[scooby_dooby]

*This thread was spawned from the NPD thread.*

Originally Posted by Nesh

None of the points you brought are explained necessarily by arrogance.
Shifty explained you the possible reasons in his posts already.

Unpredictable events and lack of conservatism

Holy moly, some people can spin anything!!

Sony was arrogant yes, why? They actually thought they could sell a $600 console!!

Call that whatever you will, arrogance, overconfidence, stupidity, whatever label you want to slap onto it... it's all the same thing. The entire premise of their strategy is built around over-confidence/arrogance (err...I mean lack of conservatism ).

[Johnny Awesome]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

But they had been creating those tools for decades! They are ported over in substantial part from the PC space. Looking at some of the hardware specific stuff that MS had to create for the platform, like libraries for predicated tiling, they were late to the party.

Or...perish the thought...creating tools is actually quite hard? It's not like PS3 launched into a vacuum of tools. Sony provide a vastly superior development platform to the PS2, bought in know-how, and have continued to provide support for what's a difficult platform. Considering they aren't a software company like MS, and haven't been focussed on creating OSes and development tools for the past 10+ years, they aren't doing too badly. Sure it can be better, but then MS's hardware reliability could be better. You don't expect everyone to get everything right 100% of the time. At least you shouldn't.

Actually to a degree they could have. Design of these systems is a long-term process with some basis on predictions. Design of Cell began in 2000, long before even 90nm was available. When choosing to go with Cell and RSX, Sony may have had an expectation that 65nm would be available at launch in 2006, and Blue Laser production would be cost effective. They designed the hardware perhaps with the expectation of a $400 price (which has been achieved with efficient BRD production and 65nm process availability) but these technologies weren't actually available when they had hoped, and the best they could do was launch at the price they were forced into by over-optimism that could never have accounted for the difficulties chip fabs have had in reaching 65nm.

It would be nice if technology could be designed with a perfect understanding of what's going to happen, and an exact roadmap for n years can be plotted with certainty, but it's just not like that. It's wrong to assume everything that has happened, every choice made, is exactly according to Sony's Grand Master Plan set in motion 5, 6, even 7 years ago. MS aren't incompetant but their hardware kept breaking, costing them a billion dollars. Do you think that was part of their plan? Or do you think their best expectations and forecasts and predictions just didn't pan out how they hoped?

The difference between MS and Sony is that when they make mistakes or things don't go according to plan Sony expects the consumer to bear the costs (BR - $600 PS3) whereas MS expects to pay it themselves (extending the warranty - $1 billion loss). That's the arrogance I'm talking about. Besides how can you argue that Sony isn't arrogant when execs were talking about selling 10 million units without needing any software? Seriously. It's not really a matter of opinion: Sony was arrogrant at the beginning of this generation and MS and Nintendo have taught them a lesson.

[Nesh]

Originally Posted by scooby_dooby

Holy moly, some people can spin anything!!

Sony was arrogant yes, why? They actually thought they could sell a $600 console!!

Call that whatever you will, arrogance, overconfidence, stupidity, whatever label you want to slap onto it... it's all the same thing. The entire premise of their strategy is built around over-confidence/arrogance (err...I mean lack of conservatism ).

Care to get deeper into this?

[Neb]

Is there really much to discuss here, isn't the past history proof enough of attitudes, trashtalking and false promises?

[kyleb]

Sony sold a $600 console because they knew people would buy all they could make at that price, and they kept selling out for many months at that price. Since they started sitting on the shelves, Sony dropped their prices to attract a larger market. That isn't arrogance, it is just smart business.

[jonabbey]

Originally Posted by Johnny Awesome

The difference between MS and Sony is that when they make mistakes or things don't go according to plan Sony expects the consumer to bear the costs (BR - $600 PS3) whereas MS expects to pay it themselves (extending the warranty - $1 billion loss). That's the arrogance I'm talking about. Besides how can you argue that Sony isn't arrogant when execs were talking about selling 10 million units without needing any software? Seriously. It's not really a matter of opinion: Sony was arrogrant at the beginning of this generation and MS and Nintendo have taught them a lesson.

a) Sony isn't expecting anyone to pay $600 for a PS3 these days. They priced themselves too high for the larger gaming market with too much expensive technology in the box at launch, for sure, but there are plenty of us who actually get a lot of use out of the Blu-Ray player support now, and there's lots more use to come.

b) XBox customers have paid plenty for the hardware failure rates on the 360, in time, hassle, and even additional 360's that a number of people have bought to replace their broken ones without having to wait 6 weeks for a refurb.

c) Sony never talked about selling 10 million units without software.

[Geo]

Umm, what? By that reasoning a $50,000 console that they can only make 1 per month of is a success so long as that one per month sells?

Surely Sony stopped being supply constrained many months ago vs current demand.

[kyleb]

Eh? I never said anything about success, but your example certainly makes for less of a failure than selling that one console they can manage to produce a month for cheaper.

[TheChefO]

Originally Posted by jonabbey

c) Sony never talked about selling 10 million units without software.

True.

They expected to sell 5 million without software. Either way, it's quite arrogant.

[Cryect]

Originally Posted by kyleb

Sony sold a $600 console because they knew people would buy all they could make at that price, and they kept selling out for many months at that price. Since they started sitting on the shelves, Sony dropped their prices to attract a larger market. That isn't arrogance, it is just smart business.

Where was Sony supply constrained beyond the launch month anywhere?

[betan]

Originally Posted by Nebula

Is there really much to discuss here, isn't the past history proof enough of attitudes, trashtalking and false promises?

The discussion should not be the amount of arrogance as in the thread title, but how that arrogance affected their decision making (PS3 setup, pricing, marketing) and current situation.

I personally don't think the arrogance effected public reception much compared other factors, and regarding Blu-ray and price I guess I'm the only one who cannot imagine how that decision can be a result of arrogance. Those kind of financial decisions aren't typically made without significant market research, very expensive analysis, projection, etc.

[TheChefO]

I think a simple question here could put this to rest:

What would Sony have done ANYTHING differently if they had no competition at all?












IMO, it would have been very similar to what we saw with ps3:

high price
poor dev tools
proprietary media
very few games

In fact, I think the only thing that may have been different is an even further delayed launch.

[aselto]

They definitely were arrogant last year with comments like "360 is selling worse than PS2 lol, they're no compatition for us and ps3", but now with PS3 lagging behind competition they are trying harder than they did last year.

[Lycan]

Arrogance doesn't mean anything in business. This is no children play court. Overconfidence, yes. PS1 was a success, and so was the PS2...They thought they had a chance of selling consoles at that price and that the brand would justify such a premium and they were proven quite wrong...
I see no arrogance here. It's not about PR sentences , companies are not human beings...They took decisions based on assumptions they thought wre solid. I can't imagine them overlloking facts for the sake of looking ARROGANT. !!!

[scooby_dooby]

Originally Posted by betan

The discussion should not be the amount of arrogance as in the thread title, but how that arrogance affected their decision making (PS3 setup, pricing, marketing) and current situation.

Well someone created this thread for me, but I would certainly have titled it "How arrogant were sony", since I think think they've been humbled by now.

But that's if I thought it was worth a thread, which I totally don't think it is, I just had to comment on the ridiculous spin I saw going on in the other thread...

I.e. Sony wasn't arrogant, they just had a lack of 'conservatism'!!

COME ON!! What is this, FOX news??

[kyleb]

Originally Posted by Cryect

Where was Sony supply constrained beyond the launch month anywhere?

Good point, or close anyway. Looking back it seems January was when they started to saturate demand for the 60gb model anyway, though I still had trouble finding my 20gb model then.

Still, while selling the hardware at a loss it only makes sense to keep those losses as small as possible with high prices rather than going with a lower price and loosing even more money with every console you make.

[scooby_dooby]

Originally Posted by Lycan

Overconfidence, yes.

Arrogance and overconfidence tend to go hand in hand, I think you're splitting hairs at this point.

The only difference between the two is arrogance is somewhat nastier. And some of Sony's comments, such as "We'll sell 6 million without any software" and "Beating us for a short moment is like accidentally winning a point from a Shihan (Karate master),", or "Microsoft shoots for the moon. Sony shoots for the sun." certainly reek of arrogance to me.

At any rate, I don't want to get into a debate about sematics, I'm fine with using overconfidence. They were completely overconfident, and that overconfidence led them to commit a long list of bone headed mistakes.

They are not victims of anything other than their own poor planning, which was a direct result of their total lack of respect for their competitors.

[patsu]

Originally Posted by TheChefO

Ms didn't just wake up with dev tools in their laps. They had to create them.

As Shifty mentioned, MS already has decade of experiences deploying and integrating OS, applications, game APIs and SDKs. The IPs was ported to Xbox 360. Even the HD-DVD layer has its roots on Windows.

Sony could have done the same thing and likewise, they didn't just wake up one day and ps3 was on their desk. Sony's planning for ps3 was slow and passive at a time they couldn't afford to be. That's either incompetence, or arrogance. Given the fact they have orchastrated system launches and hardware before, my bet isn't on incompetent.

... or they could be optimistic. Kutaragi is an engineer at heart. It seems that he simply wants to realize his distributed entertainment platform vision (The same way he wanted to realize the original Playstation vision).

Doesn't have to be incompetent or arrogant to be slow and passive (Why only 2 discrete variables). As I mentioned, complexity could be another reason. Even the best OS players, MS and Apple, have their own fair share of slippage (think "Longhorn" and "Pink").

Again, management had to be involved on what would and wouldn't be included in the box and had to be aware of the BOM and consequent required MSRP when factored in with acceptable losses.

Sure, if they truly believe in the value they can bring, perhaps they genuinely think that it's worth US$599 ? Apple priced its iPhone at $599 too. Are they arrogant too ? Pricing a new product is a multi-million dollar business. It's not that simple.

The BOM cost and price could be estimated early, but the software delay may be the one that pull the rug under their feet.

Sony also went through a management shakeout. It is unclear how much of the original plan stayed intact (e.g., PSP launched at a very reasonable price).

The final product is on the shelf.

Not according to the original vision that was demoed.

Games will get better with time just as they do for all platforms. This isn't exclusive to ps3. In some cases, the cell has more room to grow, but this requires more time/money. Thus, it will be exclusive to a handful of titles, likely from Sony. Even in such cases, the difference between a title maximizing ps3's advantage and the same for xb360 will not be so large as to sway the general consumer.

Evidence? Xbox v ps2

Further, more recent evidence: Wii, DS

Historic examples are indicative but may not be always accurate. The rules have changed somewhat this gen. As I said, we shall see.

As we all should be. Like I've said all along, these guys know a thing or two about hardware. They aren't incompetent, just too arrogant.

They simply bite off more than they can chew. Everyone can make that mistake. You don't have to be arrogant about it.

I also think that you have misunderstood my post. Johnny Awesome mentioned that arrogance disrupted Sony's plans ("Their arrogance was their undoing"). I simply stated that complexity may be the main culprit (In a multi-headed conglomerate amidst management shuffle, there are plenty of room for complexity to creep in, who say it must be arrogance). This is a very different argument from whether Sony is arrogant or not.

People want to label Sony as "arrogant" because they attach their emotion to the high price, and most importantly, some of the Sony execs mishandled PR when the ex-PR head left).

EDIT:

Originally Posted by scooby dooby

Arrogance and overconfidence tend to go hand in hand, I think you're splitting hairs at this point.

Perhaps ! But people can be overconfident because of wrong intellgence/information from vendors or subordinates, unexpected events, and changing climate. Or the final outcome may be a compromise between multiple strong heads. There could be tons of reasons, I will only settle down when that PS3 book arrive... hopefully I can live to see it.

[scooby_dooby]

Originally Posted by patsu

There could be tons of reasons,

Sure, if you ignore the laundry list of arrogant statements Sony has made over the last two years...

And actions speak louder than words anyways. They thought they could sell 6million consoles, at $600, with hardly any exclsuive software? Well, to me that paints a pretty clear picture of where their heads were at.

[patsu]

Originally Posted by Johnny Awesome

The difference between MS and Sony is that when they make mistakes or things don't go according to plan Sony expects the consumer to bear the costs (BR - $600 PS3) whereas MS expects to pay it themselves (extending the warranty - $1 billion loss).

That's because Sony is selling a hi-end product (That's why the consumers pay), whereas Microsoft is plugging their serious mistake (That's why MS pay).

The other difference is MS has a monopoly but Sony does not.

That's the arrogance I'm talking about. Besides how can you argue that Sony isn't arrogant when execs were talking about selling 10 million units without needing any software? Seriously. It's not really a matter of opinion: Sony was arrogrant at the beginning of this generation and MS and Nintendo have taught them a lesson.

Sony is arrogant in press at the beginning. That's all we can be sure.
There are many reasons for the price to be high. They can be telling the truth (10 year business plan), but they forgot that gamers are an abrasive bunch.

[Carl B]

I've changed the thread title to something that hopefully provides a better context for discussion, and takes us back a little in terms of the various aspects that have led Sony/PS3 up to this point. I think Shifty was a little emotional when he created the original thread & title.

Anyway I tend to agree (and disagree) with certain aspects of both 'sides' positions. Sony was arrogant/confident, but at the same time they had every technical reason to be. Their fault at the time was in actively choosing to exercise that arrogance in public. As development of the system went on, various hurdles arose that kept them from meeting their original goals, and put them in the position of needing to backpeddle - thus making their previous statements look all the more foolish/arrogant.

It's a PR position Sony put themselves in with their bravado, but ultimately it was development-related issues that took the wind out of their sails.

[patsu]

Originally Posted by scooby_dooby

Sure, if you ignore the laundry list of arrogant statements Sony has made over the last two years...

I have already addressed that point above.

And actions speak louder than words anyways. They thought they could sell 6million consoles, at $600, with hardly any exclsuive software? Well, to me that paints a pretty clear picture of where their heads were at.

Sure... is that arrogant ? Apple has to revise their iPhone plans too. I repeat, pricing a new innovative product is very very difficult. Companies pay millions to do it right and they still can't. Sony is not alone here.

[Lycan]

Originally Posted by scooby_dooby

Sure, if you ignore the laundry list of arrogant statements Sony has made over the last two years...

And actions speak louder than words anyways. They thought they could sell 6million consoles, at $600, with hardly any exclsuive software? Well, to me that paints a pretty clear picture of where their heads were at.

That's a bad decision. Full stop. You're acting as if you're charging an old ennemy, spitting on his grave, taking it...may I say personnally. Had they succeeded selling them, none would havve brought arrogance, other than some fanboys. Yep, they are not doing that well from a selling point, and I think they committed some mistakes they're paying. But I also think they had to cope with a lot of constraints : A financillay more agressive Microsoft, a technological vision from Kutaragi...
As for the Kutaragi quotes, they're more amusing (childich) than anything, just as every other PR out there, but not a single objective person would take them to prove the WHOLE company is arrogant. Proof : Kutaragi responded to a journalist who brought the ergonomy problem of the PSP : " his is a great piece of architecture, and as such, it shouldn't be criticized"...Ok, but that DIDN'T stop the company (obviously) from adressing the problem.

[Carl B]

Originally Posted by patsu

Sure... is that arrogant ? Apple has to revise their iPhone plans too. I repeat, pricing a new innovative product is very very difficult. Companies pay millions to do it right and they still can't. Sony is not alone here.

Yes, but I would say Apple was arrogant.

That just speaks to that singular example though - the truth is that for what Sony was doing at the time they did it, they essentially had no choice but to price at $600.

For me personally, examples of their arrogance stem from elsewhere, but *not* the price itself. The price is a result of the fact that BD was made a requirement of the console, and development of Blu-ray was running behind schedule (as crystalized by Kutaragi's famous railing against Sony Electronics).

Now, whether the BD inclusion was a mistake or not - that's something that I think can merit a lot of discussion. But so deep into the development of the system, they could they price it cheaper, and nor did it make sense to remove the feature after so much delay, because ironically the very purpose of its inclusion had only increased in importance to the parent company. It's a true rock vs a hard place for them at that point.

[scooby_dooby]

Originally Posted by Carl B

I've changed the thread title to something that hopefully provides a better context for discussion, and takes us back a little in terms of the various aspects that have led Sony/PS3 up to this point. I think Shifty was a little emotional when he created the original thread & title.

Anyway I tend to agree (and disagree) with certain aspects of both 'sides' positions. Sony was arrogant/confident, but at the same time they had every technical reason to be. Their fault at the time was in actively choosing to exercise that arrogance in public. As development of the system went on, various hurdles arose that kept them from meeting their original goals, and put them in the position of needing to backpeddle - thus making their previous statements look all the more foolish/arrogant.

It's a PR position Sony put themselves in with their bravado, but ultimately it was development-related issues that took the wind out of their sails.

Well, more than that I think it was a marketing problem.

They certainly had no historical evidence to beleive their console could be successful at a $600 pricepoint, yet they went ahead and launched at that price anyways.

So, while they may have had strong reasons to be optimistic about the success, and power of their new console, they had no logical reason to believe they would be able to be succesful at such a high pricepoint.

That's why I say, the entire basis of their strategy, and unltimately the major flaw in it, was born from this over confidence.

I think it's pretty clear, that if sony hadn't have been so over-confident, they would've realized no console would sell at $600, and they would've either:
A) Dropped BR from the console and launch in 05/06
B) Pushed back the launch to Fall 2007 when BR could be included for a reasonable cost.

Instead, they choose the worst route of them all, which was to launch later than the competition, and also at an extreme pricepoint. In restrospect, this was a horrible decision, and was born completely out of their illogical 'faith' that Playstation could sell at an extremely high pricepoint when no other console ever has.