Sony's Harrison on Sony Arrogance

Joystiq had the chance to exchange a few words with Sony's Phil Harrison at the UK Develop Conference. They asked him some hard questions about the crazy comments that have been coming out of the company since E3. From the article: "There's always going to be a risk when you are market leader for ten years that we start to lose perspective; and we have to make sure that we don't lose perspective. But I don't think we're arrogant, I think we have to recognize that we're in a highly competitive industry and that anything that we say will be eternally editorialized by professionals and consumers alike. So we're always in the spotlight." After the tape was off he snarked that he hadn't been asked very nice questions. Poor guy, having to answer questions that aren't 'How awesome is the PS3 going to be?'

Comments

Dear Zonk

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Zonk,

You are not a journalist nor a competent editorial writer. Please post your snarky comments (in response to others' snarky comments) in the comments section like I'm doing, so that they may be voted "+5, Taking potshots at the market share leader in a given field."

Re:Dear Zonk

[tfurrows]

And yet, in spite of Zonk's apparent lack of writing skills, hundreds of /. readers will take this opportunity to get their energy out concerning yet-another arrogant industry-leader... None of us uses slashot for the quality (or grammar) of the writing, but for the chance to participate in the mele of the comments :)

Not about the PSP, they're not.

[Rachel Lucid]

Hard to be arrogant when you just shelved your main media distribution...

^^ Phil Harrison

[Jakhel]

log in you arrogant bastard

Re:Have you stopped beating your wife?

[oahazmatt]

Any answer Sony gives is "wrong." "We're not arrogant" yields, "see?! Seeeeee??" "Ok, we're arrogant" is just as stupid. I can't imagine how joystiq figured that'd be a useful question, except in the context of badgering Sony. Why he'd set out to do that intentionally is clearly up for debate. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail, I suppose. So, joystiq, "have you stopped badgering Sony?

The question is relating to how he felt regarding comments of Sony's arrogance. The question moved on to how the negative comments are affecting Sony.

I don't see that as badgering Sony. It is asking relevant questions. Had the question been "Why are you so arrogant" it would have been a different story. The questions were asking for responses to accusations, not accusing in themselves.

Re:Arrogant?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Confident is releasing a console at $400 knowing that no successful console in history has ever sold for more than $300; confident is charging $10 more for games knowing that no market leading system has had $70 games in modern times. What Sony is, is beyond words; "stupid and cocky to the level which everyone will take pleasure watching them fail" comes to mind but seems to need a little more.

The facts are that the best hardware does not lead to the market leading position (something Sony should know being that they've had the worst hardware 2 generations in a row and were still successful). The PSP is a much more powerful system than the Nintendo DS yet the DS is raping the PSP in worldwide sales; the XBox and Gamecube were dramatically more powerful than the PS2 and were raped in sales by the PS2; and the N64 was far more powerful than the playstation but (once again) was raped in sales by the Playstaion.

The system that wins is (always) the system with the most high quality sofware, at an affordable price with affordable hardware. So far Sony has 0 of those three components.

Now Shut up Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll!!!

$599 is fine

[rsilvergun]

for launch. I don't know why people are surprised. The last 3 console releases (ps2, Xbox and Xbox360) where all scalped on ebay for way more than that. Sony's just responding to that. Expect the price to come down pretty quick as sales drop.

Re:One "zonked" tag to go please

[NonSequor]

What bias? How do you expect him to report anything good about the PS3 when there isn't any good news about it available?

Thanks for playing FUD

[Yvan256]

Your rival Nintendo has given up trying to compete technologically with you in their next console and is turning to gimmicks like the Wii's pointing device.

Nintendo hasn't "given up trying to compete technologically", they never did in the first place. Nintendo is about games, not marketing numbers or CPU/GPU power like Microsoft or Sony. Anyone remember the PS2's "emotion engine"?

As for calling the Wii controller a "gimmick" or even a "pointing device", you don't even know what you're talking about.

Pot...Kettle...Black?

[DeadMilkman]

Dear Sony shrill, you forgot:

60-70% of the Japanese retail find your competitor more interesting/capable.
65-70% of the Japanese develoupment houses interest rests with your competitors.
65-75% of Japanese consumer market interested in buying your competitor's product citing the #1 reason as "cost" against your product.

And in Famijitsu, THE japanese gaming mag...you are pulling 5% more popularity in Japan than the Xbox 360... (* That right there alone should be causing panic!)

Sources:
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=3403&Itemid=2
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=3162&Itemid=2

General Motors execs used to sound like that

[Animats]

He comes across like a General Motors exec from the glory days.

Re:One "zonked" tag to go please

[MBCook]

No kidding. Delays in the system, delays in the cell, delays in Blu-Ray, the price, last-minute half-features (the controller tilt), feature removal (Ethernet hub, rumbling), cell yields of 10-20%, and low laser diode yield. Sony hasn't had ANY good news. Even at E3 when they were expected to make a killing they didn't show a ton of impressive stuff. Sure it looked good, but they didn't look as good as the target renders and they didn't have a large variety of games. They also didn't have much in the big name department (GTA, just a video of Jak and Daxter).

Compare that to MS who while not great did show a wide variety of games and had some good announcements (GTA no longer exclusive to PlayStation for one).

Then there was the "little guy", Nintendo. A fantastic showing of tons of games that got tons of press. People were interested in much of it. Wii Sports, Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Red Steel, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and more. Name 7 big upcoming games off the top of your head for either other system.

I've gotta say, I thought the PS3 would be a scarce but big hit with great graphics. Now I'm starting to get much more interested as it seems the PS3 will be overpriced with great graphics and a fair helping of "what are they doing now."

Re:Have you stopped beating your wife?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I don't know, I'd call the CD spyware thing arrogant. Selling portable audio players that required users to convert their entire libraries to ATRAC in order to play them is pretty arrogant. Sony thinking they could sell movie UMDs at nearly the price of the DVD counterparts was pretty arrogant, in my opinion. The DVD "+" writable standard was pretty arrogant, IMO, they didn't get accepted so they joined HP in making it anyway. I don't think the Blu-Ray standard counts as it's not a Sony format, but a format co-developed by at least a half-dozen major companies like Pioneer, Matsushita (Panasonic, JVC), and all the other hardware makers on the DVD consortium save two.

Dear Anonymous Fanboi,

[Anonymous Coward]

> Taking potshots at the market share leader in a given field

I don't give a damn if they're #1 or #100, frankly I don't like Sony due to all the crap they've been pulling of late like the rootkits.

And I'm sick of fanbois who act like "oh no, our precious Sony! they gave us the Playstation, you can't criticize them!"

Face it: Sony sucks. And I don't care how good their games are, or even if the PS3 lives up to the hype. I won't buy it because I won't endorse the things Sony has done. They "promise" not to use the patent that kills our ability to rent (or even loan!) games to others, but don't explain why they hell they bothered to patent it if that's true (umm, yeah, so our competitors can't sue us for infringing upon it when we're not, umm, going to do that! suuuurrre....) or how we can ever trust them again after the rootkit?

If they REALLY want to ask tough questions...

[FSWKU]

...then I've got one that should cause him to sweat a bit.

Quoth Phil Harrison to Spiegel Online:

On one level I understand why people say that. But it's a little stupid, if you don't mind me saying so. When we launched Playstation in 1994 we introduced the concept of real-time computer-generated 3-D-graphics for the first time.

This was part of his response to a question relating to the tilt controller, specifically wanting a response to those who thought they stole the idea. My question is two-fold: First, what are you hiding? It should be easy to relate the design process that ended with having a tilt controller (needing a feature now that they can't have dual-shock would have been more than sufficient). However, you simply called the allegations "stupid" and tried to move on as quickly as possible.

My second question (and the most pressing): Why are you LYING to the public about Sony's achievements? And before you get upset about the question, let me point out my proof:

• 1980: Atari releases Battlezone. This game featured real-time, computer-generated 3D graphics, and was also (technically) an FPS.
• 1992: Sega releases Virtua Racing in the arcades. The game was composed almost entirely of real-time 3D graphicsf.
• February 23, 1993: Nintendo releases Star Fox for the SNES. The major selling point of the game was real-time, computer-generated 3D graphics.
• November 22, 1994: Sega debuts the Saturn, which is fully capable of providing real-time, computer-generated 3D graphics. Titles such as Daytona USA sell extremely well among owners of the system. This same year, Virtua Racing is ported to the Genesis, and Virtua Racing Deluxe is released for the 32X.
• December 3, 1994: Sony releases the Playstation, which was originally to become a CD add-on for the SNES to compete with the SegaCD.

This clearly shows your assertion that "...we introduced the concept of real-time computer-generated 3-D-graphics for the first time..." to be flat-out wrong. This is all commonly available information, which someone authorized to speak on Sony's behalf should know off the top of their head. So I ask again, why the lying? If it was intentional, then you have only proven the arrogant desperation of your company. If it was a mistake, then you are proving yourself unqualified to speak for an entire company. Unfortunately, I am inclined to believe that it was intentional in light of Kaz Hirai's statement of "...With our original PlayStation, we ushered in the era of the CD-ROM and 3-D..."

So to conclude, you may not think of yourselves as arrogant, but your words and actions say otherwise.