mrduckbear
Neo Member
you snooze you lose! that's what happens when you try to go full on anti-consumer
Microsoft's PR blunders caused Sony to re-write E3 PlayStation 4 script [E3]
- Thread starter mocoworm
- Start date
rokkerkory
Member
You should read up on his history and listen to what he stands for. His philosophy is fundamentally different than the suits that got them in the crap they are in the first place.
vpance
Member
I know people automatically think Mattrick was the head of the snake, but really, he never factored into anything. He was just a face like Spencer is now.
The 3 to blame are Boyd, Treadwell and Whitten.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1838986&postcount=9394
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1839181&postcount=9408
serversurfer
Member
Which one? And whichever you mean, if his philosophy is so fundamentally different, why did he work there at all? I certainly wouldn't, because my philosophies are fundamentally different from theirs.
I guess I might take a job as CEO, if I really thought that'd let me make any necessary changes.
But their conference was "true?" Seriously what the hell is that even supposed to mean?
travisbickle
Member
There were more than just Kuchera.
I was watching Giantbomb, and after the MS conference they were in unison in belief that Sony would announce a DRM'd machine (probably 499 too) ... A lot of game writers thought Sony would do the same.
Let people keep the dream alive.
serversurfer
Member
No, their conference was "too good to be true." As in, "There's no way Sony wasn't planning to fuck us over too, because things that awesome just don't happen."
Because all companies are just as bad as MS, I guess. /facepalm
I don't read DRM in the title at all, people just like to jump to conclusions.
You'd have to come into this thread with some pre-conceived notions to read DRM into the title.
Which is exactly what some people are doing.
0ptimusPayne
Member
I don't think people read. It clearly states that they didn't change policies, but rather reinforced what polices that were already in place. They wanted to emphasize that they were never gonna fucking do the dumb shit MS planned on doing innitially. Either way I'm happy MS woke up, because I very much enjoy my X1 alongside my PS4.
What both of you are saying?! E3 is one of the chances of finding out many dealings of these companies in respect to new info, releases, plans and so on. If they screwed up on something by giving us more info than intended that would potentially affect people's purchase decision then that is a GOOD thing for us as we won't be trapped with their BS later down the line. It was thanks to microsoft's e3 presentation that i didn't buy an xbox one and from the sounds of everything so far, I am super glad that i haven't purchased it. It also gives us the chance as fans to voice our opinion in attempt to push for change in decision in regards to the product. Be damn for the sake of having a perfect presentation that sounds nice to your ears if horrible policies and shenanigans are happening in the background that would potentially regret your decision in owning that product later. In the end of the day, we have to know EVERYTHING that we are or have brought ourselves into whether it's about games or something else; rewriting a script and omitting information doesn't mean that we won't get that items or policies that was purposely excluded from presentation (because they knew we would have hated and really want to avoid it) later down the road. I.e. we are consumers or potential consumers, we must know everything, if any company expose themselves by telling us something we don't like then that is more power to us for it is a good thing unless you love being trapped.
I hope you guys understand unless you both work for those companies or you don't like looking at the bigger picture.
travisbickle
Member
It was MS's key to market domination, total control of user spending would mean third parties begging to give them exclusivity. Look at EA, offering MS exclusivity deals left and right, and probably the only publisher kept in the loop while MS quietly built their plan to end Sony.
So MS was just following Sony with the DRM stuff? Oh boy.
JetBlackPanda
Member
I..what...
FlyStarJay
Member
lol wow i guess people cannot read. i was sleeping when the article came out and i understood it.
EA gave MS exclusive cause of the drm. If sony was going to do it, why give exclusives to MS? Come on people, think
EA gave MS exclusive cause of the drm. If sony was going to do it, why give exclusives to MS? Come on people, think
JetBlackPanda
Member
It wasn't very clear to me, I thought you were saying that MS was going down that route because they knew Sony was as well. Thus you didn't think MS would be that stupid.
DancinSwayze
Member
Wasn't E3 like a month ago now? Is this really post worthy..
rokkerkory
Member
Wasn't E3 like a month ago now? Is this really post worthy..
Isnt this really talking about last years e3? Lol
DancinSwayze
Member
yeah even worst. Duhhhhh
Night Angel
Member
Nice input there, bro. Guess you should have read the TOS, specifically the bit about thread whining.Wasn't E3 like a month ago now? Is this really post worthy..
It was smart of Sony to hang MS by the rope MS gave them. An opportunity like that must be a PR person's dream.
To people who are still thinking Sony switched their minds prior to E3. They had officially said no internet would be required if wanted around the reveal of the PS4(1 day after) meaning there was no way to support the yet to be announced policy from MS.
"You can play offline, but you may want to keep it connected," he suggested. "The system has the low-power mode - I don't know the official term - that the main system is shut down but the subsystem is awake. Downloading or updating or you can wake it up using either the tablet, smartphone or PS Vita."
"Oh yes, yes, you can go offline totally. Social is big for us, but we understand there are some people who are anti-social! So if you don't want to connect to anyone else, you can do that."
"You can play offline, but you may want to keep it connected," he suggested. "The system has the low-power mode - I don't know the official term - that the main system is shut down but the subsystem is awake. Downloading or updating or you can wake it up using either the tablet, smartphone or PS Vita."
"Oh yes, yes, you can go offline totally. Social is big for us, but we understand there are some people who are anti-social! So if you don't want to connect to anyone else, you can do that."
Fallout-with-swords
Banned
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
Sometimes people can surprise you with their stupidity in this world.
fallen_dawn
Member
Can you imagine an entire impromptu conference? It would be amazing.
GalacticaN7
Banned
Man, being a Sony fan.......Feb.-Julyish 2013 was so amazing. They didn't even have to do anything as MS just kept shooting themselves all over the place and Sony coming back with the "nah, we aren't doing that" approach.
Wish it was like that all the time.
Wish it was like that all the time.
Fallout-with-swords
Banned
They were being coy with that #PS4NODRM stuff for awhile ahead of E3 too. You had people like Adam Boyes saying, in response to all of the tweets, that they appreciated all the feedback and that they were listening to the fans. That would have blown up in their face big time if they had been planning the DRM stuff. I really doubt they ever had it in the system, they may have considered it at one point. But, I think for the system that had an online outage for over a month to then force consumers into an always online system would have gotten an even worse backlash than MS.
Yeah, I don't have a high opinion of MS and I expect that they'll try to push unpopular things that benefits them if they can get people to deal with it (this isn't the first crap they've tried and not even xbox related). But I didn't think they were that stupid as to require online for the xbox (DRM I thought might go over better but I was going on my own feelings. If both systems did the no used game DRM, i could see myself caving cause I wanted some new game. But I absolutely did not see caving even if Sony did it, I'd stick with old systems instead). And that was rumored actually way before Orth even said "deal with it" (it was vague rumors months before cause I remember reading it and going, "nah... no way MS is *that* stupid". Until you kept hearing rumors later and it was closer and more likely those rumors were more than just random rumors).
And I like the theory I think some one on here proposed (may have been somewhere else though, it was before I had an account). MS didn't plan for Sony to release their system last year. They thought it would happen this year. And by putting those policies in now, people wouldn't have an alternative and could only guess if Sony was going to do it (and a lot of people did guess Sony would). So by the time Sony came out they'd have already gotten people used to the idea and probably Sony would follow suit too cause honestly if it doesn't chase people away, it is in Sony's best interest to do it too (especially if the publishers are pushing for it and say they won't support a machine that won't do it. Even more leverage for MS cause they'd have the system out and more established so easier for publishers to ignore the new playstation).
It wasn't just Sony not following suit that messed up MS, it was the fact that Sony surprised MS by releasing earlier than they expected. They thought they had time to get people to deal with it before Sony introduced theirs.
Mix Master
Member
why does yusef mehdi still even have a job? director of marketing my ass
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
That is basically what PS+ does. (Look at what they had in mind for Driveclub.) It candy coats it a lot better than what MS did though.
CadetMahoney
Member
It's pretty much over for bone either way, distant second place and permanent loss of marketshare is Asia/Yurop.
Yh the early rumors pretty much hinted at this also however, unlike XB1 where the drm rumors were still there for the very last ones, PS4's drm plans to that extend not present on PS3/X360 today had not come up again for the last rumors. It would have also not being smart given the countries that launched in.
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
You are talking about the company that purposely didn't target high end graphics with the Xbox one because they thought people saw watching tv and having a camera included in the box as being more important than the games....
FaultTolerance
Banned
I never understood the logic someone follows when they say it's already over for Xbox One and both consoles haven't been on sale for a year yet. Especially considering video game gens last anywhere between 6-8 years.
If the world followed that kind of logic, Sony would have thrown in the towel with the PS3 after a short amount of time as well because Microsoft was killing them with Xbox 360 for awhile.
Would you mind enlightening me as to how you came to that conclusion?
Tidus_Great
Banned
excellent move by sony. more powerful console and no DRM BS sealed the deal. GG MS
FaultTolerance
Banned
Sort of, but I'm hoping for an enlightened explanation. Something other than "the gap", "the cloud", how the PS4's hardware is superior, or any of the E3 2013 policy blunders that Microsoft has reversed on.
Because we all know PS3's launch had its own share of problems that Sony was able to successfully bounce back from.
So why is it over for Xbox One?
Well I wouldn't necessarily say it's over but they are definitely not going to stage a miraculous comeback and take first place. It's not happening.
You're forgetting a couple things when you are comparing the current gen to the last gen.
- Last gen the PS3 actually had a fairly compelling secondary function: BluRay player. Something that many people were willing to shell out for when the console was released because it was by far the cheapest BluRay player out there. There is no current value add for MS on a hardware perspective.
- Last gen both consoles had unique architectures lending specific advantages in certain types of computation. The 360s unified ram with EDRam buffer and (comparatively) robust GPU meant developers were able to easily utilize the system and maximize after effects and post processing effects like Anti Aliasing and complex shader systems. The Cell Processor was somewhat handicapped by a weaker GPU and split ram but it had an extreme advantage when it came to simultaneous computation and general bandwidth because of the SPUs on the cell. These were, however, relatively difficult to utilize at first but as the generation went on the first party studios were able to blow people away with their graphical prowess (Naughty Dog, Quantic Dream) and, by the estimation of many, completely trounced anything available on the competing platform. Whereas in this generation there is literally no possibility for the XB1 to have any sort of performance advantage. It is literally weaker on every single hardware aspect by a considerable margin. This is exacerbated even further by the fact that both companies adopted a similar architecture this time except that MS decided to play it safe with DDR3 and use a small esram buffer which cost them a considerable amount of performance via loss of space on their GPU and a bandwidth bottleneck to and from the CPU/GPU. This decision ensured that the PS4 (despite the XB1s very modestly higher clocked GPU) will outperform the XB1 literally 100% (assuming appropriately optimized coding of course) of the time. So there is no recovery performance wise this gen for the weaker console.
- Sony heavily invested in first party and "second party" studios last generation. By all accounts they already had a considerably large offering going into the gen. Strong first party has been a consistent focus for Sony. This is not true of MS. Their first party studios are few and those that do exist are seemingly farmed for sequels (see 343i or Black Tusk being forced to abandon their new IP for Gears of War) or slowly lose any and all pedigree they once had (Rare). Instead MS historically relied on exploiting their market share advantage to gain preferential treatment for multiplatform releases. A strategy that is consistent across all branches of their company and, despite being incredibly anti consumer, is relatively effective. It's the business equivalent of being a big stack bully in poker. The problem is, it doesn't really work well unless you're the big stack. So far this gen they aren't and as a result they are struggling to buy and lock even more content to their console as an impetus for people to purchase. The problem with this is that this is still very short sighted compared to investing in first party studios/content especially considering the undoubtedly higher cost now that they are the underperforming platform. They had a chance to turn things around and start investing in those first parties but instead they've decided to double down on their anti consumer strategy instead. This is exacerbated even further by lower performance on multiplatform releases. Due to the power performance many are opting to disregard additional or timed content in favor of higher graphical fidelity or superior performance. So , in short it's not having the effect they want. Unfortunately it has come to the point that even if MS were to start investing in first party content today we wouldn't see any fruits from that investment for at least another three years. The lack of first party content really stung MS gamers at the end of last generation especially since it seemed to coincide with Sony truly hitting it's stride with it's first party teams (Last of Us, Beyond, Uncharted, etc etc). That's not something 360 gamers have forgotten when deciding on their next console platform.
- Unlike the previous generation consoles MS designed it's entire console and dare I say their entire long term strategy around the appeal of a motion controlled interface device that very few had any compelling desire for. They were hoping to capitalize on the casual gaming market boom that we saw last gen via their new Kinect but failed to realize that (as booms tend to do) it has largely ceased to exist in the console market. They believed the Kinect would resurrect the market somehow and were banking on the appeal of the device. This was also made even worse by their decision to seemingly emphasize and focus on multimedia capabilities (TV OneGuide, Skype, etc) that appear to only appeal to small and by all accounts shrinking portion of the market due to the multitude of other devices that also fulfill those needs often times even better than MS's attempt. So, when Sony offered the market what it actually wanted (a more powerful gaming focused console) we saw a mass migration of what was once the Xbox core audience. So to sum up, in an attempt to appeal to and corner a new audience they compelled a significant number of their existing audience to leave and in so doing failed to establish themselves in the new market they were after. That is not something you recover from in a few years and at the current sales trajectory a few years will be plenty of time for the hardware sales gap to become impossible to recover from for MS.
So I hope this explanation was sufficiently "enlightened" for you. At the very least I'm confident it is well informed.
Good post, and you didn't even have to go into detail regarding the strength of the PlayStation brand in Europe. You couldn't count out the PS3 based on those territories' collective support alone. Microsoft has no such territory to fall back on. It's the USA and the UK. This generation? Sony is leading well out in front in what were previously Xbox bulwarks. Add Europe and Japan into the mix and yes, Xbox One is guaranteed to be chasing Sony for this gen barring a miracle/cock-up of epic proportions.
FaultTolerance
Banned
Well, I was hoping for an explanation from CadetMahoney since he made the claim, but I'll gladly accept your explanation as well since you put a lot of thought into a very well-written post.
You bring up a very good point about the Blu-Ray player. Unless Kinect 2 magically takes off, Microsoft doesn't have a value add from a hardware perspective. There is nothing Xbox One has that PS4 doesn't have that is generally seen as a must-have and that is definitely going to affect them this gen.
Regarding the hardware architectures, yes it is true the PS4 has a higher spec than Xbox One, and there is no way the latter will catch up to the former. However, I must point out that hardware and graphics does not automatically affect fun factor. Yes, it can make games look better. But if a particular game is a turd then it's always going to be a turd no matter how much it sparkles.
PS3 had the multiplatform disadvantage last gen and they still did fine due to the incredible first-party titles that came out for the console in its later years. This gen, Microsoft has the multiplatform disadvantage, but that doesn't mean they also can't have incredibly first-party titles that make their console more desirable in the eyes of gamers. Whether PS4's or XO's first party titles are going to be better than the other is totally in the eyes of the gamer and can't be calculated using any kind of mathematical equation.
Microsoft definitely has their work cut out for them this time around due to mistakes in planning and PR snafu's, but it's definitely not impossible and not too late for them to have their comeback. You're right, they probably won't catch up to Sony, and I think most of the execs in the Xbox division know that, including Spencer.
But they're definitely not dead in the water. It can be a close race if they want it to be.
Very true I thought about mentioning the brand recognition in Europe but I already felt like I had a sufficiently large wall o' text. I completely agree that this generation has largely been decided. When you consider all the information we have it really seems impossible for the momentum to swing back in MS's direction in any sort of meaningful way.
Did either of you even read the OP at all?
You or anyone who seriously believes that Sony would've done the same thing as Microsoft & to risk dragging the PS brand further into the ground, especially when they have just gotten back on their feet with the PS3 after all the trouble that they went through, are very naive. If anyone were to see Sony's February conference last year, Yoshida had already stated that used games would be playable from the beginning.
And people are naive if they think that Sony could easily take away DRM within mere hours of the E3 conference, even if PS4 did have it.
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