Oh, I am sure it’s going to sell some units. But 99% of the games on the system are fuck-ugly. Even something like SoTN has some 3d objects in it and they are fuck ugly and stick out badly. There’s a reason lots of people are making games right now with “16-bit style” graphics (or variants thereof), but exactly nobody is making games with Ps1 era graphics. It’s not because nobody got the idea to replicate the look and feel of a PS1 era game. I think the amount of pining that exists for this era remains to be seen.
It’s unfortunate that there are games we’ll probably lose to time unless they make it out on this. I’m surprised they included Wild Arms, since I believe it sold modestly outside of Japan. I doubt it will include Breath of Fire III.
The business model of this device is “fortune cookie”. Sony expect hackers to open it, and find a way to install many games on it. Something I hope dont happen.
Battle Arena Toshinden
Cool Boarders 2
Destruction Derby
Final Fantasy VII
Grand Theft Auto
Intelligent Qube
Jumping Flash!
Metal Gear Solid
Mr. Driller
Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
Rayman
Resident Evil Director’s Cut
Revelations: Persona
Ridge Racer Type 4
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Syphon Filter
Tekken 3
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six
Twisted Metal
Wild Arms
Hahahah, no Gran Turismo, no Final Fantasy IX, which are the only two games I was sort of looking forward to seeing on this machine. Instead we get Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six.
I wonder if they’ll have a dual shock controller, which came late in the life of the Playstation, or the original controller, without any analog sticks?
Edit: The image in the OP looks like the original controller. Hahahahah. Brilliant! In that case, I don’t blame them for not including Wipeout and Gran Turismo.
The original Persona? C’mon, guys, you could at least have skipped to the one that wasn’t weirdly racist and quite badly translated. (Persona 2: Eternal Punishment). Sure, you miss a little bit of story context from the first game and a LOT from the never localized Persona 2: Innocent Sin… but so would most people have back in the day.
(Not that Persona 1 is a bad game but you really, really want to play the massively superior PSP remake.)
I don’t have any nostalgia for the system but there are a few surprising omissions (Tomb Raider jumps out, Crash and Spyro are surprising if you don’t consider the remasters).
On the other hand more people will be exposed to Intelligent Qube and Jumping Flash so I consider that a net positive.
On the other hand, most people aren’t really going to play the games on these retro consoles, especially longer-form RPGs… The game list just needs to be enticing enough to make people buy it, plonk around with it for an evening, and then forget it’s there.
From a marketing perspective, Persona 1 is great for that, because it’s just “play the first game in the Persona series!” And by the time people realize that it isn’t really all that much like Persona 5, you already have their money.
I think the biggest downer after SNES Classic is there’s nothing really exciting that’s “valuable” on disc these days outside of maybe Persona. With SNES Classic, you have to pay a mint for some of those if you want the original carts, and you also get Star Fox 2 which was never released. Someone on RGB noted a translated Tobal 2 would’ve been an awesome thing to include and I agree.
The lack of Gran Turismo, Wipeout, Warhawk and something more from Square-Enix like Vagrant Story is disappointing. Overall, it’s just not that great a lineup IMO. Rainbow Six is a super weird thing to include but I bet UbiSoft was begging them to be on there which is why we get that and Rayman.
Battle Arena Toshinden is pretty crap looking back now, especially next to Tekken 3. That will not age well with most people.
I grew with the esteemed posters above on the odd omissions. Things like SotN, Crash, Tomb Raider, and even Spyro are the type of premium listings that are needed. Sure FF VII is a cultural touchstone, but it’s weird. Especially since Capcom has participated in the Nintendo offerings. Symphony should have been a given.
I’m giving SotN the same “pass” as Crash and Spyro - Requiem was just released on PS4 so it (unfortunately) makes sense to not throw it in. Even for that, it sounds like Konami is so disinterested in video games these days that Sony basically had to handle the whole project themselves (including funding).
I tried to make a better list without completely changing the included games and genre mix and came up with this: