Sony's Kenny K removed

DivotMaker · Post by **DivotMaker** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:49 pm

wco81 wrote:I'm saying what-if, based on the premise that what gated them was Blu-Ray, not the Cell, not the RSX, not the board.

Huh?

wco81 wrote:Hey G71 cards are also stacked with RAM and going for $600 too. I'm only talking about the GPU and embedded version, not the full-blown video card with a lot of silicon used for things like codec acceleration which the PS3 doesn't need from the GPU.

G71 cards are marginally better than G70 (RSX). The maximum ram on any G71 single core card is 512 MB. They are NOT going for $600. They are going for $299-399 at most retailers. The dual core card has 1 GB. It typically goes for $999. You think for one minute that Sony could have swapped one of those chips or even the G80 within even the last 6 months, you are kidding yourself.

wco81 wrote:Actually, I'm hearing the G80 core was finished awhile back but the card just shipped (but probably had been in development for months).

Wrong. You don't know much about nVidia, do you? They don't sit on technology. They develop it, produce it, then sell it. They don't sit on anything that would give them a competitive edge over ATI/AMD, especially being able to claim the first DX10/Vista ready DX10 video card. You might want to get your facts straight before you make such claims in the future.

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 6:10 pm

http://www.gamespot.com/features/616274 ... ck=topslot

Behold the power of the CELL!

Of course I recognize these are ports, but let's be honest. Outside of the Wii, that's most what this gen will consist of.

Kazuya · Post by **Kazuya** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 6:26 pm

reeche wrote:http://www.gamespot.com/features/616274 ... ck=topslot

Behold the power of the CELL!

Of course I recognize these are ports, but let's be honest. Outside of the Wii, that's most what this gen will consist of.

Was it *absolutely* necessary to drag this misbegotten thread from the depths for another one of these? There are easier ways to annoy me, you know...

Having said that, most of the mouseovers just reveal a "different but same" feeling... sometimes the 360 ones look slightly better, sometimes the PS3 ones look slightly better, for all intents and purposes they look the same, at least to me.

Check out gametrailers.com, they have split screens of the games running (sometimes all 3, including the Wii) so you can see them in motion. They have one for Call of Duty 3, for example... in HD I believe. Marvel Ultimate Alliance too.

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 6:38 pm

Kazuya wrote:Was it *absolutely* necessary to drag this misbegotten thread from the depths for another one of these?

YES! That PS3 impressions thread wasn't negative enough for my tastes so I needed to bring back a more hate filled thread.

kidding.

Yeah the video comparisons on GameTrailers are also very good. Off topic but that site has sort of come out of nowhere to be a really good one imo. If they had a decent news section, I wouln't have to trudge to that awful hell-hole known as IGN.

Kazuya · Post by **Kazuya** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 9:13 pm

reeche wrote:
Kazuya wrote:Was it *absolutely* necessary to drag this misbegotten thread from the depths for another one of these?

YES! That PS3 impressions thread wasn't negative enough for my tastes so I needed to bring back a more hate filled thread.

kidding.

Yeah the video comparisons on GameTrailers are also very good. Off topic but that site has sort of come out of nowhere to be a really good one imo. If they had a decent news section, I wouln't have to trudge to that awful hell-hole known as IGN.

Absolutely. An almost daily stop for me now. Also to those with 360s with the new dashboard update: this is another good place to get HD .wmv files to play through your 360 media extender on your HDTV. I just watched the Superman Returns 360 review in HD on my HDTV. Pretty cool.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 9:53 pm

The comparison do raise a concern, especially for people considering spending $200 more for a PS3.

In the last generation, people complained bitterly about EA making their games look and play better on the PS2 instead of the Xbox.

Perhaps that situation has reversed, at least for the PS3 and X360, at least for now.

But then again, at launch, PS2 games were derided for looking worse than Dreamcast games. People were questioning whether PS2 games would ever be as good as DC games.

But a few years in, those questions were answered and then it was, "PS2 killed DC with hype."

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:22 pm

wco81 wrote:But then again, at launch, PS2 games were derided for looking worse than Dreamcast games. People were questioning whether PS2 games would ever be as good as DC games.

Meh....The people saying that were mainly Sega Fanboys. While it's true the early PS2 games had jaggy issues and some people felt certain things about the rendering colors on the Ps2, outside of maybe Soul Calibur which was a product that was in development for quite a bit, the Ps2 games were both technically and demonstrably better than Dreamcast games in the graphics department.

Madden and SSX looked better than anything on the Dreamcast outside of maybe Soul Calibur (or Maybe Code Veronica...Can't remember exactly when that hit) when they launched imo.

Playstation executives swear games like Heavenly Sword, MotorStorm, and LAIR, are titles that will look at least slightly better than what you see on 360. We'll see. The most impressive game I've seen on the Sony console that actually looks like gameplay and not a pre-rendered movie is still that White Knight Story. Not that I don't think the 360 couldn't do something very similar as Gears of War proves.

On a side note, despite all my trash talking I was still actively trying to get a PS3 mainly for future software and in the meantime play some PS2 titles like Bully, FF12, etc but once I did the cost breakdown it ended up being close enough to a Mac Powerbook that I decided to get that instead.

True Story.

So now I'm broke and at the minimum won't be able to get a Ps3 for a long stretch now unless that price magically drops soon.

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:54 am

Last time I'll bump this thread I promise

but the hits just keep on coming.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2006/12/nov ... ales_.html

F308GTB · Post by **F308GTB** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 8:27 am

reeche wrote:Last time I'll bump this thread I promise

but the hits just keep on coming.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2006/12/nov ... ales_.html

Yes but come one, this is a moronic story. It's not so much a hit as a reality of the amount of product out there. I'm no PS3 fan (no intentions of buying until it's comparable to what I paid for the 360 and if and when there are titles on it I can't get for the 360), but face it - Sony only had 197000 units out there and they sold them all. Had they come to the street with 1,000,000 units, I'm willing to bet all million would have sold. Now unfortunately some 10-20% of those were sold to speculators which drove down software sales, but eventually those get into wanting consumers hands. It will take a few months to see what the supply looks like and how the subsequent software (and even movie) sales activity is going.

The part in the blog about what's selling for the holiday season is silly too. Parents aren't out to buy really expensive gifts. The DS and PS2 are ridiculously cheap compared to the other alternatives. Of course those are going to sell like gangbusters.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:42 am

F308GTB wrote:The DS and PS2 are ridiculously cheap compared to the other alternatives. Of course those are going to sell like gangbusters.

They also both have very robust software libraries, which is what this hobby is all about.

"Software, not hardware, baby." That line would have replaced the classic "Plastics, my boy, plastics" if "The Graduate" was made today.

Sort of amazing how the DS keeps chugging along as the industry hardware colossus despite all the attention paid to the next gen.

Take care,
PK

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:45 am

reeche wrote:Last time I'll bump this thread I promise

but the hits just keep on coming.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2006/12/nov ... ales_.html

Come on, Reeche: You're smarter than this. As F308 said, if Sony could have put 1 million PS3's last month into retail, all 1 million would have sold.

Take care,
PK

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:40 am

pk500 wrote:
reeche wrote:Last time I'll bump this thread I promise

but the hits just keep on coming.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2006/12/nov ... ales_.html
Come on, Reeche: You're smarter than this. As F308 said, if Sony could have put 1 million PS3's last month into retail, all 1 million would have sold.

Take care,
PK

That's cool and all and the ultimate point is correct but it's still moot. They can't put one million units out there. They won't be able to for quite a while. Their competitors will. And the Wii would have sold just as many units if not more if they had available units in those numbers. Probably same with the 360 launch which Sony insisted they would do much better on than their competition. I posted it mainly as a confirmation on their horrible launch numbers which everybody in the world knew but now it's official since its NPD dumbers. They are falling behind quite a bit and digging themselves quite a hole which I relish. No sense in pretending I'm not partisan on this issue.

Of course still early as your post and most reasonable people will allude to but that magic 8 ball isn't looking so rosy for Sony right now.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:38 pm

PS3 is in a big hole but the jury's still out on the X360. This is the first month they've eclipsed 500k and just the second month they've gone over 300k.

X360 will no doubt have another big month in December as well.

I think MS is pulling out all the stops to make the much-publicized 10 million by the end of 2006 number (which used to be 10 million by the time the PS3 launches). People watching the numbers closely believe they've shipped somewhere between 7-8.5 million through the end of November.

So they will need at least 1.5 million in December.

Right now, there seems to be a limited number of outlets offering some big discounts on the X360 like the Microcenter and Amazon deals. But even local or regional retailers like Fry's has bundle deals. Plus the games are getting discounted fairly quick, like GoW about a month after release.

My guess is MS is running these limited promotions (and probably paying co-op dollars to advertise them).

But after the holidays, what will be the impetus to drive sales until Halo3 or GTA comes out? Lot of speculation that they will do a general price cut (rather than a limited one) once PS3 supply problems are rectified.

PS3 does have some games slated for March and then the following couple of months which could keep demand up. I'm sure X360 will as well.

But to really approach PS2 volumes, they both will need price cuts.

bdunn13 · Post by **bdunn13** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:45 pm

From what I have seen, the 360 numbers are consoles shipped, not purchased by end users. I believe there are around 2 million or more consoles sitting on store shelves... which greatly inflates those numbers.

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:52 pm

wco81 wrote:PS3 does have some games slated for March and then the following couple of months which could keep demand up. I'm sure X360 will as well.

Software has been selling like crap so far on that platform so we'll see. Playing devil's advocate I don't think they have anything coming up soon that will drive demand for a $500 to $600 console. Outside of maybe Madden if it was exclusive, or GTA, Halo, I don't even know any current software that could do that trick.

Games like Virtua Fighter and Motorstorm and some of their other first and second quarter titles strike me as being potentially very good but as the sort of software people who own systems buy but not the reason people purchase systems which is what they need. The next juicy data drop will be getting their console sales numbers for about the first 5 months on a month by month basis as we see what a console lodged in at that price sells to a broad market. Not a holiday fueled one.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:31 pm

I would agree that these are not proven franchises. These are new IP they hope will sell systems.

They could be real good games critically but not really draw people onto the platform.

And you're right the attach ratio is very poor right now (but worse than when the PS2 debuted and people were using it mainly to play DVDs in the first year, as was the case in Japan?).

But there's a good chance some of these new games will become a big franchise, as happened with Halo and now Gears of War. In fact, I'd never heard of Onimusha (first million-seller on the PS2) and Devil May Cry before they debuted on the PS2. Even SCEA contributed new franchises like SOCOM and God of War.

Resistance is getting a lot of good pub as a new franchise (but sales may be constrained by hardware supply atm). Anyone with even the slightest curiosity about the PS3 surely are aware of Motorstorm, Heavenly Sword, Lair, Warhawk and a few other titles. It's not inconceivable that some people have decided to wait for these titles and for better supply of hardware before taking the plunge.

Heavenly Sword has the potential to have the kind of production values and accessible gameplay as God of War. The developers deserve the same kind of success. We'll see if Sony is smart enough to market and showcase this title as well as MS has done with Gears of War.

Sony should consider paying TakeTwo/Rockstar for exclusive levels on GTA, both on the Blu-Ray disc (what a way to showcase the distribution media advantage) and as downloads. Along with whatever the next PS3 gams from Square, they must demonstrate the advantages and benefits of Blu-Ray, for which they've bet their company (at least the Playstation division).

F308GTB · Post by **F308GTB** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:53 pm

reeche wrote:They are falling behind quite a bit and digging themselves quite a hole which I relish. No sense in pretending I'm not partisan on this issue.

What's with all the hate for Sony? Your mom not give you enough attention as a kid because she was watching too much TV on her Sony television and VCR? Need to get over it. I used to have some unjustified rage towards Microsoft that kept me away from the Xbox for quite some time. Glad I opened up my mind. Every company does good and bad things. I'm sure the PS3 is a great product, but personally it doesn't fit in my plans right now. Not because of some petty hate but because I simply have no need.

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:04 pm

F308GTB wrote:
reeche wrote:They are falling behind quite a bit and digging themselves quite a hole which I relish. No sense in pretending I'm not partisan on this issue.
What's with all the hate for Sony? Your mom not give you enough attention as a kid because she was watching too much TV on her Sony television and VCR? Need to get over it. I used to have some unjustified rage towards Microsoft that kept me away from the Xbox for quite some time. Glad I opened up my mind. Every company does good and bad things. I'm sure the PS3 is a great product, but personally it doesn't fit in my plans right now. Not because of some petty hate but because I simply have no need.

Oh calm down. I clearly put in as many smiley evil face emoticons as I could to signify I'm partially teasing or even more accurately realize ultimately it doesn't matter as I have no direct control over events. It's roughly no different than having an irrational rooting interest in a sports team or even of various sports which is just as prevalant on this board.

I've said or posted nothing too far outside of what mainstream analsyts are saying in finacinal reports or commentary which in essence is that Sony is screwing up. That is always subject to change of course but as of yet has not.

As far as having a viable personal interest in Sony taking a big fall this generation I have many reasons for having such feelings related to my job which I'm not going to go into on this message board. Like i said though outside of mostly having a few gratuitous digs, my posts have been as on point or rationale as anybody's elses. Their ain't no hidden agenda with my posts. It's an obvious agenda.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:14 pm

reeche wrote:Of course still early as your post and most reasonable people will allude to but that magic 8 ball isn't looking so rosy for Sony right now.

But as WCO pointed out, there shouldn't be any celebrating at Microsoft, either.

The system has been on the market for a year and was outsold in November by two handhelds (DS and GameBoy Advance), a 6-year-old console (PS2) and a low-tech next-gen console (Wii).

I loved my Xbox when I owned it, but MS isn't flourishing, either.

The dominant hardware player in videogaming right now is the same as it was in 1989 -- Nintendo. It rules the handheld market, and it has the hottest next-gen console on the market. It also makes a profit on every handheld or console it sells.

Nintendo is rolling, both momentum-wise and in the dough.

Take care,
PK

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:14 pm

Well it sounds like reeche has to deal with Sony professionally so there may be a legitimate basis for his opinion.

But there are certainly haters of Sony who resent the Playstation division for the laptop battery, root kit, Memory Stick, etc.

It's like blaming NBC and hating its shows because another GE division sold nuclear reactors to some rogue nation or a GE reactor melted down. (Of course, another story if NBC News suppressed info. about problems with a GE reactor or the business dealings of various GE units).

I don't buy a lot of Sony products other than the Playstation and one TV but they are clearly one of the innovators in electronics and they did bring mass storage to gaming and popularized 3D gaming on consoles.

"Crazy Ken" indulges in a lot of hype and has a lot of fanciful ideas which are impractical to implement by application developers. But he's clearly one of the few visionaries in gaming.

The electronics and gaming markets would lose a lot of momentum as far as innovation goes if Sony no longered existed in those markets.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:19 pm

Love them or hate them, videogaming wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for Sony, for one reason: Sony was the first mass consumer electronics company to embrace gaming.

Before Sony and the PlayStation, we had toy companies or gaming companies producing hardware. Atari, Mattel, Coleco, 3DO, Nintendo, Sega.

When Sony jumped into gaming, it gave the hobby legitimacy among mass consumers due to the Sony name and Sony's reputation for innovation and quality with such products like the Walkman, Discman, Trinitron, etc.

That also gave gaming more legitimacy at retail. Sony was a stable, proven company at retail, and its products received prominent display. So the PlayStation moved gaming out of the back of the toy department and into the end caps and special display cases of mass retailers and department stores for good.

Take care,
PK

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:24 pm

wco81 wrote:Well it sounds like reeche has to deal with Sony professionally so there may be a legitimate basis for his opinion.

But there are certainly haters of Sony who resent the Playstation division for the laptop battery, root kit, Memory Stick, etc.

It's like blaming NBC and hating its shows because another GE division sold nuclear reactors to some rogue nation or a GE reactor melted down. (Of course, another story if NBC News suppressed info. about problems with a GE reactor or the business dealings of various GE units).

I don't buy a lot of Sony products other than the Playstation and one TV but they are clearly one of the innovators in electronics and they did bring mass storage to gaming and popularized 3D gaming on consoles.

"Crazy Ken" indulges in a lot of hype and has a lot of fanciful ideas which are impractical to implement by application developers. But he's clearly one of the few visionaries in gaming.

The electronics and gaming markets would lose a lot of momentum as far as innovation goes if Sony no longered existed in those markets.

Yeah, it's nothing personal against them as individuals. Outside of business relationships which is a particular thorn in my side, I just think they've set a lot of bad precendents with how they've conducted themselves roughly since they've embarked on the journey of PS3 but that's an old and boring debate and ultimately the market will make its judgment on them irrespective of how I feel.

I'll will say imo, it's a good thing that the marketshare by nearly everyone's estimation will be much more evenly divided this gen. In the videogame industry maybe even more so than in politics, power does corrupt. It's very healthy imo to have the battle lines re-drawn every few years which I applaud more than any one company's individual successes or failures.

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:29 pm

pk500 wrote:Love them or hate them, videogaming wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for Sony, for one reason: Sony was the first mass consumer electronics company to embrace gaming.

Before Sony and the PlayStation, we had toy companies or gaming companies producing hardware. Atari, Mattel, Coleco, 3DO, Nintendo, Sega.

When Sony jumped into gaming, it gave the hobby legitimacy among mass consumers due to the Sony name and Sony's reputation for innovation and quality with such products like the Walkman, Discman, Trinitron, etc.

That also gave gaming more legitimacy at retail. Sony was a stable, proven company at retail, and its products received prominent display. So the PlayStation moved gaming out of the back of the toy department and into the end caps and special display cases of mass retailers and department stores for good.

Take care,
PK

All true. I won't disagree with a thing in your post. I could also post a very long lengthy post about some of the negative effects of having one company sort of dominating the market for so long from an industry perspective. Particularily on the developer side and on the consumer side as to what it does to the marketplace that the consumer doesn't even see because his options have essentially been eliminated. There is a positive and a negative to everything. Sometimes the market self-corrects itself fortunately.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:40 pm

Yeah you can argue that Nintendo got arrogant and tried to force cartridges on developers and customers at least one more time on the N64 and paid for that mistake as it lost market share and third-party support.

So maybe Sony is doing the same thing with Blu-Ray on the PS3, destined to meet a similar fate.

However, games aren't any more expensive than the X360 games on DVD. There is a chance that maybe game prices won't come down as fast but the cost differences between Blu-Ray and DVD discs are nothing compared to the cost differences between cartridges and CD-ROM discs.

Certainly Blu-Ray has made the PS3 costlier to produce than if it had a DVD drive and that higher cost results in a higher price. Where Sony might have a chance to overcome this cost/price disadvantage is in the high adoption rate of HDTVs. Every Christmas and every January before the Superbowl, tons of HDTVs are sold. They also sell well during the rest of the year too. HDTV adoption is one of the best in CE history.

Doesn't mean every HDTV owner is clamoring for HD movies on disc necessarily. Again it's an attach ratio thing.

Neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD may get beyond niche status. It'll be an interesting case study years later, whether the Trojan Horse strategy worked this time around. Or whether Blu-Ray was the Waterloo for the Playstation.

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:54 pm

wco81 wrote:Yeah you can argue that Nintendo got arrogant and tried to force cartridges on developers and customers at least one more time on the N64 and paid for that mistake as it lost market share and third-party support.

So maybe Sony is doing the same thing with Blu-Ray on the PS3, destined to meet a similar fate.

However, games aren't any more expensive than the X360 games on DVD. There is a chance that maybe game prices won't come down as fast but the cost differences between Blu-Ray and DVD discs are nothing compared to the cost differences between cartridges and CD-ROM discs.

Certainly Blu-Ray has made the PS3 costlier to produce than if it had a DVD drive and that higher cost results in a higher price. Where Sony might have a chance to overcome this cost/price disadvantage is in the high adoption rate of HDTVs. Every Christmas and every January before the Superbowl, tons of HDTVs are sold. They also sell well during the rest of the year too. HDTV adoption is one of the best in CE history.

Doesn't mean every HDTV owner is clamoring for HD movies on disc necessarily. Again it's an attach ratio thing.

Neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD may get beyond niche status. It'll be an interesting case study years later, whether the Trojan Horse strategy worked this time around. Or whether Blu-Ray was the Waterloo for the Playstation.

Yeah next year will be very interesting for many reasons as it will chart the direction of games for a good little bit. How much is videogaming worth to the average person?

I was told by someone that worked for Sony during the PS one days but left shortly into the PS2 days that SCEA or whatever division that is really did change a lot in attitude. I suppose that is the typical business evolution model. You start out aggressively listening to your consumer base and as a forward thinking company but when the success comes, it can be difficult to not let that go to your head and not break out of the group think. Regardless of how things eventually shake out for the Ps3, I can't believe there weren't executives throwing up warning signs and all sorts of dire predictions about the direction a lot of things were going. If it was obvious to outside observers, it must have been even more obvious internally. So I'm assuming that was either clamped down on or not listened to.

It's not as if Sony is going the way of Atari or anything. They will still command a decent to largish market share and are a very diverse company but when you make so many screw-ups within a relatively short amount of time something is either wrong with your process, or your vision. I would love to read the inevitable insider tell all book on the subject.