Thoughts on the PlayStation Classic

Earlier this week Sony announced that it would be releasing a PlayStation Classic console, similar to the NES and SNES Classic consoles released by Nintendo.

Now, when Nintendo announced both of their classic consoles, they announced a games list so that you could see what was available.  Sony, on the other hand, has only announced five of the 20 games that will be on their system, and that has me 1) a little worried, and 2) wondering.  To note, the first five games announced are Final Fantasy VII, Jumping Flash, Ridge Racer Type 4, Tekken 3, and Wild Arms.  Of those five games, I have heard of three, and played only one.  That alone should tell you which side of the widening Console Wars I grew up on during the late '90s and early 2000s.

 So, what has me worried is that only mentioning 25% of the games is meant to garner interest in the system and have people speculating about which of their favorite PSX era games will be included on the system.  The worrying comes in that Sony knows which games are on the system but are afraid that the list is not as comprehensive as they would have liked it to have been.  Perhaps there is no Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.  Perhaps there is no Twisted Metal.  Perhaps there is no Tomb Raider.  Perhaps there is no Pa-Rappa the Rapper.  Perhaps there is no Tony Hawk 2.  Perhaps there is no Spyro the Dragon.  Perhaps there is no Metal Gear Solid.  Just with the NES and SNES Classic systems, there are going to be games that people just do not understand why they were included instead of any other game.  Why was Ice Climbers included instead of Tetris!?  Why was Kirby's Dream Course included instead of Chrono Trigger!?  I know that a lot of the decision comes down to who has the rights to the game and if Sony is able to negotiate with the owners, assuming that the IP rights are not in some Hellish limbo.  No matter how many games come preloaded on the system, people are going to want their favorite game instead of any one that they have never heard of, or have and just do not like.

The wondering part comes from speculations that I have read since Sony's announcement.  I have read some people believing that there might be an ethernet port on the back of the PSClassic which could mean linking to the PS Store and being able to upload either additional games to the system's memory and swapping games in/out.  To me, this would be a major selling point and something that would want to be mentioned considering the amount of people "hacking" their NES and SNES consoles to add their own games.  Either way this goes, worried or wondering, people are inevitably going to be upset.

I have also been seeing a lot of people who are upset that the system does not include the Dual-Shock controllers of the PS2 era, but what a certain percentage of the population do not seem to remember (or were not born at the time), was that the PSX controllers and the majority of games that were released on the system at the time were designed with the original PSX controller in mind.  There was no rumble feature (thank you again Nintendo and Star Fox 64 for that one), and there was not a joy stick, let alone two of them.

For me, I am mildly interested in the PlayStation Classic, but a lot of that continued interest is going to be determined on which of the 15 remaining games are included on the system; I do not really have an interest in "hacking" the system to add my own games.  Presently, I have only played Final Fantasy VII, and Tekken 3 doesn't really interest me as a fighting game.  I have heard of the Ridge Racer series, but I couldn't tell you anything aside from it being a racing game.  The other two I had not heard of before the announcement.  So, the remaining 15 are going to have to really pique my interest if Sony is expecting me as someone who grew up in the 90s as a gamer, to plop down $99.99 for when the system is released this December.  Because right now, that $99.99 is more likely to go to purchase 3rd party Switch games.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

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