Larry Hyrb doesn't smile 24/7? Quick, somebody call the police! Larry is a PR man. If you think of him as Major Nelson then he's doing his job. As a non-Xbox owner (but Windows 10, so half a Xbox credit right?) I feel Larry has been relegated to communicating to existing Xbox owners so he's kind of preaching to the converted. You see Phil Spencer doing the wider Xbox PR than you saw previous Heads of Xbox.
I'm surprised this is even a thread. This bolded is exactly what Larry's position is for. That's his job. People upset that I said exactly that? People getting offended for no reason. Like... the amount of crying is amazing.
It's so sad and childish how the same people from years ago I can recognize that play the same games of "but Sony too!" Oh dear. Can't train people out of that attitude.
And like
@MrFox pointed out, it's important to recognize that it isn't Larry as a person. It's Larry's job to defend and advertise Microsoft and Xbox policy, no matter what that is. If there is any fault, it is generally with the policies or message that he is asked to advertise. No more, no less. Even when there is not a fault with the policy itself, Microsoft is asking Larry to advertise to fans in the way he is doing. He has a mandate from Microsoft/Xbox themselves to communicate the way he does. That is not by accident.
That was Kutaragi. I think he also said people would buy the console without any games as it was a PlayStation, but may be wrong on that one. He was let go...
That was Jack Tretton I believe. I could be wrong though. Tretton recently left though post-launch of PS4. I wonder though... if I say Tretton was being arrogant when he made statements like that will the "offended" in this thread come to his defense too for his mostly worthless PR that didn't help PlayStation as a brand to the audience? Probably not.
The interesting thing here is that no one said Larry is offensive or harmful. Only that he is doing his job, and his job happens to put him in compromising positions rather often where he stretches meanings and does a PR double speak often, but again... that's his job.
His job is to advertise to an established Xbox base, and that audience will not mind if he stretches the truth or plays games with words. That is a legitimate role. No one said that made him offensive or harmful. And the fact is it is important to stay in touch with an established consumer base and make them feel good about sticking with your products. That's part of the game of salesmanship.
If one interprets that as saying Larry Hyrb is a bad person or harmful that is more reflective of that person's interpretation than of any actual content in this thread.
Nevermind it was David Reeves, then SCEE CEO, replaced by Andrew House I believe.
However, Reeves maintained that shifting PS3s in the early days won't be a problem, such is the strength of the PlayStation brand: "We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games."
I bet no one will complain if I openly criticize Sony for these kinds of PR statements.
It's not that the statement is completely without merit (the brand was always strong, even at that time, but selling millions of "game consoles" without games is stretching reality too thin), but it is also mostly useless and does not characterize what early adopters want from a PS3 either. Even further it was symptomatic of the overall arrogance of the PlayStation business after handily outselling their competition for 2 generations in a row. And this statement came at a time when the console was to be launched at $499 and $599 (20 GB and 60 GB SKU)...
Cue the whining about how Reeves is actually a really good person in 3, 2, 1... oh wait, I'm criticizing Sony now. So we can have a proper discussion without a defense force.
