Sony Boss: Don't "Shove Something Down a Consumer's Throat"

[Something Amyss]

They were planning the launch since 2008 and nobody thought it was a good idea to suggest revealing what the console looked like upon it's announcement? That's kind of worrying really.

If Microsoft hadn't screwed their announcement up people would still be mocking the PS4's original announcement to this day.

Not to mention the fact that it was only Microsoft's announcement that changed their plans for packaging with Move mandatory, a higher price point, and DRM. They already said that the DRM decision was at least partially made by Microsoft and the response.

Of course, they still get some points for not deciding to double down on such stupidity.

And they probably should still be mocked for their reveal, yeah. They were kind of ridiculous about it and were saved only by Microsoft being ridiculous-er.

Ridiculouser should totally be a word. It seems perfectly cromulent.

 

[Strazdas]

<long post?

Consoles have games outside of publishers. They are not the main reason. and once again you overvalue the bartering power of a publisher. They cannot do a denial of access for Sony because that would be a suicide for the publisher.

Sorry, i dont count "Barely working" PC ports as pc games. They are developing for consoles, and PC is just a port for a cash grab. Most PC ports come a year late.
I stated that there are games that have huge sucess and no publishers. you said game studios cant work without them. you were wrong. what platform it is is irrelevant.

Ditial isnt there on the consoles, because publishers are acting stupid again. the sony statement has been shown to be wrong. people want to buy digital. but they want to buy digital when buying digital has advantages (see: steam again), isntead of only disadvantages (current console online sale model). it has nothing to do with digital and everything to do with service provided.

Nintendo holds the title for having top 10 games in worldwide sale count to be all nintendo first party games. i call that extreme sucess.
well if we count mobiles then i guess its 8 out of 10.

PS4 cost less to develop, since Microsoft tried to cut corners with its processor, failed, and had to redo it again, hence less copies available for preorder (not manufactured fast enough) and we can expect high failure rate from this as well.
but that is beside the point. it costs 3 billion to develop. microsoft has reported a $4.24 billion revenue in 2012Q4 [http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/20/microsofts-xbox-division-revenue-at-4-24-billion-in-q2-xbox-l/]. that is 4.24b revenue in 3 months. lets say this revenue is the same every year for simplicity (or course its not), and lets say console is being developer for 3 years (its longer in reality). so they spent 3 billion to develop a product, while 4.24*4(quarters)*3(years)=50,88 billions revenue was made. Which means that the profitability lowered by money spent into research is by 5,89%. A companys profit is normally considered too low if it is bellow 10%. Microsofts profit rate was a quite stable 20-30% rate [http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/profit_margin] and has fell in 2012 because they had to write off a $6.19Billion for aQuantive [http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/19/microsoft-posts-192m-q4-2012-loss-because-of-6-19b-aquantive-writedown-18-06b-revenue/].
So yeah, the developement costs can certainly be eaten up without going bancrupt. heck, sony did it with PS3.

Lets assume its a 50/50 division

but thats the thing. with what sony is doing, this wont be 50/50, this will be more like 25/75, and if that means you loose a few bestsellers, you still make up just by sheer amount of sales.

EA released 30 games in 2012.
Activision released 11 in 2012.
I had a bit o an issue with finding exact number for Ubisoft.

there were 651 games released for Playstation3 in 2012. Out of them 233 were big enough to receive enough critical attention to get a metascore. So really, how big is 11 games compared to 651? And did activision released 11 games for every plantform? because if we look at 2012 for PS3+Xbox+PC it goes to multiple thousands.

It is the publishers who will be chasing sony when the userbase is divided this way. if you got a product to sell it is stupid to ignore 75% of your market.

 

[Strazdas]

Microsoft makes most of its money from windows. Not from gaming. In fact, its gaming division has profit troubles even before the Xbox one. Sony does NOT have that same luxury. Its entertainment division is by far the most important.

As you said, Microsoft can eat the cost. Sony can't. It needs its entertainment division.

And again, you fail to fucking realise this main issue.

No publishers means almost no games. This isn't PC gaming so they can't do kickstarter and indies are all busy making PC games. So past the launch titles there won't be anything else. No one is coming to save the consoles, what you see is what you get. It doesn't matter if 75% of people have it, if there are no games people won't use it and it will be dead. Not to mention its debt won't be repaid.

You keep bringing profits and market share into an argument. Its like a city without water, it won't be a city for long when everyone leaves because there is no fucking water. Do I have to spell this out for you?

Just like a city, you can kill it by not letting it get water (games). A console with no games is just a paperweight, and unlike PC gaming no one is coming to save it. No one. They are all at kickstarter on steam, they wouldn't waste their time with high costs and a highly locked down market.

Good games doesn't always equal money. If that was the case both Sony and Microsoft would have left long ago and consolees would be owned entirely by nintendo. Instead Nintendo has issue moving Wii Us.

Okay, so you say digital makes publishers irrelevant then turn around and say digital on consoles isn't there? So publishers are still needed on Consoles? agreeing with me?

Why didn't you just concede earlier?

And platform does matter. Publishers matter on consoles because no actual way to self publish, PCs don't rely on retail so self publishing is okay.

You keep bringing PC into an argument over consoles as if it matters because its the only place you actually grab excuses from. We are talking about consoles and games, leave the PC at the door because its way of doing things is way ahead of consoles.

Otherwise, publishers and gamestop would already be gone and everyone would be downloading all their games directly from the internet. Consoles rely on retail, PC relies on digital. Consoles don't have digital by your own admission and the mentality of Sony itself. So therefore publishers still matter in consoles.

It doesn't matter if sony is "wrong." Digital isn't there to save the day so consoles have no other choice than use publishers. Sony says online still isn't viable, then it isn't coming for consoles. Simple as that.[/quote]

Yes, microsoft makes most of its money from windows. and SOny makes most of its money from hardware. since, you know, they make pretty much every hardware device out there by now.Sony can eat the price, they done it with PS3 before.

You heard about the Indie acess for PS4. that is a gateway for all non-publisher dev, essentially, same gateway that a PC would have to reach its fans. if sony wanted, it could easily provide similar support as PC does to develop on their platform.
Also you assume all publishers go away instantly. but its really only the big three pushing for DRM in the first place. and those are not majority of publishers market.
I think your whole failure to udnerstand my point cones from thuinknig that all publishers will run away from sony. they wont. i repeat: they wont.
there is absolutely no efficient method for EA to deny console of all games. it can deny it of its own games, and thats it.
No, good games dont mean money, sales mean money. i was pointing out that nintedo games got most sales. i could argue about them being the best ( i think they are far from it) but thats not the place.

digital makes publishersi rrelevant, hence publishers fight to nto allow consumer beneficial digital distribution. publishers are not needed, they however are fighting to stay there. there are plenty of stuff that is not needed but exists. just because it exists does not mean its needed. for example stupidity.

Consoles dont ahve to rely on retail. they chose to. whether being bought by publishers, or themselves supporting the model. they dont have to.
of course PC matters. its a healthy alternative. peopel palying consoles are not stuck with consoles. the whole argument is that consoles CAN do "way ahead" as PC does, but they dont. and thats why publishers still retain any power. Granted i often use PC exampels because those are the ones i know best, being mostly PC gamer. you do have to remember that games like Minecraft sold more on consoles than on PC, though admitedly they had to sign into MS publishing because console manufacturer had all the power.

gamestop is experiencing troubles if you follow the news. and it should be gone as soon as consoles start providing beneficial (isntead of restrictive) digital sales.

digital IS there to "save the day". you shoudl rather say "Sony is not using digital".

i find it funny how you use current gen situation to base next gen sales whne it is obviuos the tables have turned.

 

[Strazdas]

Sony can eat the losses. at what cost is a different question. but they dont have to eat the loses to begin with, so that discussion is going nowhere.
some analyst shouting that "electrinics are worth 0" isnt realyl sainyg much. its the kind of analyst that predicted Wii will be end of nintendo, well, you know the kind.
Sony is profitable all around, while Microsoft is seeing a decline now that they are attemting to force their win8, new office and other "Features" that people dont want.

Sony CAN offer similar service for their PS4. Will they is a different question (as in, would that be proftiable).

COnsole manufacturers can get consoles screwed, yes indeed, i dont deny that. costumers are already runing away (remember the threads of "im going to buy PC, help me choose one"?
Fair enough, i did had the old PC sales number for Minecraft. it did sell like crazy at launch.

Sony already told publishers what they can and cant do. Publishers wont like it, but they will play ball. Why? once again, sony has the majority of their costumers. and no publisher that has a brain on his shoulders will ignore that kind of market share.
No, im not suggesting that sony should have a crusade. im suggesting that sony should continue on providing a service that is geared towards its costumers, thus earning the lion market share, and turning the tables in such a way that it is publishers that have to paly ball and not theo ther way around. When you got a machine that is owned by 75% userbase, noone but the very stupid is going to ignore you. I guess you could compare this to windows vs Mac. most people program for windows only or for both as windows has way bigger market share.

Just because you are huge, does not mean there are no other huge players around. in a market as big as gaming being a huge company does not mean you can go monopoly on the market, and this was proven wnhe ubisoft was forced to take back its DRM decisions and when rockstar DRM failed spectaculary for GTA4 and they pretty much gave up on PC altogether.

Gamestop reported loses according to latest news. i dont think getting loses is good way to run a business, do you? Thing with being anticonsumer is that consumers run away from you, and once an alternative is found (in this case Sony), they will flock there en-mass, leaving you alone with your anticonsumer practices. and you will be forced to go there and play by their rules.

Yes, nintendo isnt selling now, but really, nintendo isnt even in the race anymore. WiiU can easily be labeled a currentgen (PS3, Xbox360) console for all intents and purposes, that launched very late. Nintnedo is a historical example of how it can stand on first party alone. What will come of it now we will have to wait and see.

 

[Strazdas]

I have destroyed every single argument you made for the last page, and you repeat the same rhetoric that customer base somehow means something. Gamers don't have patience or any sort of loyalty.

Now are you done making flimsy excuses and actually debate or are you going to waste my time with more false information?

And i guess we will end here before it gets ugly.