An Evening With Sony Computer Entertainment 253
Thursday evening, senior Sony representatives such as Phil Harrison (President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios) and David Karraker (Head of SCEA's PR division) sat down with the posters from a bunch of websites, looking to ease relations between the company and their customers. Along with folks from The San Jose Mercury News, Joystiq, Kotaku, and MTV, we discussed a number of the issues raised in the comments here on Slashdot the day before yesterday. My goal in going to the event was to make sure that your concerns were heard. Over the last several months, I've heard many complaints leveled against Sony and their products, and I was hoping to bring back some answers. To be honest, I walked away not fully satisfied. Read on for answers to some of the criticisms you, the readers, have leveled against Sony in the last several months.
I took notes, but a lot of ground was covered, and not all of it was probably of interest. To give you a sense of context, we were all gathered around a large table in a hotel just off of Union Square. The event was held in the early evening, and lasted for approximately two hours. While everyone was certainly civil, there were a number of tough questions passed around. Here is what I felt was most important to you folks:
- A goodly amount of the discussion centered around Sony's newly announced Home project. The dangers of allowing uploadable content were raised, and we were assured that PSN parental controls will be fully in place within the game world. There will be a few quick button options to black out the screen (in case of offensive images) and to kill the audio (in case of offensive language). Public spaces will be moderated (and instanced, if you're curious), though they were a bit vague on just how those individuals would work economically. They're still working out the details.
- I was intrigued on Wednesday (as were a number of readers) by the possibility of indie games in the Arcade rooms they showed off. Phil Harrison responded by saying that it is something they're very interested in. Originally, all of the games were going to be done in Java but technical problems arose. The games are now done in C. If they can wrap up the tools in an easy package, they'd be very happy to release them and allow community-created games onto the service.
- Revenue for the service will be handled via object sales, advertising, and b2b elements in vendor areas. Those concerned about the 'amount of free' that you'll get as an intro Home user should know that they're hoping to offer a fair amount off the bat. 'Free' includes a basic apartment, access to the public spaces, a 'reasonable' number of avatar customization options, and a 'starter' set of furniture. Better views out your window will be purchasable, along with new apartments.
- Everyone from Sony in the room heavily resisted comparisons to Second Life, and other services. In Mr. Harrison's words "That would be heavily oversimplifying both Home and Second Life." Along the lines of hacking the service to allow Second Life-style sexual animations, the reps were fairly confident that they'd dodge that bullet. The service itself doesn't allow avatar touching, and doesn't currently have emotes that approximate those actions. They eventually hope to have 100% of online-connected users on the service. Currently, the number of online connected PS3's is somewhere around 500,000 in NA; roughly 50% of the North American consoles.
- Right now the download is around 450 megs, but that's going to probably shrink and grow over the course of development.
- The subject of Sony's arrogant public demeanor was broached, as well as the poor public relations message we've been getting in the last several months. The ThreeSpeech blog was broached, and the folks in the room actually clarified the purpose and reality behind the 'semi-official' blog. ThreeSpeech is actually a European entity, intended to be a public forum in which Sony-related matters can be discussed and information can be brought to the public's attention. The people behind ThreeSpeech are some of the most respected games journalists in the UK; it would be like if a US version of the site were staffed by the likes of CNN's Chris Morris, and man-of-many-talents Geoff Keighley. Because UK gamers know and trust the ThreeSpeech staff, there's an implicit understanding (in that country) that the message coming from the site is not 'tainted.' It was pointed out the lack of attribution to posts across the site is a barrier to acceptance, and they took that under advisement. For the most part, it seems, the bad reputation that ThreeSpeech here in the states seems to be a case of cultural misunderstanding. While I still don't like the term 'semi-official', I did feel as though the concept behind the site made a great deal more sense to me after this chat. Some of the other attendees were not as reassured.
- The element that I want to convey, which I took away from the discussion of Sony's arrogance, was that arrogance is not the feeling I get from them in person. These people are, instead, supremely confident in their products and services. Thanks to the impersonal nature of quotes and the numerous (rightly decried) public relations gaffes they've suffered, their confidence can easily be seen as arrogance by third party information consumers. This is not to say the company on the whole is not arrogant; I just want to make it clear the people I was in the same room with Thursday night did not have the attitude of inherently arrogant individuals.
- This discussion went on to include the question of the PS3's pricetag, which was a subject never fully addressed to my satisfaction. There was some talk of the PS3 as a lifestyle, and the still-important question of why Blu-ray technology is necessary. Peripherals such as the EyeToy were mentioned as 'making the PS3 disappear from the equation', which given the cost of the system seemed to be a poor choice of words. Not much of substance resulted from the Sony 'side of the table' on this subject, and that attitude left me feeling a bit frustrated. The system's cost won't be changing for some time now, and there's apparently not much to talk about on that subject. This was the one element that I went into the session hoping to deal with directly, and unfortunately came away feeling let down.
- As a final note, it was stated directly that "There is no direct evidence that Blu-Ray has been hacked." Their attitude is that the encryption is strong, and that it will be a long time before it's cracked.
Supremely Confident? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there actually a difference between arrogance, and being supremely confident when you have no reason to be?
Arrogant: "making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights; overbearingly assuming; insolently proud"
Why yes, yes that does sound like practically everything we've heard from anyone influential at sony regarding, well, anything that's come out since the Playstation. Playstation 2 was supposed to be the god box, the supercomputer. It fell DRAMATICALLY short of the announced specifications. Playstation 3 is too cheap. PSP is a fantastic value and UMDs are highly desirable. Blah blah blah.
Home Is Amazing (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.scedev.net/home/ [scedev.net]
Home is a platform for third party developers to build custom spaces to market and sell their games directly to gamers. Sony is providing all the tools you need to build your company's space out in the theme of whatever game or games you want. Just take existing art and use the Maya tools Sony provides. Existing game artwork should be easily used to deck out a space with streaming videos on the walls showing the game and things like being able to jump right into the demo from the game's space. Get custom stuff for you avatar or personal space. Pretty much anything you can think of you should be able to implement and are willing to use to the tools to generate.
When you compare Home to the online disaster that Nintendo has on their hands with the Wii, it should be clear why Sony has the largest amount of support from third party developers and why game developers view the Wii as a place to dump PS2 ports onto. Wii developers are struggling to get the information they need to put their games online and things like Wii integration in games is mostly a Nintendo title only thing right now.
If you are a third party developers Sony is sending you a message that your game or games are important and will get the full support on the Playstation/Home platform on the same level as first party titles. Whereas Nintendo...why risk a big budget title when the company makes it clear that third parties are second class citizens just like they have been on previous Nintendo consoles.
Re:Supremely Confident? (Score:2, Interesting)
And keep in mind that:
1. I have multiple PS2 titles sitting right now on the shelves that I have worked on
2. I am sitting right next to a PS2 Tool and the complete set of Sony developer docs
3. I have personally run my own rendering code on this very Tool that pumps out ~55 million flat shaded tris a second
4. Any reasonably competent PS2 developer has or can do the very same as 3.
There was only one company that lied about poly performance last gen. It wasn't Sony. And it wasn't Nintendo.
Re:No questions about the fake PSP fan site? (Score:2, Interesting)
I was referring to the saying "big turd in a little bowl", which refers to someone who thinks they are better than they are. Which describes them nicely. However, the bowl is anything but little.
Also, they are definitely a bunch of shits. Just the way they treat their customers is wrong.
Entirely different? You actually believe that? These corporations are created so that the parent corporation can shield itself from harm. That is the beginning and the end of the story. A beneficial (to them) side effect is that very foolish people think they are actually different corporations. But they are not! It's all under the same umbrella, and your failure to hold Sony Corporate accountable for the actions of its subsidiaries underscores the foolishness of the consumer mindset. CONSUME, EARTHLING! CONSUME!
Lik-Sang failed because they couldn't afford to respond to dozens of lawsuits filed in various countries. But don't let the facts get in your way or anything. Incidentally, one of the major complaints Sony had against them was that they were selling consoles and games out-of-region. So basically, Lik-Sang had to die to protect Sony's right to engage in price fixing.
If you don't think that's bad, then I don't think we can even come to an agreement.
Look dude, I have a job. It's not amazingly high-paying but I could afford a PS3 if I liked. I just blew a couple hundred bucks on a car stereo when a fifty dollar unit would have let me listen to music, because it had a few extra features that I could live without. I'm not buying one even if they halve the price. You get me? You can talk all the ignorant shit you want, but you don't fucking know me, so don't presume to tell me what's on my mind.
Re:Zonk, call a spade a spade. (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I read on /. Zonk is an xbox, wii and ps3 fanboy and so must be well placed to provide a balanced view...
(and as a Wii owner who would just love to see the ps3 do so badly all those nice looking exclusives come over to Nintendo, I have to admit this is the first thing I've seen from Sony regarding the PS3 which gives me the impression the it might still be a success)
Sony's issues (Score:1, Interesting)
When arrogance is mentioned, it should be applied across the spectrum. For instance someone mentioned Sony MMORPG and those issues. That was a nasty shanking. The absolute deplorable arrogance of the rootkit. The stupid licensing, DRM, and issues that plague Blu Ray, MD Disks, and SACD.
SACD and MD have especially peeved me off with their arrogant licensing issues, and paranoid DRM tactics that remove the ability use the media in ways that you would want. Ever seen a SACD player for your car? Too much for licensing. MD? they had MD players since the early 90s. An absolute incredible technology that they completely squandered and screwed up because of their paranoia.
The licensing side needs to come to grips. Sony comes up with phenomenally good technology. Then the licensing side shanks the hell out of it rendering it pretty close to useless, and frustrating for the consumer. Arrogance. Complete and pure.
Blue ray promises to be that exact same shanking. Im not that excited frankly anymore. I have my DVDs which I can pull and use as I see fit. I buy a lot too...I have several hundred DVDs. If I could watch the Blue ray disks as I wanted, I might buy into that as well. DRM is crap. If the security hurts the legitimate users of your product, then it should not be worth implementing.
now all this talk about 3d Worlds and interactions on the "3.0 games". WHY would I want that? Myspace is already on the web. I dont need or want that from my game console. I want one thing, and one thing only. Games. Good games. In fact for $600 plus another $50 per game they better be SPECTACULAR games. Everything else is chromed plated crap. Where are the good games?
Sony IS arrogant, and I quite frankly dont see why anymore. You can take your ball back now, Sony. There are others I would rather play with.
Re:No questions about the fake PSP fan site? (Score:5, Interesting)
Alright, cards on the table time. For some oddly contrived reason you are faced with a choice as to which company: Sony or Nintendo, is allowed to have ever existed in the gaming market. Which would you choose? I can tell you that as someone with a similar background(although I don't own a PSP or a PS3), I'd choose Nintendo, because Sony just doesn't matter as much.
That said, you have no clue if you think Sony is "evil". Nor is Nintendo "evil" anymore; whether this is by necessity or choice is irrelevant. The only thing that killed the Dreamcast was Sega's business prowess. Substandard manufacturing, terrible marketing, and making lots of bad choices along the way. I would much rather see them as the third competitor in the console race than Microsoft (because Microsoft is ongoingly evil), but that's not going to happen soon.
Order of evilness today: Microsoft > Sony > Nintendo
Order of evilness in the late 80s/early 90s: Nintendo > Microsoft > Sony
Except then Nintendo was never really horrible to their customers. The worst thing they ever did was set up those Nintendo authorized repair centers and charge a bit too much for repairs related to the design decision of making the NES load like a VCR. Sony and Microsoft have been comparitively horrible to their customers, especially in recent memory.
Care to explain how a company that delivered two massively successful consoles each with a huge library of excellent games is a "big turd"?
Gah, I hate statements like that. It's stealing credit from Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Atlus, Take 2, EA, and every third party who made great games and apportioning it to Sony for some fucked up reason. Sony didn't make the playstation, the third parties did.
Because almost none of those games are in-house games. Had Sony not been around, they would've been made for the Gamecube or N64 or Dreamcast or XBox. One of the things I truly hate Sony for is their idiotic fanbase. Mainly because they gave me shit for the better part of a decade for daring to enjoy games with color in them. And they'll also criticize the fuck out of a Nintendo title, while praising another titles that's exactly as derivative of the original Nintendo title.
And how does Sony/BMG's contractor have anything to do with Sony Computer Entertainment, which is an entirely different---physical and businessological--- subsidiary?
Sony media calls the shots within Sony proper. Plus, *always* hold a corporate entity as a whole responsible for the actions of their subsidiaries. If you hate phillip morris, you shouldn't buy Kraft food products.
If Lik-Sang failed because they couldn't sell modchips in the UK, then they had more issues than Sony.
Lik-Sang got knocked out by Sony suing them in dozens of territories for importing PSPs before the release date.
Your anger and hatred is misplaced, and more related to a $499-599 pricetag than any real, tangible, logical reason.
Maybe his is, mine isn't. My anger is placed at the credit-stealing, attention whoring, and sheer arrogance of the company and it's fanbase. I don't want to be associated with playstation fans. I don't want to be associated with Sony. They're fucking thieving scum, and maybe you're ok with that but I prefer to reward the guys who come up with and push the concepts rather than the guy who comes in later, mocks an idea only to copy it and tweak it a tad, then declares it his innovation. Sony needs to be put into their place like Nintendo was. The only way to do that is to not buy the thing until that has occured.