1. MS doesn’t really have a timely release of Japanese games. In fact I’d say its quite opposite…its Japan that has timely release of US games. They are losing Japan so they are making special attempts to try to win them back. So they are probably putting special effort in localizing games for Japan..not the other way around. I could be wrong.

2. MS all but dropped the original Xbox. Like it never existed. I’m sure most people are over it now but when it happened alot of people had a sour taste in their mouth from MS. Now that MS said they want to be the first to the market with the new console….we can only assume they will do it again.

3. PS2 has too large of a back catalog to milk. With 90 percent of it being shovelware. Sure there are a few games I’d like to see happen (give me another Lunar)…but I’d definately rather see new IP’s.

What is truethough, a lot of people still buy the cheaper PS2 in favor of a PS3, which is ok as the PS2 really competes against the Wii in this case. In other words, Sony still needs the PS2 badly as long as the PS3 is above the 199 price point.

The other issues are slightly more complicated, but also have a bit to do with PS2’s continued to success. I just don’t see them putting games that are still available at retail onto PSN (the original Ratchet & Clank is almost six years old and you can still buy it just about anywhere). The other issue is for third party games, those publishes would rather sell overpriced compilations rather than just giving people the particular game they want at a reasonable price. It’s easier for Microsoft to get a Marathon remake made when they (at the time) owned Bungie and the game was never really easy to find in stores to begin with.

As for developers still making PS2 games, this probably isn’t going to change. The hardware cycle has been sort of a dividing line between developers that can step up their game and those who cannot. As long as the combined pool of customers for PS2, Wii, and PSP is huge (and it’s only going to get bigger) there isn’t a lot of incentive for them to put in the effort of making a great next gen experience. Looking at the hardware sales, I’m amazed that a good number of developers put any effort into advancing the medium. This is an issue that is hard to compared between Sony and Microsoft, for a few reasons. One, Microsoft basically has no presence in Japan so they are not as effected by that market’s aversion to technological advancement (what else can you call it at this point?). Secondly, they’re the place to go for western developers, specifically those that used to be PC-centric (Infinity Ward, 2K Boston, etc) and are used to improving their technology (or using more advanced engines created by someone else every few years) on a regular basis. This could get a bit complicated for them since having newer more powerful hardware was the draw at both system launches, but on the PC side people are basically not buying new hardware to play games like Crysis anymore. 360 could have a longer lifespan if only for the fact that there really isn’t an audience yet for games that require more power.