Sony Stock Drops After PS4 Event

[synobal]

Superstitions are strong in the Asian cultures still. I've seen people freak out over the fact I sleep in my room with a fan on. People who are otherwise completely normal and rational people will believe stuff like fan death. It doesn't surprise me that their stock dropped after using the number four.

 

[SNCommand]

This happens before all press releases, the stocks rise as everyone gets ready for the event and starts talking about it, then when it's done the stocks drop down to normal level again

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Actually Steven Bogos is wrong about the Character for 4 and death.
In the characters are completely different.
In Chinese however they are both PRONOUNCED exactly the same. Sort of like weather and whether, instead of like the word tear (meaning water from eyes or rip in something).
It stands to reason that the Japanese pronunciations of the words are similar. If not there are always the Chinese investors.

I find it hilarious that almost all Chinese Numerolgical Superstition is Pun based. The words for 8 and Luck sound alike, so 8 is therefore lucky.

That'd be correct, both "death" (&#27515 and "four" (&#22235 are prounounced "shi", although there's an alternate pronunciation for four in Japanese "yon". But hey.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I got a theory that some semi-tech-savvy investors think that with the x86 cpu, a hacker would eventually crack the encryptions and write a relatively simple emulator for it. Boom, rampant piracy without the need for the box itself.

 

[Nghtgnt]

...score one for sony trying to be first this time...

The PS4 announcement gave me the impression of someone posting the first comment to a thread stating "FIRST!"

 

[J Tyran]

They basically announced and even said they are putting out a PC as a Playstation so people are not going to be all that impressed especially since it makes it really easy to compare systems. A cutting edge GFX does more than 2 teraflops (My 670 is rated as doing 2.4 teraflops, a 680 can do 3) so its not impressing me at all. Also Sony is in dire straits so they can't afford to subsidize it like they did with the PS3. Sony is going to bleed red ink with the hope it will take off before they bleed to death from it.

Best GPU does 4.5 teraflops now, Nvidia launched the GTX TITAN today. Its £800 though, so the PS4 will be a lot cheaper. Dont forget consoles can get more bang for their buck in terms of hardware, the PS4 and 360 get a surprising amount of performance from their limited hardware.

I don't think the PS4 is about ZOMG super dupa graphics either, the demos they shown do look slightly better than current gen but not all that much. It seems more about the depth of the game and its mechanics from having more resources for level design and physics and so on.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

...score one for sony trying to be first this time...

The PS4 announcement gave me the impression of someone posting the first comment to a thread stating "FIRST!"

Which is hilarious, because the WiiU is the first 8th gen. Console (Based on Chronology. Not Technology!) So Really, the PS4 should say "Second."

 

[oldtaku]

This executive video summary of the announcement is brutally onesided, but it does kind of drive home why it was a bad, bad presentation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rJDn0jRnUQ

What did we actually get? Specs (which look good, and it's a PC which is even better), the controller, that a lot of huge new cross-platform games would be on PS4 (which everyone knew already), some very interesting networking promises but only the video upload demonstrated (we think).

There were no incredible exclusives shown. The 3D vectorman thing (Knack) looked pretty cool, but it's not a system seller, and neither is yet another Killzone or a team-only racing game. The best stuff (Watchdogs, Capcom) was cross platform. I'm sure they have heavy hitters coming (Santa Monica, Naughty Dog), and whatever the hell Media Molecule is doing will have to be great, but what was shown at the event was pretty vapid. Square-Enix showed off a year old demo.

We got no price, we didn't see the hardware (because it was just all running off dev PCs). We got 'no back compat, except maybe in the future', we got nothing about whether used games would be allowed, we got something about real names being required, and we got SO MUCH footage of developers gushing about how happy they are that it's a PC in a box (instead of a nightmare like the PS3) and throwing around the usual 'synergy' 'unleash' 'creativity' 'the socials', and of course we're told, exactly like we were told for PS2 and PS3, that the hardware is now at the point where it is 'emotional'.

Oh yes, we did get a promise for some Final Fantasy news at E3! Woohoo?

It was definitely a stock drop event.

 

[Sylveria]

I'm still very excited for the PS4. Especially titles like Knack and Destiny. I can see why investors may be hesitant, but I think there is still a lot of potential for the console.

I can see why the investors may be hesitant too. They're idiots. They don't understand gaming market, they don't understand technology and they're not future oriented thinkers. Short term instant profit is all they care about. Most PC gamers (never mind the actual developers) were able to see what the console will be capable of in the not so distant future when they revealed the specs.

Specs are nice and all, but 7years later and only a handful of games really utilize the PS3's full potential. The PS3 sold on future potential which has not been realized and here's the PS4 setting up to do it all over again.

 

[ExtraDebit]

Correction, 4 in japanese and chinese have different characters but similiar pronounciation.
In chinese four is pronounce "see" in a higher pitch(四,si); the pronounciation for death is "see" lower pitch (死，si).

On a side note, chinese love the number 3, which sounds alot like "life" or "live". This includes the number 13, which americans consider to be bad luck.

 

[Max_A_Buck]

The lack of showing a console and everything else aside, I'm actually quite interested in the PS4. I would be most likely to buy that out of any of the next gen consoles. They seem to be at least trying to listen to what people want and learn from what didn't work in the past. I wouldn't exactly buy one on launch day, but I'll definitely be following news around the release and pricing, etc.

 

[xPixelatedx]

Huh, that's strange. They spent 45 minutes talking about social networking, didn't show much of any actual gameplay in the games they showed. Said they did not add the ability to allow players to play all the games they currently have and want people to cloud stream them, (an impracticality at best). Didn't show the device, didn't state the cost and once again pushed two massive failures on the market (Move/Vita). Not to mention the lack of great features, incompetence and impatience has allowed their competition to see how vulnerable they are to a counter attack.


I don't see how their stock could have possibly dropped...?

 

[MorganL4]

So in Japan.... If you have a 4.0 GPA does this mean you were really UNlucky?

 

[JagermanXcell]

Ouch... well more or less serves them right for trying to *chuckle* support the Vita, abandon backwards compatibility AGAIN, and not letting you transfer PSN games from PS3 to the apparently super powerful PC that is the PS4.

I'm not saying I want them to go under if the PS4 bombs sales wise but... meh, they brought it on themselves, its time they face the consequences. I really wanted to play Watch Dogs PS3, damn you Sony!

 

[Monsterfurby]

Even though I don't own a PS3 an am more of a PC (and occasionally X360) gamer, I really don't want the PS4, or Sony for that matter, to fail. They may not be beloved by everyone, but you have to admit that they are still making bloody fine consoles and have some good game creators under their hat.

Also, Microsoft needs a competitor in the core gaming market. You don't want the XBOX 720 to become gaming's Windows 8...

That said, I agree that it was a pretty weak showing from Sony. Come on folks, get your act together.
Or, in other words:

 

[Strazdas]

This happens before all press releases, the stocks rise as everyone gets ready for the event and starts talking about it, then when it's done the stocks drop down to normal level again

this. stocks rise and fall all the time based on rumours and trivial events. not to mention those that tried to play off it as that gets more often. this is normal and nothing to be afraid off. yet at least. i think the stock may rise when they say that sued games will not be banned too.

 

[EeviStev]

I'd be pissed too if some major game company said they were going to unveil their brand spanking new console to the world, and then only show us a damn controller with a damn touch screen. Woohoo I am so excited.....

Question: Why does so many people care about what the damn box looks like ? I thought the point of a console is what it's capable to do and what games it runs.

I imagine it's not a matter of not knowing what it looks like, more a feeling of if, at the point they reckon they're ready to announce to the world their brand new product, they can't muster one up to put on a peddle-stool (IT Crowd reference for you), what's wrong with it?

 

[Vegosiux]

Huh, I genuinely did not see this one coming, I'm surpsised. I'll need to keep an eye on the situation here. But I suppose it is a bit of shoddy PR to announce a console without actually giving much information about it.

Still, as far as PR goes it was a classic stunt, and I'm still surprised it'd cause their stock to drop.