Jeff Minter on Sony's Arrogance

Regular Edge columnist Jeff Minter has lashed out at Sony over what he perceives as incredible arrogance on the console-maker's part. From the BBC article: "Mr Minter, writing in his regular column for Edge, said: 'They seem absolutely certain that even when they say it's going to be considerably more expensive than existing consoles... nevertheless us eager customers will rush out in droves to buy it because it's, hey, a new PlayStation.'"

Comments

Paying for Potential

[SanityInAnarchy]

Last month Mr Stringer said: "The price of the PS3 is high but you're paying for potential."

Sorry, I'd rather pay for reality, in the form of real hardware, real games, and real fun.

Re:... and?

[Compholio]

Now, give me a version of Linux that will run on it (with minimal hacking) and I'm sold!

Wow, you haven't been paying attention - the more expensive version is supposed to have Linux pre-loaded on it from the factory.

Re:... and?

[Aladrin]

Maybe you missed the bulletin. The PS3 will be upgradeable. In the land of gaming, 'can be upgraded' is the same as 'must be upgraded.'

From http://news.spong.com/article/10210?cb=894

we think it would be okay to [expand] the configuration once a year.

I wont buy Sony

[p!ssa]

I know personally I will never buy another Sony product, it seems as if this company has completely lost touch with reality. Its like they have a corporate mentality that they are a government and we live by thier rules vs. our dollars determine thier fate. At least the White House/neo con republican movement trys to put a positive spin on bad policy for the people, Sony is just clueless. Next they are just going to put out one sentence press releases:

PS3, suck it down bitches!!
Viao, suck it down bitches!!!
Rootkit, suck it down and bend over bitches!!!

brb, phone call...

HEY!!, I'm the new VP of Sony Public Relations!!! (suck it down bitches)

In Soviet Amerika, Sony owns you (TM)

Re:I wont buy Sony

[faust2097]

The fact that this was tagged "insightful" is pretty pathetic. Of course so is applying an "attitude" to a multibillion dollar multinational corporation.

Sony is big because they have a reputation for making quality products. Whether or not they deserve that is up for debate but when they do get something right they tend to nail it. Sony went from a distant 10th in LCD marketshare to #1 in 2 years with the Bravia line. The Playstation and the PS2 have totally dominated the console space for the last decade. If I ran a company that had sold 200 million systems and 2 billion games in the last decade I'd be pretty proud of myself too.

The problem right now is that since the games aren't ready to look at the PS3 mindspace is basically a giant echo chamber so the loudest shouter gets the most attention completely independat of the quality of their message.

That's What I See

[MBCook]

I see this generation as pure arrogance. I thought the $400 price of a 360 stupid. But asking either $500 or $600 for a console is just insane. They aren't even offering anything great. The videos I've seen of the PS3 games look like 360 games. The interface is basically the same as the analog controller introduced during the PS1 life-cycle. They have basically NOTHING to justify the cost in my eyes. Those have no large line-up of killer games. Heck, I've yet to see a game that really makes me take notice. Some (Assassin's Creed) seem interesting, but many of those (like it seems Assassin's Creed) won't be exclusive.

I bought a PS2 on launch due to "good will" with Sony. I knew they would come through. They did... but it took a long time. My PS2 has probably seen more use as a DVD player than a PS2 (thanks, mostly, to Netflix and TV show DVDs).

I bought a PSP on launch due to "good will" but I now regret that. There have been basically 3 games for it that I found that I like. Burnout (beat it, tired of it), Hot Shots (beat it, tired of it), and Lumines (I've spent so many hours on it, I'm tired of it). At this point in the console's life, I expected to have liked more than 3 games. And you know what's coming up that I'm looking forward to? Lumines 2, and that's just "more of the same" so I probably won't even get it. What a waste of my money. The DS was slow to start but after about 6 months it took off flying with great games.

They lost all their gaming good will. They would have a half-decent chance at $300. At $400 getting me to buy one would be a real stretch. At $500 it is a wait and see approach. At their $600 price, it's a wait and see what hits the used market 2 years later to see if it would be near my price point.

So far, only Nintendo has announced games that I consider "must haves". It's it so odd that that keeps happening every generation? The PS2 had some, the XBox had one or two (Jet Grind Radio Future and Shenmue II). The 360 and PS3 are currently lacking such titles. I have a list of about 6 for the Wii.

Re:That's What I See

[Akaihiryuu]

I was in EB Games at the mall today, and they had a PS3 E3 propoganda video (it was obviously produced by Sony) on...it was all I could do to keep from falling over laughing. Here is a direct quote: "They took the rumble feature out of the controller, that makes it lighter and more ergonomic. And it now has 6 degrees of freedom with NO EXTERNAL SENSORS REQUIRED! This is the most innovative controller I've ever seen! The 60-gig model is only $599, and the 20-gig model is only $499!!!" (it was obviously either a Sony PR drone or a media drone that Sony paid). Um...taking the rumble out makes it lighter and more ergonomic, so that's a good thing? They didn't even mention Nintendo, who blew everyone away at E3 and stole the show...Sony was virtually ignored, so it's likely that "E3 video" was really just Sony propoganda in disguise. That was the most arrogant piece of BS I've ever seen...even Microsoft hasn't put out propoganda that bad, and that's saying something.

Re:Sony has the right to be arrogant

[thelost]

I agree with you on this. People will buy PS3s because they bought the PS2. However the kind of stuff that we get concerned about in our tech orientated gossip and daily news sometimes filters through into the main media, stuff like the PS3 pricetag. I've heard a few of my non-techy friends mention the pricetag of the PS3, so it obviously got through to them. Also, I've found that in the last couple of years the average joe has become much more capable of picking up alternative news sources using the internet, to stay ahead of the hype and find out what is actually going on. I trust in peoples ability to make informed choices these days, we're just much smarter than we used to be when it comes to shopping. Yes I'm an optimist.