Sony: PlayStation in the Future Will Be "a Service"

[StewShearerOld]

Sony: PlayStation in the Future Will Be "a Service"

Sony's Fergal Gara says the company sees PlayStation "as a brand, not just as a box."

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of PlayStation? Is it a game? A franchise? Or do you think of one of the various gaming consoles that's born the PlayStation name since the brand first launched in the 1990s? If you imagined a console you probably wouldn't be alone. That said, Sony is intent on changing that and expanding how people view the PlayStation brand.

"We want to make more PlayStation experiences available on more devices," said Sony's Fergal Gara in a recent interview. In turn, the company is looking "to interact with the gamer in more ways, more flexible ways, and through more touch points in their daily lives." What this could potentially mean for the future is PlayStation hardware taking more of a backseat to PlayStation the service. "Whether you take PlayStation Vita TV, or the Gaikai cloud gaming technology, there clearly is a strategy here to bring more PlayStation experiences here to more people in the ways they want it," said Gara. "We're more about a brand and an ecosystem than we are about a box."

Consumers can perhaps see hints of this vision in the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127573-PS-Vita-TV-Is-a-Game-Boy-Player-For-The-Vita>streaming-centric Vita TV and Sony's plans for its Gaikai cloud service, which include the implementation of a <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127952-Sony-Launching-Streaming-PS3-Library-Next-Year>stream-able PS3 library for PS4 and Vita in lieu of physical backwards compatibility. PlayStation's future, in turn, may lie outside of consoles altogether. "We see PlayStation as a brand, not just as a box. Going out to 2013 and probably more appropriately 2014, 15, 16, 17 you'll see start to see PlayStation 4 as a brand and a service, as a set of services, a set of experiences" Experiences that will eventually take place on both "Sony devices and non-Sony devices."

Source: Official PlayStation Magazine


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[Something Amyss]

Okay, it's not what I thought it was going to be. As long as they keep the gaming box as well, I can live with this. Hell, maybe I'll go digital for it.

 

[Zeren]

Anytime a company starts referring to their product as a "service", they're trying to restrict how customers use their products. I suspect no one will be owning any PlayStation devices in the near future. Instead, we'll be signing up for service contracts and equipment leases.

Just like the cable company (also in the "service" industry), you're not allowed to modify their hardware and you have to return the box once you're done with it.

If they start doing that, I'll just stop playing their consoles. It's as simple as that.

 

[dynath]

Services really bug me with some things. Software being one of them. I like being able to get away from things and turn on my console and kill my frustrations with a single player game. Service based system cramming ads down my throat restricting me to playing on their networks reporting my every action? Doesn't sound like it will relieve my frustrations. They have already killed backwards compatibility and cheat codes two things I want in favor of pushing plot-less low content meme games with "edgy graphics" and samey multiplayer leader boards achievement addict experiences that I don't want. Gaming is an experience. To bad I want the experience the pushers want to give me less and less day by day...

 

[omega 616]

It's funny how things have to be more than what they are... My phone has all kinds of crazy things on it, so much so that calling it a phone is just insulting at this point. Fridges order food and serve ice/cold water (the tap just isn't good enough). Now my consoles are wanting to have more involvement in my life.

To be honest, I think things are getting too much. I don't want my console to have netflix, film 4 and more integration in my life... I want to play games on a standardized machine and nothing else

 

[JamesBr]

Lol wut? And what, exactly, is the "PlayStation experience"? That's beyond vague. Seriously, I don't use a PlayStation because it has some ethereal quality to it that I enjoy, I use it because it has the exclusives I want and a controller that doesn't feel like shit (IMO). There's nothing beyond that that I would consider intrinsic to the "experience". Between streaming, playing DVDs/Blu-Rays and playing games, my PS3 is already the centerpiece of my living room, but those features are not unique to the PS3. The IDENTICAL experience can be had with a 360 or *gasp* be even better with a PC. Seriously Sony, turning your product into a "service" smacks of marketing spin and smells of bullshit. Just an excuse to extort a subscription from your user base instead of letting them buy a device.
Will we get to keep the console once we stop paying for it? What if I don't have an internet connection, how will this effect my ability to use my console since you can't verify if it's "paid for"? What happens when I'm late paying my bill? How do I acquire games? If I'm paying a subscription to use your device you better believe I refuse to pay for a single game, you'd better give them out for free, every single one, like video game Netflix. Have you people given this any sort of thought at all that doesn't involve seeing imaginary dollar bills?

They turn they're product into a service that I need to regularly pay for and they can keep their shitty graphics box, I'll just dive back into PC gaming, which is more flexible, more powerful and I only need to pay for once.

 

[JamesBr]

stupid double-post

 

[hazydawn]

God all this business talk just makes me wanna puke.
They can't just concentrate on one thing. No they gotta expand and produce mediocre BS for every platform.

"to interact with the gamer in more ways, more flexible ways, and through more touch points in their daily lives."
= Facebook, twitter and other social media shit kids these days can't live without. Because the customer nowadays apparently wants to be able to play, get status updates about their and their friends scores and archievements, at every free minute they have in their daily lives.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is how I read it: "In the future, you won't use PlayStation".

I don't want a service. I want an actual gaming system. A piece of hardware that I can pay once and use however I want to. And games that I can buy once and play them offline. Anything less than that is unacceptable.

 

[EnigmaticSevens]

Wow... and already the knee jerk reaction to the term 'service' is on full display. This author's intent with this article is clear enough, especially with a title like that.... Come one, come all and behold the poisoning of a well. The term 'service' is no longer innocuous. No, no, now it heralds the oppression of the consumer by his greedy corporate overlords, an oppression he's been buying into for the past twenty years.

Cool your tits, people. I'm sure someone in Sony's PR department is dying over the slip of this particular term in a public statement. So many are locked into hate now, because the last time someone mentioned 'service' as it relates gaming, they were fucking with game ownership, under the mantra that games were a service to be enjoyed rather than a product to be purchased. This is not that, marvelous how the English language works, neh? This is 'branding.' Another term that smacks of corporate buzz speak but entails a system 90% of the populace has already bought into wholeheartedly. It's way too late to start bitching about it now. How many years has it been since Apple sold only computers? How many years has it been since Goggle was just a search engine? How many years has it been since Facebook was the exclusive purview of college students? Welcome to the world rampant consumerism has won you, for good and for ill, where the only holy writ is 'Diversify or Die.'

Let Sony do its utmost to expand the range of 'services' it provides, more power to them. Tar and feather them if their hardware suffers for its effort. Flog them with all your impotent, forumite rage when and if they conspire to charge you beyond your capacity to bend over and take it. Get angry when someone tries to sell you bad shit, don't fume over something this broad and undefined, that's a waste of energy and it devalues whatever insights you may bring to the table.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

I think you concentrated on the wrong aspect of what the guy said. He really is talking about diversifying, not games or gaming machines as a service. Essentially, offering service on top of the games and gaming machines they already sell. Not really what I'm looking for, certainly, but it doesn't warrant this terrible of a reaction. Unless he really does mean that the future Playstation will be a service (which it can't, hardware simply cannot work that way).

 

[JamesBr]

snip

While I agree, even with my above statement, the vagueness of the announcement is part of the problem. "In the future, PlayStation will be a service" is dangerously vague. And as far as branding is concerned, what else is there? They've already made consoles, handhelds, phones and associated peripherals. The already have their own digital distribution service through PSN. What more is there to do? Even Apple doesn't really do more then that (computers, tablets, phones and a digital distribution service; which is the same thing on a different scale). What kind of "service" could they possibly perform, or "brand" that could create that they don't already provide? An online only, cloud-based Netflix-like distribution system where you pay a monthly fee and gain access to your library is only one option, but a realistic one. Making it so you can play your games on multiple platforms barely qualifies as a "service". Adding tons of social networking features is not providing a service so much as it's taking advantage of other people's services. So yeah, speculations is just that, speculation, but unless they follow up this statement with something more concrete, all we're left wondering is what the hell they're talking about, since they've already done much.

 

[shirkbot]

I hate to bring this up, but why is it that Nintendo seems to be the only company not trying to work its way into facets of my life that don't have to do with gaming? Sony and Microsoft both seem rather eager to have me using their products and services outside my gaming, and especially across platforms. It's getting creepy guys, I need my space.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Does that mean some of its exclusives will come to pc as a service

 

[Fox12]

This... does not bode well. I don't want to pay monthly fees for a service. I want to own a product. As long as Sony remembers that then the happy relationship we've enjoyed for almost two decades will continue. Don't pull a Microsoft on me Sony, you've done well by me so far.

 

[cidbahamut]

When I buy video games I'm looking to purchase products, not services.

Whenever I hear about video games as services, all I can think of is how much history we're going to lose when those services inevitably close down.

 

[Miss G.]

As long as it stays as optional as PS+ and doesn't ruin my future PS4 experience, I'm fine with it. Also, after the Xbone PR disaster, this guy probably should've avoided using the word "service" at all costs, just to be on the safe side.

 

[weirdee]

translation: "like cable, we can't afford to support our really inefficient distribution of products, so we're resorting to demanding money for control over your entertainment"

yeah guys, just continue shitting on nintendo and embracing the future