14 DAY TRIAL // The PlayStation 3 has had a pretty troubled lifetime up until now, particularly as regards the backward compatibility feature that made plenty of Sony fans rapidly adopt the highly priced console when it was first launched because it supported PS2 games.
But after a short period of time, the Japanese company released a new version that didn't have that important feature and which didn't manage to attract quite a lot of fans. Now, with the introduction of the cheaper PlayStation 3 Slim, many people hoped to find that feature included but, as you found out in the article we posted about it, it will still be absent.
The director of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment America, John Koller, talked about this measure and how fans just didn't really want the feature, claiming that they would buy the PS3 in order to play PS3 games.
“Now that we're at a point where we're three years into the lifecycle of the PS3,” he said, “there are so many PS3 disc-based games that are available that we think — and noticed this from our research — that most consumers that are purchasing the PS3 cite PS3 games as a primary reason.”
“And it's not just like 50 or 60 percent. It's well into the 80 or 90 percentile range who are purchasing it for PS3 games. We do know that there are next gen consumers wanting to come over to the PS3. Most of those are consumers who have not utilized their PS2 for a little while and they're ready to jump into the PlayStation 3.”
With the PlayStation 2 at just $99, it does make sense to not implement the backward compatibility feature as everyone who wants access to the huge game library of the old platform can buy a new one.