Recently it seems there has been a plethora of HD Collections on the PS3 and it seems like that for the near future this will continue to be a trend as gamers continue to buy them. The real question is why do they continue to buy them, and are the collections nesccesary at all. Well as always I will give my own opinion and provide some evidence and news as well to go with it.

Why do we buy?

The easiest and most likely correct answer is Nostalgia pure and simple. I mean for a whole generation of gamers the Playstation 2 was their first console. So these were the games they grew up on and also grew to love. With classic games and characters like Sly the Racoon, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank  not to mention God Of War and Killzone, who have all for the most part moved on to other consoles or systems. However is nostalgia the only real factor here?

There is in the gaming culture that we inhabit a subculture of rabid completionists. The kind of people who have to get every trophy in every game or every acheivment, they also feel the need to collect games, and are rabid about it, not in a bad way though. They will tell you there is passion and then there is PASSION. Weirdly enough I had this argument with a friend recently and a passerby got caught in the middle and he started to cry, but hey thats another story.

So we narrowed it down right now to Nostalgia and Rampant Completionism but is there another factor? Yes I for one have recently bought cousins of mine who are 10 an HD collection of the Sly Games because they are kid friendly and fun to play, and with them all in one collection there is no anxious wiat for the next game to come out or the 60 times 3 cost of the games, you get them all for a low price and for gamers who never played these on the previous generation its a great deal. Not to mention that most PS3’s are not backward compatible.

Sony and plenty of other companies know all this and know that someone will always buy them because they are cheaper than full priced games and you get more play time for your dollar. This trend is not going away and I fully expect when the next gen consoles come out there will be a suite of PS3 collections for PS4.

The List:

A list of some current HD Collections and a few ones down the road.

Ratchet and Clank

God of War

Jak and Daxter

Metal Gear Solid

Prince of Persia

Silent Hill

Splinter Cell

Tomb Raider

For the most part the majority of these collections are 3 games, and all are already out there. Now for some coming down the road.

Assasins Creed Ezio Auditore Trilogy

Rockstar Games Collection: Edition 1

Doom 3 BFG Collection

The Rockstar games collection was just recently announced and it looks to be huge. It has Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City, L.A. Noire, and Midnight Club: Los Angeles Complete Edition.

Anyway thats it for now I will be back next weekend.