In Japan Playstation 3 is leaps and bounds beyond Xbox. This is generally associated with the 'xenophobia' Japanese gamers supposedly have.
But I think there's another aspect. PSN.
On the American Playstation Store hardly anything is available. But on the Japanese PSN there are well over 100 titles, some fairly rare and obscure.
Did any of you know that Biohazard 2 was availble for Japanese gamers to download onto their PSP or PS3?
PlayStation.com(Japan)｜ソフトウェアカタログ｜BIOH AZARDｮ 2
American gamers resort to custom firmware (which I'm not too familiar with) to get the best potential of their newer playstation consoles.
But Japanese players can download Xenogears right onto each of the systems, one of the greatest games of all time.
Why doesn't the American PSN share these great titles? It doesn't even seem like an effort is being made. I'd really like to see some great titles come here as well. The fact that some of these games are pretty rare or expensive (compared to the 1500 yen which is roughly 15$ or 30 GBP ... I think) is amazing for people like me who like the original playstation games. Of course, dishing out the money for a PS3 is pretty expensive, but after 4 rare games you already have one. In fact, Japanese PSP gamers are able to play games that are extremely expensive in the U.S. for cheaper, like Suikoden II which is one of the most expensive PS1 games out there - on western shores.
As more titles become available for the JPSN the console could make the Wii's virtual console look like, well, child's play.
What do you think?
Playstation's Secret Weapon
Linear Mode
