Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Intelligentsia’s Panama El Machete, Jim Lampley’s The Fight Game on HBO, or Charlize Theron as Snow White, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
On Friday, my industry pal Michael and I were talking about PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Obviously the game it’s most compared to is Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. The characters in Sony’s upcoming game simply don’t have the history of the characters in Nintendo’s games. That isn’t to say that the Sony characters are bad or inferior; they just haven’t been around long enough to invoke the feelings of nostalgia that the Super Smash Bros. games conjure.
The conversation moved onto discussing Sony’s mascots. Nintendo has a host to choose from, like Mario, Donkey Kong, Pikachu, Samus, etc. Millions of people automatically think of the Microsoft Xbox when Master Chief is mentioned. As for Sony…there are several candidates, but which ones stand out to you? Some great characters have been revealed for PlayStation All-Stars, but most of them are relatively new. Even the game’s oldest ones — Parappa the Rapper and Sweet Tooth — aren’t exactly mascot material.
In the original PlayStation days, there was an effort to make Crash Bandicoot the Sony PlayStation mascot. That was dropped when the character went to Unviersal Interactive. A generation of mascot making was lost as Crash and Spyro made way for Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank. They were joined by great characters like Sly Cooper, Cole MacGrath, Kratos, etc.
Sony Defense Force members will say that the company simply has a lot of great games to choose from and that Microsoft put too many eggs in its Halo basket. Microsoft fanboys will argue that Sony has done a poor job at establishing its mascots. What say you? Are you a Kratos worshipper? Is Sackboy your man? In your mind, who are the best Sony PlayStation mascots?
