2009 – How the PS3 Tides have Turned

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The situation started to turn around in late 2007 with the release of the epic online multiplayer title, Warhawk, as well as the phenomenal Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. After these releases, critics began to quiet down. And most surprisingly, and game developers that for whatever reason were unable to get a handle on the PS3 during its early months really began to see what it was capable of. Rather than complaining about the architecture, a vocal minority began to praise Sony for making Cell and RSX as powerful as they were. And best of all, the development tools were beginning to mature.

An unbiased measuring tool for grading multiplatform titles is the popular website, metacritic-small-logoMetacritic.com. Metacritic is the one-stop shop for all the reviews of a particular title. Beginning as a film site, Metacritic expanded and began to compile reviews for video games. Game Editor for Metacritic, Marc Doyle, put it best, when he stated:

“A site like ours helps people cut through…unobjective promotional language…because video games are a greater investment of time and money than other forms of entertainment, gamers are much more informed about reviews than film fans or music fans. They would like to know whether that hotly anticipated title is going to deliver.”

Even highly reputable organizations such as The New York Times have praised Metacritic by saying, “Movies have Roger Ebert. Wine has Robert Parker. Videogames have Marc Doyle.”

With Metacritic being the premiere review compilation service on the internet, SMGamers.com found that in 2007, the first full year in the PS3’s life, 57% of multiplatform games scored higher on the Xbox 360, 26% scored better on the PS3, and 17% resulted in a tie across the platform. Fast forward to 2008, 50% of the games scored better on the 360, 30% higher on the PS3, and 20% were tied.

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