PlayStation Blog Entries Define Sony Battle Plan

Two new posts have appeared on Sony's PlayStation blog, and they mark a significant step forward for the company's efforts to bridge the gap between players and the company. Even their competitors are lauding the decision to join the discussion online. Maybe Nintendo will be next? 1up, in the meantime, offers links to both stories and culls the best content from both entries. From a post by SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton: "We fully realize that past success is no guarantee of future success, but it does give you some perspective. We have to bring the games to market that will showcase what the PS3 can do and ultimately entertain you like no other games have. We need to provide proof of what the PS3 can do for you and work tirelessly to improve the value and justify your investment. At the end of the day, it's always been about the games. To push the boundaries of gaming beyond where they currently lie takes a great deal of risk. I think all the hardware manufacturers are doing that in some way."

Comments

Sex sells

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as how Sony is from Japan (land of the hentai), all they have to do is come up with an incredibly good-looking 3D real-time hentai game of some sort. Kinda like what Dead or Alive Xtreme does, but without the volleyball and go all the way with the girls. Just rate the damn game/simulation/whatever you want to call it "M", only adults can afford their system anyway.

Sex sells.

Re:Sex sells

[Zantetsuken]

They already do - in fact its the biggest type of game over there. Except that most tend to be really only slide shows with some crappy story and make a decision (Do A or Do B? Say Y or X?). And the few 3d ones that do exist are based on some shitty action game-play more than sex. Oh, and did I mention that the majority of these (at least if you want h-scenes) tend to be on PC only?

Even if they did make a few with really good graphic textures in 3d - I think there's too much difference in the cultures.

1. Walmart doesn't sell porn games with the rest
2. 1. The mainstream porn buying American/Euro guy would probably find getting off on h-anime and ero-games just too damned weird.
   2. Theres a good chance that the anime loving college otaku would be too ashamed to go buy it
3. The biggest reason is that Sony would be too worried about their image to allow the making/selling of large amounts of such "Dating Sim" games. The gaming industry already gives Jack-ass Thompson enough fodder for his arguments to the courts and general public with violence in games - right now this is like him having a .308 deer hunting rifle against the industry. Making large amounts of games to be sold in the US where the central focus is sex would be like giving him a 30mm chain-gun...

Re:Sex sells

[Applekid]

The fact that the girls in DOAX2 look so damn good but not being able to "do anything" with them seems like a pure tease to me.

Congratulations! You've learned what some men with strip club addictions have yet to learn.

I think the issue of sex in games in general is going to find it's way into the mainstream eventually. Maybe even within the next 25 years or so. Look at porn. Now just about every company's got at least part of it invested in providing either adult movies in hotel rooms to distribution of adult material to downright promotion. Adult actresses are making the jump over into mainstream films: the stigma is gone.

Then again, the motion picture has been around for, what, 100 years? Video games have only been made viable for the past 40?

Re:Sex sells

[SparkyFlooner]

"(Above link is almost certainly NSFW, BTW.)"

This should read:

"(Below link is almost certainly NSFW, BTW.)"

and appear ABOVE the link. ...I'm just looking out for all the people who click links as they find them while reading from the top down.

So, they learned Common Sense 101?

[VE3OGG]

"We fully realize that past success is no guarantee of future success, but it does give you some perspective. We have to bring the games to market that will showcase what the PS3 can do and ultimately entertain you like no other games have. We need to provide proof of what the PS3 can do for you and work tirelessly to improve the value and justify your investment. At the end of the day, it's always been about the games. To push the boundaries of gaming beyond where they currently lie takes a great deal of risk. I think all the hardware manufacturers are doing that in some way." Seriously, this has got to be one of the most obvious business 101 comments I have ever heard from a multi-national, multi-billion dollar-a-year, multimedia-electronics mega supercorp.

Now, what I can't decide is this: did they actually just figure this out (doubtful...) or did marketing decide to restate the doesn't-deserve-to-be-restated obvious in hopes of getting a bunch of people to nod their heads and say: "yep, Sony is definitely now a contender in this race (I'm willing to put money on it...).

*Sigh*

Re:So, they learned Common Sense 101?

[powerlord]

Now, what I can't decide is this: did they actually just figure this out (doubtful...) or did marketing decide to restate the doesn't-deserve-to-be-restated obvious in hopes of getting a bunch of people to nod their heads and say: "yep, Sony is definitely now a contender in this race (I'm willing to put money on it...).

Actually, while of course the statement is obvious business 101, it is a fair reaction to a lot of the media's criticism of "Sony's arrogance."

If you get bashed for saying "we've won in the past and we'll win again", and get bashed for saying "we've won in the past, but we realize that means we still have to fight", what exactly do you EXPECT them to say?

At least they admit it

[Bagggy]

I recently went from being a big sony fan to losing all faith (well maybe not so recent, when PS3's pricetag showed up I lost it). While not saying it directly, they basically said that maybe they took PS3's extra capabilities too far and lost focus. And they're saying they want to refocus on games. Well, that sounds good to me. Hopefully its not just talk and they'll start pulling themselves out of this mess. A small part of me still wants to like them.

Re:At least they admit it

[cbreaker]

The PS3 is an amazing little machine. In the days of new video cards costing nearly as much as a PS3, I don't really buy the whole price tag thing. Not too many people complain about the Xbox 360 price and it was only $100 cheaper. Factor in that you don't have to pay for a monthly subscription to do online things on the PS3, and the fact that it's a really cool machine with more capabilities, it evens out quickly.

But if you want to just focus in on the bullet point, that's your decision.

Re:At least they admit it

[buffer-overflowed]

A new video card only costs as much as a PS3 if you're going bleeding edge, like an 8800 GTX. The RSX in the PS3 is more comparable to a Nvidia 7800(a 7800GS w/256MB of RAM is about $170). A 320MB 8800 GTS, which you can get for $300, will spank it, much less a $600+ video card like an 8800 Ultra. The 7800 upper-end series cards still go for a ton of money for some reason, even though they're not state of the art anymore. You also have the option with all of those cards of plugging in another one and using SLI at a latter date. The G80 series will also push resolutions that make 1080p look like a joke.

ATI has equivalents(and Crossfire SLI equivalent), and a price war is expected to begin by the end of the year.

That's just the GPU. Now, how much for 256MB of DDR2 RAM? No idea, can't seem to find any. A 512MB stick of high quality DDR2 800 RAM is only $36 though. So, let's say $36 to get twice what the PS3 has.

Only problem is the CPU. A core 2 extreme(quad) is overkill for a PS3 comparable machine, and something like a core 2 duo E6600 is stronger(for instance it has a ton more L2 and L1 cache) in some areas, but weaker in others. We'll assume an E6600 clocked to 3.2 GHz with a stock cooler is better for general computing tasks like Linux because well, it is. That's $220, and another $200 for a decent mainboard.

Toss in a case+power supply for let's say $100 so we can get a nice one, a DVD-ROM for $5, and a 60GB PATA HDD for $50 and we have a PS3 minus the BDROM(unless you want a burner? $400). We're at $780(Only $180 over the price of the PS3s you can actually buy). But hey, in the right line of work(or a student), and with the right usage pattern, you can deduct the price(well depreciation I believe, over 5 years) of the machine over time, within reason(check with your accountant, which you have if you're not a child and don't consider $600 for a console too much money).

This is how things stand now. BD burners and BD-ROMs will certainly drop in price, drastically, over time. RAM and other components get cheaper as time goes on as well. There is an expected price war between AMD and Intel, and NVidia and ATI within their mid->upper tier product spaces beginning this summer. The PS3 is not *that* much of a deal, especially as a general purpose computer. You can't upgrade it piecemeal over time, and it's not even that great of a value for that *right now*. And by the end of the year, PCs should pull well and truly ahead again.

Re:At least they admit it

[Chris Burke]

In the days of new video cards costing nearly as much as a PS3, I don't really buy the whole price tag thing.

Yeah, you'll notice that the graphics cards that cost that much are a niche product. The mainstream mass-market products are much cheaper. Whoa, just like the current console generation. Weird.

Nobody who balks at the price of a PS3 is buying a $600 video card either.

Re:At least they admit it

[cbreaker]

All those technical things don't matter, though. The PS3 is cutting edge for a game system. I exaggerated on the price a bit to make a point, but the fact that you can easily spend a grand on a medium-spec game machine, I don't see the big deal about the $599 for the PS3. You have to put it into perspective with the rest of the things that people buy right now. iPods that cost $300, HDTV's that cost $3200.. shit's expensive now.

Yea, it would have been good if they priced the PS3 at $500. I believe they will soon enough, and that will remove the big "reason XBOX RULEZ" bullet point at the top of the list. But really, it doesn't matter. I like my PS3 and I'm glad I got it. It's a fun machine to own.

Production Costs

[HowDoIDesu]

What they need to figure out how to do is to cut the production cost for the system so it can be sold for a lower price which will encourage sales. Once more units are sold, there'll be more incentive for developers to develop games. As for cutting production costs, I've not a clue how they'd go about it.

Re:Meh.

[crabbz]

Here is a list of known exclusive titles. But of course many don't have release dates yet. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=85 8296

Sex doesn't sell in Japan...

[patio11]

... not on the scale that Sony needs. Look at how squeaky-freaking-clean Nintendo, full of such racy fare as Nintendogs and Brain Training, is dominating the sales charts. My friend looked at the Famitsu Top 30 a few weeks (?) ago -- 4 games, FOUR, were on a non-Nintendo system. Where are the hentai games? Answer: sitting in some store in Akihabara serving a very niche audience, the very existence of which embarasses people and which is not enough to sustain a multi-national like Sony. Take a look at Microsoft, with She Kicks High and their other various "We're edgy and sexy but not porn" marketing moves, for how that is likely to play out in America: sell well to hormone-fueled teenagers (if you marry it to a good game), the core gaming market already, but not move a blue ocean like Nintendo is doing.