A stripped-down PS3? No thanks.

I’m in the market for a Playstation 3 now that the prices are dropping, and I’ve sold off a lot of my old consoles (which I never use anymore anyhow) so I can buy one. More than once, I’ve been asked, “so, are you going to get the Slim?” (That is, for those who don’t know, the new, smaller, more energy-efficient model that Sony is replacing the old models with.)

But the thing is… the PS3 Slim is actually a lot LESS of a value than the earlier models. The original 60GB launch system (launched in 2006, at $600) had way more features than the current models do. It had four USB ports, a bunch of memory card readers, backwards compatibility with PS1 and PS2 games and the ability to install Linux on the system without needing any modifications. Pretty cool, right? But as the system has evolved, it’s lost two USB ports, lost its backwards compatibility, lost its memory card readers, and finally, with the Slim, lost its ability to run Linux. All of this has been in the name of cost-cutting, but the truth of the matter is that Sony is actually reducing features in order to re-tighten their control on their hardware. They wanted the PS3 to be the “home computer system”. Now, they’re back to marketing it as a game console.

And honestly, it’s a really peculiar situation, because it shows that Sony really doesn’t get marketing at all. Instead of adding features to later models, as pretty much any electronics manufacturer would, Sony has continued to strip down and limit the PS3. They’ve even stopped pushing the Blu-Ray capabilities in favor of pushing the fact that it plays games slightly better than the Xbox 360. Sony has basically regressed to being a competitor in an old category rather than trying to hold on to the new territory it was delving into. I think they’re going to recover now that they’ve priced the PS3 appropriately and started developing their games library, but I think the PS3 is always going to be remembered as a mediocre console, not as the powerhouse it should be.

Oddly enough, Sony’s probably is not too different from Nintendo’s problem in the late 1990s. Nintendo was riding a huge wave of success from the SNES, which is, for my money, the best home console system ever made. Sega had been nipping at their heels with the Sega Genesis and the upcoming Saturn, and Sony was getting ready to launch its PlayStation, which came out of a failed partnership between Sony and Nintendo that was supposed to result in a CD-ROM attachment for the SNES. CD-ROM wasn’t quite ready for prime time (the discs loaded slowly, and analog sticks needed for 3D games were still not a standard feature on controllers), so Nintendo decided to launch another cartridge-based system, first named the “Ultra 64,” and then later, the “Nintendo 64.”

I remember the first year the Nintendo 64 came out — it was a disaster. There were only about 12 games available, and all of them were garbage except for Super Mario 64. The N64 didn’t come with all the extras (games, 2 controllers, zappers, etc) that the older consoles had; it was just a system and a single controller. And that controller — the weird, trident-shaped design that never quite felt comfortable in your hand, with an analog stick that was easy to break, and four tiny yellow buttons that served little practical purpose — was one of the first things that was clearly wrong with the N64. Nintendo, in its zeal to be different, had done something weird and awkward. And what’s more, it set the stage for something that continues to be true of Nintendo consoles — third party games tended to be terrible on the N64. If you ask people which N64 games they liked or remembered, they’re bound to cite a game made by Nintendo or by Rare (who at the time was a partner of Nintendo).

Apparently, the console was very hard to program for due to limited storage and memory. 3D objects were easy for the system to render, but there was little memory available for textures. Full-motion video and voice clips took up too much space, making the system a poor choice for RPGs. The control scheme was not really appropriate for fighting games, and the system did 2D really badly. Essentially, the N64 was a victim of its own ambition; it was trying to be a 3D game console before 3D game consoles were ready for prime time. I’d still rate it as Nintendo’s weakest console system, despite the fact that it sold much better than the Gamecube. But the Gamecube was superior in every way, and the reason it didn’t do as well was because people were soured by the N64 and Nintendo’s stubborn refusal to give them the sorts of experiences they could get on the PS2 and Xbox. Nintendo had developed a “kiddie” image – its products were little more than toys in the eyes of gamers. And commercials like this one didn’t help to shed that:

So, I made the statement that Sony’s PS3 is very similar to the N64. But on the surface, that doesn’t appear to be correct. Sony launched a console that was far more powerful (and capable!) than the N64, and it geared itself towards older gamers, not younger ones. Sony lacks the power of Nintendo for making first-party games, but it has some great third-party support. The controllers are comfortable and standard, and the system itself is pretty impressive, even in its stripped-down state. So how, you might wonder, can I draw a comparison?

It’s all in the marketing. Both Sony and Nintendo were riding the wave of two very successful consoles, and both decided that it was time to focus on the product, not the customer. Nintendo did it by launching a system that underperformed at traditional console functions and that didn’t do its new functions very well. Sony did it by launching a system that was intended to be used as something other than a console and then saying, nonchalantly, “oh, it plays games, too.” Both Nintendo and Sony supported their systems with ridiculous marketing strategies that tried to communicate technology over functionality, and both launched their consoles expecting people to buy on brand name alone.

The Nintendo 64 is actually remembered as a better system than it was because Nintendo was able to support it with some great games down the road. That helped to take the sting out somewhat to those who’d bought the system hoping for the same level of fun they’d enjoyed with the SNES. I’m actually not sure if Sony is going to be able to pull that off with the PS3; Sony’s never been good at first-party software, and most of its best first-party titles have been aimed at a specific niche. I’m guessing what takes the sting out of the PS3 is its ability to play Blu-Ray and its free online service… but I’m not sure that these features are as useful to the majority of gamers as Sony seems to think.

So, we’re left with a console cycle where Sony is going to take a bath. The early adopters have the system; the lower price point means that the early majority will start picking the system up. But they’re going to be disappointed when they realize they’ve got a system that’s not as good as the one they could have bought a few years back, and they’re going to find that the Xbox 360 actually has the better software library right now. The only way Sony is going to be able to turn this into a victory is if they can communicate the cool of the PS3 — and though Sony’s very good at being “cool,” I think they’ve given up too much ground this generation. If Microsoft’s third Xbox or Nintendo’s next console are in any way impressive, it’s likely that Sony’s going to really get hurt in the next cycle of consoles (which should begin in 2011 or 2012).

How did Nintendo come back? By re-inventing itself and focusing on The Marketing Concept with the Wii. They’ve been wildly successful because they figured out how to talk to gamers again and deliver what casual gamers wanted. Sony’s going to have to go through its own reinvention. I wish them luck.

I’ve been a regular Internet user for over a decade now, though I had the fortune of using other online services like AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy and local BBS networks before that. In my senior year of high school, I took over a video game review website called eXscape and helped it to become a good niche PC gaming site when it was still possible to make money doing that. (Don’t look for the site now; it’s long gone, as are many of the other sites I worked with at the time!) During that two-year endeavor, I learned all sorts of things about content design: how readers process information, how other sites pick up news, how search engines pick up websites, and so forth. I also learned that knowing some basic HTML (and eventually, CSS) is vital, no matter how good your automated tools are.

Over the years, as I’ve graduated from content creator to a marketing guy and publisher, I’ve been able to use those skills to do all sorts of fun things (including this page!), and while I loathe tinkering with templates and reverse-engineering code to make my blogging software do what I want, I’m glad I know how to do it so I don’t have to rely on someone else to do it for me. I’m also glad that when it comes to creating my page for Army Ant Publishing and related products, I won’t have to hire a web design firm to set up the page for me; I’ll simply need to contract artists to help me design the graphics.

I’m glad I’m ahead of the curve here, because many small publishers aren’t very good at using the Internet to promote their product. I’ve seen publishers who have launched their company websites through Geocities, with pages that crash browsers and that fail to load properly due to poor placement of javascripts. I’ve seen publishers who have used sites that have been so reliant on Flash that they contain no useful information; just a bunch of slow-loading animations. And worst of all, I’ve seen websites that have contained out-of-date information (and sometimes, even tentative covers and titles!) for books that have been out for some time. Often, there is no ordering information or link to a place to buy the book, either.

It’s obvious that these publishers aren’t considering that the world wide web is where 75% of the population turns for information, and that the design of their website will speak volumes about their products. There’s no excuse for a poor website, either; they’re not hard to set up, and there are tons of people out there (especially students) who are willing to design basic websites for next to nothing. Basic hosting can be found for $5-10 per month, and most of these hosts will offer everything a small publisher really needs. And domain names (like http://www.armyantpublishing.com) are incredibly cheap these days; I register mine through Godaddy for a piddling $9.95 per domain name. A Yahoo merchant account is only $75, and it allows a company to set up a store and take credit cards. All in all, a competent website can be easily set up for well under $500, and in many cases, for less than $200 if the publisher has access to artists and copywriters.

If you’re a small publisher and planning to have any presence on the web (and I’d suggest you do!), you probably want to remember the following tips before you settle than a less-than-adequate website.

Buy as many variations of your domain name as you can think of. If you’re setting up “Doggone Publishing,” you will want to try to register “doggone.com,” “doggonebooks.com”, “doggonepublishing.com” and so forth. You might want to register “doggonepublishing.net” as well, but I wouldn’t worry about domain extensions like “doggone.biz” or “doggone.us” — .com and .net are really the only two most people use. It’s also not necessary to get any extra services or register them for multiple years; you can do all that stuff later, if needed. Do make sure your webhost will allow you to auto-renew, though; there are companies that prey on others by picking up expiring domain names and trying to sell them back for exorbitant costs.

Unless you feel a domain name is a must have, DO NOT pay large sums of money for it. Domain names are important, but they’re becoming less important as people use search engines and link engines for their web browsing. The people out there paying thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars for domain names are idiots.

Once you purchase your domain names, you can have them all direct to the index page of your website. Your webhost can help you figure out how to do this.

You should also plan to register domain names for your various products, if possible. Never announce a product before you register a product name; there are people out there who search for product announcements and who try to snatch up related domains in the hopes that they’ll be able to sell them to you. Beat them to the punch and save yourself the trouble.

Make your index page simple, but not too simple. The index page, for those who don’t know, is the main page that people will see when they visit your website. It should provide an easy portal for people to explore your site without having to search too hard for whatever it is they’re looking for. Think of it as the entrance to your booth in an endless bazaar of merchants — people who are visiting need to be able to see all the neat things you have to offer or they’ll move on.

Do not — and let me repeat this again: do not!– make your index page a picture of your logo with a “click here to enter” link. Likewise, do not make your index page a flash animation or a video. To continue my analogy, putting up an index page with a logo, flash animation or video is like setting up a closed booth with no windows and a heavy wooden door. People won’t see what’s inside, and unless they feel like venturing in, they won’t bother to find out. And if you force them to watch an orientation video every time they walk in the door, they probably won’t come back.

A functional index page should include your logo, links to your various departments, a brief summary of what your company does, and — don’t forget this — copyright information along the bottom. Keep it simple, and make sure it’s easy to navigate.

Many companies like to make their index page the “news” page, and that’s fine, because it serves the needs of visitors wanting to find out about the latest buzz. If you’re going to set your page up like that, make sure you include a sidebar explaining who you are. You’ll also want a menu, either along the top or along the side, that will allow readers to quickly find their way to your products if they aren’t interested in wading through your news. And as a reminder, any time you mention your products in your news section, you need to remember to include a link to their respective pages on your site. Many web surfers will enter your site through your news articles, and it’s important to give them quick access to your product pages.

For a publisher that’s just starting out and that won’t have much news to share, I’d actually suggest making your index page a simple introduction to your company with graphical links to other sections of the website. You won’t want to open with news because anything you post will stay up there for awhile and make it look like not much is happening with your company. Instead, just offer a nice introduction to your company and prominent links to your products.

Your site needs to be organized. Don’t just lump everything together; divide it into sections. Create a section for news, a section for products, a section for corporate information, a section for your message boards (if you’re including them) and a section for your store. If you want to crosslink sections, that’s fine; for example, you can (and should!) link your products to their entries in your store, just as you should link news about your products to your products. But keep everything organized so that readers don’t get lost.

One trick I always recommend is to make your logo (which generally runs across the top of the page) always link back to your index page so that readers can quickly escape back to your index if they get lost.

Meta tag descriptions are important on your most visited pages. These are descriptions that you write into the code of each page on your website that tell search engines what your website is about. Most websites use these when they return hits; they can be the first impression a potential reader receives about your site. If your software doesn’t offer you an easy way to insert them, visit this page for a tutorial.

You don’t need to generate meta tag descriptions for every page on your site, but you should set one up for your index page explaining what your site offers. Keep the description under 200 words, though; search engines will reject them if they’re too long. I recommend writing descriptions for your product pages and your index page, at the bare minimum.

Don’t worry about meta tag keywords; they used to serve a purpose, but now, search engines almost always ignore them.

Don’t forget to include vital information about your products. Every product page should, as a minimum, include a sharp picture of the book’s cover, a 1-3 paragraph summary of its contents, links to previews of the book, the ISBN, the cover price, and information on where it can be purchased. If you’re feeling ambitious, you might want to list other information too, like the publication date, the number of pages, the number of printings, and so forth.

Always link to Amazon.com’s entry for your book, even if you’re selling it in your own store. Amazon often carries reviews and other information that’s useful to your potential customers, and many will come back to your site if you:

1) Any time you like to another site, including Amazon, include Target=”_blank” in your anchor tag. It will open the link in a new tab or window for the user. That way, the reader can get back to your site easily. And don’t worry; it won’t be stopped by a popup blocker since it’s a link the user clicks to activate instead of being launched automatically by your site.

2) Offer something Amazon can’t, like a signed copy of the book for the regular cover price. Readers are more likely to buy from you if they know they’re getting something special!

You should always include a page with information about your company, but do not link your email address directly from the page. There are tons of nasty little programs out there called “spam harvesters” that scour the web day and night for email addresses, which they compile into a database that’s used to send spam. You’ll spend more time deleting mail than reading it, and it will waste a lot of your webserver’s time, too.

There are ways to defeat these programs, and this site has some techniques to help you do it. If you don’t want to go hi-tech, you can list your email address like so:

Contact me at sean AT sean-jordan DOT com

It’s not elegant, but it gets the job done!