Trophies – let’s be honest here – are a pretty pointless feature at the moment on the PS3. They’re nothing but an ego boost, a case for bragging rights, or a way of comparing e-penises on Home. (Seriously, I’ve seen someone hit on a girl in Home by saying ‘nice trophy collection’; of all the lame chat up lines to use…)
Find out why this feature is #73 on our Top Gaming Moments of 2008, after the jump.
The fact of the matter is that Trophies are nothing more than an afterthought by Sony, thrown in to second-best Microsoft’s Gamerscore on Xbox LIVE. It’s as if they’re trying to say, ‘that console isn’t so great anymore, since we’ve got the same feature’. However, in clobbering together such a feature in rapid time, Sony shot themselves in the foot – because there weren’t any games that supported them.
When rumours of Trophies surfaced in the middle of the year (with a leak of Bioshock on PS3 purporting to show Trophies in an in-game XMB; that’s three revelations in one!) the general response to the news was “better late than never”. The PlayStation 3 would have its own answer to the 360’s Gamerscore, and that would be pretty neat.
Problem is, when firmware 2.40 launched (amid the million and one PS3-breaking issues) there was only one game out there that supported Trophies – 360 degree shooter Super Stardust HD. It was a damp squib of a launch and pretty damn embarrassing for Sony, who were probably banking on Trophies as a system seller of sorts, to counter the 360’s Achievements.
All sorts of promises had been made for Trophies: they would be eventually be available on every single PS3 game ever and, to save all sorts of bother, would be entirely retroactive so you wouldn’t have to redo your games over. In other words, it would be like the feature had always been there from the start and you would be none the wiser. Of course, if the feature had been available from the start (and not thrown in as an afterthought) then that would have been fine. When you start to rush things, that’s when you get problems.
Those big, big problems await over the page.
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“All sorts of promises had been made for Trophies: they would be eventually be available on every single PS3 game ever and, to save all sorts of bother, would be entirely retroactive so you wouldn’t have to redo your games over.”
I, for one, have never heard of such promises. Care to cite official sources? I’m not saying you’re lying, but if you’re going to make a statement such as this, you should easily be able to back this up.
You realize trophies are mandatory starting January 2009. (games that come out after, devs do not have to patch old games).
Uncharted also had trophies when they released the update but yes you did have to replay the game again to earn them. It sucks cause I had everything unlocked in Uncharted and had to do it all over again if I wanted to go for the trophies.
One main problem about trophies is its not forced on devs. Any 360 has to have achievements its a requirement. Ps3 games do not need to have trophies if they don’t want to or atleast not right away. Thats why games like Fallout 3 are now just getting trophies because they just didn’t ship the game with them since they didn’t have to.
Please explain the purpose of a gamerscore on an Xbox 360. Are you telling us that Xbox owners do not also “compare e-penis” sizes by bragging about their achievements as well? You are right about the fact the only game that had trophies to start with was Stardust but the rest of your arguments are weak.
Talk about hyperbole! Wow. I didn’t think anyone took trophies so seriously, and then I read this article.
The one and only thing trophies are good for–brace yourself–is to give gamers extra replay value in their games! Crazy, I know. But there you have it.
Would I like more games to have trophies? Sure. Will more games eventually have them? Yeah, they will. Do I think that dude using his trophy “come on” in Home was probably a joke that you just didn’t get? Most definitely!
Wow, look at all the PS3 fan boys lining up to defend their console over an article. Every damn time…
I dont really see the big deal. Alot more games are now getting trophies. And yes trophies are just for replay value. It gave me a reason to go through Fallout 3 several more times.
How are Trophies even NEARLY as worthless as the 360’s achievement system??? All that does is offer a contenst of “Let’s see how much random crap we can do before our consoles overheat and blow up”.
Also, it’s clear that you have absolutely NO knowledge of the gaming industry. Sony have confirmed, on mutiple occasions, that Trophies will be mandatory in EVERY PS3 GAME EVER starting January 1st 2009 (Except games that launched before that date, obviously).