudely took away as a “birthday present”?
Happy birthday ps3….
HAPPY 2/10th+ birday PS3 !
Bought my 60G several months after launch, for 600$ cash. What a steal! The console itself costs around ~3000$ to make. Even at a 600$ price tag it came with a ~60$ controller, ~50$ wifi, ~50$ bonus 40gigs, ~50$ backwards compatability hardware chip, ~30 multi-card reader, & ~10 x2 extra USB ports. Meaning the console itself cost ~375$ !! and then it also came with a Blue-Ray drive, free internet, 10 year support, & a NOT 1/4 faliure rate.
I am proud to have made a difference in voting on the technologically better video & game format with my money.
Now with all the new software emulation PS3’s im still the only one out of allmost all the people i know who can play almost every single PS1/PS2 game on my PS3.
How ever, bring back hardware emulation and allow me to sort my friends list by categories. Other than that it has been amazing to watch how much sony has been paying attention to user feedback & how many wonderfull updates have been released. May the PS3 grow and prosper for the rest of its life cycle.
Happy BDAY !
Happy BirthRelease day!
Happy Birthday PS3!
HOORAY happy birthday!!!
where is cross game chat? 2 years and no cross game chat? very sad, and borderline embarrassing.
i amlost forgot, thanks for the 60GB system with all the trimings. i realy like being able to play all my games from the PS2 to the PS3!
Happy Birthday PS3! While I’m on the 6th of another console for various reasons, I’ve bought 5 ps3s for myself and others and they are all still working, including a release day 60gig! WTG!!!!
Wow I’m 7 pages late to the party..Congratulations PS3 on the 2nd year of many great years to come. For these past two years I bought a system that periodically awarded me with new features and hours of entertainment bliss! I look forward enjoying my console for the many years ahead whether it be incredible game experiences or the latest Blu-Ray release! Happy Birthday!!
yes I would have to agree with people about the RPGs, c’mon SONY, I bought the PS3 expecting great RPGs like PS2 but it turns out I should have bought a 360 instead. You even let Star Ocean 4 come out first on 360 or only 360, and Tales of Vesperia as well.. and not to mention the late release date of White Knight Chronicles, and Final Fantasy 12, which is not on 360 as well. I want to say happy birthday as well but you gotta do better for JRPG fans. Have the system for 2 years and only this August that I played my first ever real rpg gaming experience on my PS3 with Disgaea 3. I seriously had no games I wanted to play before this
Happy Birthday PS3! I have a 60GB launch model, and very happy about that! %) It’s REALLY supercomputer at home.
Great functionality and best price for it. No need for price cuts now! Everything goes very well. It was, it is, and it will be!
You are responsible for the progression of consumer-based computer entertainment. You are the global leader! So get us the HOME service as soon as possible – the most wanted nuke weapon to blow up the RROD360 and to be finally the #1 ( in 2016 of course ;))
Thank You! Wish you luck!
I wonder if they will give me my home closed beta key tomorrow. Since I have all three systems, if I don’t get home tomorrow, I will be exploring the New Xbox Experience. However, if I get both, I am sure that my time spent on the crappy Xbox 360 will be much less.
Please don’t make me stoop to such a low level as to that of a 360 fan!
and how ucoming is home might i ask :)
@herb420
You’ll most likely get your HOME beta key on Friday.
other than that happy birthday ps3!
friday or tommarow
happy bday ps3
Happy Birthday Ps3~~! Thank you for given me a wonderful gaming and multimedia experience since launce..I think the launch 60gb model still the best model in town~~! but where is my home beta key?? i still haven’t got it……sorry…can’t help but…tell us something….pls…
@Sakaban
I am totally agree with you this genaration JRPG is the worst of all…i am also dissapointed with the lack of RPGs…but you really should try LBP….it is so much fun and innovative…of course, there are some crappy user created level….but still one hell of a great game…haha…
One of the best Blogs I ever read…
Happy B-Day PS3! I was there when you were “born” and I’m still here supporting you as much as I can. Let’s hope you grow to be strong one day!
I love my PS3, it’s my favorite system ever. I just wish Sony Japan would listen when we say WE WANT MORE RPGs! It’s what made a lot of us fans of Playstation to begin with.
Oh well, at least we’ve got KZ2, it’s the most fun online shooter I’ve ever played. Bravo to Guerrilla Games, they’re amazing. :bow
i went out and got my baby R2 for her bday 2day i kno she love it. weve been together since 1/13/08. lol
I got my PS3 for Christmas 2006 and I do not know where I would be without it.It is a insane peice of multimedia equiptment.Crazy job then and continueing until now.Keep rolling out the updates because I did not think you could improve on it back then but more power to you.I want my Home!Oh yeah, ignore all of those 360 fan boys trying to Knock our props.Great Job. Later.
334 people sucking up to sony, for what?
2 years already and i can count the most memorable games on 1 hand. all the updates we’ve been getting is not to our benefit, well a few are but most of them are to milk money from us as much as possible, with that said, i would like for game developers to lower game prices down especially if they are releasing an unfinished game, i say unfinished because they put up downloadable content soon after a game releases,it’s a simple way to double their money on a single game, we have bluray disks, surely they can put all that extra content on there, so i won’t be buying much anymore from the playstation store, i would like to thank 1 game developer for using a full bluray disk and that would be Konami, wow 2 years and we got 1 developer that used a full disk, maybe Insomniac did too i don’t know but all this to say, how pathetic, i would say happy b-day and many more, but i’m not sure how many more i can take. if i were sony i would not even announce anything to the public until 1 day before release that way you don’t disappoint nobody.
@ s-e-g – wow get outta here troll. way to kill the birthday buzz.
peace,
Lh
……oookay thanks S-E-G for your….uh….colorful opinion….anyway again PS3 happy birthday!!
Happy birthday PS3! My birthday is in exactly a month after PS3’s birthday. Maybe my PS3 will say it to me!
My PS3 doesn’t tell [i]me[/i] happy birthday :(
happy birthday=) still happy with my old 60gb, have I really had you in 1,5 years? Sure hasnt gottn old!
@S-E-G
Way to be honest. However, there may be hope that FFXIII may use more of the blu-ray disc. Then again, they may have made compromises to fit the game onto a single dvd9 for the 360. I guess time will tell. As far as announcing stuff to the public, there other sites that won’t hesitate to show when Sony is trying to pull a snowjob.
Happy Birthday PS3 !
You mentioned the game library…
I’ve owned a PS3 for the past year. I have a few titles that I’ve enjoyed immensely, but I can’t help the fact that sometimes I wish I had a 360.
I read an article today that the 360 has something around a 30% failure rate whereas the PS3 has 1%. Kudos to PS3 for that.
Blu-ray format also won over HD-DVD and the PS3 comes ready with it. Another plus.
The online service on the PS3 is free and has a pretty decent selection.
Even with these perks, I can’t help but feel that the 360 is making better use of it’s hardware. Games like LittleBigPlanet and Metal Gear Solid are amazing. The physics in LBP is not something I’ve seen before on a console game. MGS4… wow. The only game I’ve seen thus far that has pushed the PS3 to its limits. I realized this after I had to wait a few minutes before cut-scene.
Overall, I think the PS3 is a good buy, but I can’t help but feel that not only is the game library lacking, but it’s also lacking hardware performance.
(contd…)
(contd…)
As mentioned, the one game that I feel pushed the PS3 is MGS4. It’s not only a game, but almost a new genre with the immense movie-like scenes. But where is the rest?
I’m not here to argue or complain. I still think the PS3 is a better “deal” than a 360. But what about enjoyment value? Where is the XMB? Where is home? I’d rather pay $60 a year for their online service if it will improve its interface. I’d shell out more money on PS3 games if it meant that I would get a game that was not only fun, but pushed the PS3 to it’s limits.
What I’ve noticed from the last several years is that the Playstation games haven’t really changed much in style. You get similar type of graphics (minus MGS4) and you get similar type of gameplay. You get something that is consistent, but not exactly something that rocks your socks.
If you were to make an analogy with people, I would say the PS3 is a non-risk-taking, middle-aged man, whereas the 360 is a wild teenager partying 5 days a week (the other 2 is for resting).
I’m not going to sell my PS3 anytime soon as I know in the long run it’s a good investment (and I am also a middle-aged man). But sometimes when I see games like Halo 3 and Gears of War 2, I cringe. Gears only has 10 players on multiplayer. I’ve seen 32 on Warhawk. But I find that gears is tremendously more exciting than Warhawk. I want to see something like that happen to the PS3. I want to see Playstation take a risk and create something NEW and not the same game we’ve seen before. (LBP is one of these games).
I do anticipate Killzone 2 and after reading this blog, I’m definitely anticipating inFAMOUS.
Again, happy birthday and I wanted to throw my 2 cents in while I could. This is not to complain, but maybe someone will read this and be motivated to make some games for the PS3 that will rock my socks.
HAPPY B-DAY PS3!
you grow up so fast ;(
Birthdays are about growing up and over it’s second year the PS3 has definitely incredibly grown. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.
If we look at the PS3 like a baby, it’s first year was the best and worst in some ways… the best because it brought happiness to many gamers, like a baby would to any parent. However, there were many things we didn’t like, such as the lack of a complete online service or one that is as robust as the one we currently have,much like a baby’s first year where all they do is poop, keep you awake, and cry. Also, the price drove many away the hefty 600 price point was too much for some (not me lol), comparable to a pooping baby that needs food every couple hours and goes through diapers and diapers.
Year 2 was a much better year, PS3 has shown much improvement in many areas, especially in the online department and games, games, games. The baby is beginning to walk, it has taken it’s first step and has spoken it’s first word. There have been some mishaps and trip ups though, the extinction of backwards compatibility, for example.