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A classy move by SONY

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civilstrife

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Forget everything I may have implied about Sony’s one-upmanship for their pre-E3 event. If you don’t remember, Sony scheduled their presser to start three hours before Microsoft’s started. Well, I just got my confirmation for the press conference and was shocked, stunned, nearly knocked senseless to read that Sony is providing free shuttle service to the Microsoft Press Conference. Seriously! No lie! That’s what I like to call a “classy move.”

It brings a tear to my eye to see such a spirit of cooperation on the eve of console hand-to-hand combat.
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Classy? or Cocky?

SOURCE
 
I'm sure it's more of a "Let's make sure no one skips our conference to go to MS's" move than anything.

They probably want to make people realize that doing both is totally possible and headache free, so no either/or choice is required.
 
bbusside.jpg
 
Who cares if people miss MS's conference at this point? They will be blowing their load on May 12th.
 
Link said:
Watch the shuttle get "stuck in traffic" for several hours.
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i was thinking more along the lines of it gets taken to a remote island where its passengers are given a weapon randomly and must fight each other until only one is left standing.
 
Yes, they will be given free drinks, t-shirts, lanyards, pens, post it pads, a few demo discs, and a condom with, "I <3 Playstation 3!" on the side.
 
This is a lot more common than it's being made out here. Every one of the last three years that I've been going to pre-show conferences, there's been more than one major conference per day, and it's typical for shuttle transportation to be provided to the next conference. They know how important it is to journalists to attend all of them and don't want to step on the press' toes by making them late to one. It's still a nice gesture, of course, but it's done as a courtesy to the media, not as an expression of confidence.
 
"Hey, we got some PSPs, if you guys want something to play on the way to the conference."

"...no, seriously, play them."

"...and direct your attention to our video presentation."


"...
...
...and enjoy your ride."
 
aoi tsuki said:
i was thinking more along the lines of it gets taken to a remote island where its passengers are given a weapon randomly and must fight each other until only one is left standing.
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And they'll do it again next year only it will suck really badly.
 
Yeah, I have always been impressed how the 1st parties tend to coordinate their conferences. One year, Sony let out late, so Nintendo delayed their own start by around an hour to give us time to get to the Biltmore from LA Center Studios or whatever it's called.
 
NichM said:
This is a lot more common than it's being made out here. Every one of the last three years that I've been going to pre-show conferences, there's been more than one major conference per day, and it's typical for shuttle transportation to be provided to the next conference. They know how important it is to journalists to attend all of them and don't want to step on the press' toes by making them late to one. It's still a nice gesture, of course, but it's done as a courtesy to the media, not as an expression of confidence.
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You stole my post :)
 
If EA was giving shuttle rides, they'd make you pay $10 more than the other shuttles. Plus, one lucky bus rider would get to sit on John Madden's lap for free.
 
mj1108 said:
If EA was giving shuttle rides, they'd make you pay $10 more than the other shuttles. Plus, one lucky bus rider would get to sit on John Madden's lap for free.
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Yeah, but the rest of us would have to listen to him describe it.
 
They'll be PS3 branded busses. Or at least Playstation branded busses - just imagine a fleet of them pulling up at MS's conference, just to remind MS what they have to live up to :p

Seriously though, a choice spoiler tactic like this is industry tradition (even if this would be a minor one, it'd still be funny).
 
The sneaky thing was that everyone suspected Sony to go on their usual slot and they sidestepped Microsoft to come out first. Trying to prevent journalist from covering both events would just create a PR nightmare for Sony. Of course, there'll be buses that are paid for by Microsoft and Sony jointly I would suspect.
 
Well if sony doesnt offer to shuttle everony to the MS conference they run the risk of people choosing between the two, and Sony press conferences are ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ worthy (though this year should be better, hopefully)
 
Ghost said:
Well if sony doesnt offer to shuttle everony to the MS conference they run the risk of people choosing between the two, and Sony press conferences are ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ worthy (though this year should be better, hopefully)
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Given how much will be known about X360 by the time their conference hits, though...

Luckily, for most outlets that have more than one person working for them, it's not an either/or situation ;)
 
Jared Goodwin said:
It occurs to me that, if you kill all the journalists, this runs counter to the goal of getting coverage of your press conference published.
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Let me have my small dreams alright? I want to see the press confference where Sony has to explain why everyone who got on the bus to go see the XB360, didn't realise it would be the last choice they ever made. Doing so with a big PS3 banner behind the speaker.
 
civilstrife said:
Classy? or Cocky?
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Cocky and funny.

Jared Goodwin said:
It occurs to me that, if you kill all the journalists, this runs counter to the goal of getting coverage of your press conference published.
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It's guided evolution. The journalists left will be those who didn't plan to attend MS's event.
 
The buses actually are Sony's E3 conference. People will be driving around, watching the magic of Sony's slideshows as they click away, and then when they arrive at Microsoft's press conference, they'll talk so much about how awesome they thought the PS3 was, they'll completely ignore the x360 presentation. Microsoft am 0\/\/|\|3|).
 
capslock said:
Is that Teddman standing in the front?
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That's Bahn of Got-Next (then at TNL), I actually took that pic... You can also spot the infamous Fishie just over shoulder on the left.

The N-Gage bus ride from the Nintendo conference was a lot of fun back then, back in 2003 when playing N-Gages onboard was a novelty and there wasn't a PSP/DS to compare it to.
 
Teddman said:
That's Bahn of Got-Next (then at TNL), I actually took that pic... You can also spot the infamous Fishie just over shoulder on the left.

The N-Gage bus ride from the Nintendo conference was a lot of fun back then, back in 2003 when playing N-Gages onboard was a novelty and there wasn't a PSP/DS to compare it to.
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The conference was the funniest ever:

* pumping beats and wacky dancers *

"Mobile!! Multiplayer!! Wireless!!"

The retrospective is great. Amazing that that went down just a bit less than two years ago.
 
Yea but..... you know they are gonna be running slideshows the ENTIRE bus ride on the small TVs screens per seat.
 
Chittagong said:
The retrospective is great. Amazing that that went down just a bit less than two years ago.
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:lol Yeah, I've always said that the N-gage conference is the most entertaining of them all, and they give you free drinks too! I should have slapped together a report on last year's, which was nearly as garish. You can bet I'll be there this year.

Here's a link to the 2003 report if anyone's curious.
 
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