Mixed Information on Consoles or How I learned to loathe PR *spin off*

[BRiT]

Well that's just the thing, Sony has already talked about the PS4 Neo (Enhanced) to the developers and to the financial press ahead of E3 and the message that has made its way to the community is as much a convoluted mess as any other message. Now less hardcore gamers have jumped against Sony's message, but its as much a mess as Microsoft's if you take everything as literal as you're taking Microsoft's messaging.

I think this is a function of attempting a mid-gen augmentation and not a complete replacement, and users making something out of nothing to be wiled up about.

People need to apply some common sense to both products and how they will be used, but I doubt that will happen equally to both products.

 

[Michellstar]

We should come to terms that a forum of enthusiasts, Techies and professionals it´s not the target of the E3 PR.
In general here, we want all of the specifics, details and corner cases, whereas they tried to convey simple messages to the general audience. A new box next year, power, 4k, One ecosystem (no one it´s left behind), etc

It´s like when there are elections and politicians in debates talk about economics, for a professional with a degree, it´s cringeworthy, inaccurate, misleading, or taken out of context much of what they say.

It is bad PR?? It depends

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well that's just the thing, Sony has already talked about the PS4 Neo (Enhanced) to the developers and to the financial press ahead of E3 and the message that has made its way to the community is as much a convoluted mess as any other message.

In what way? Neo will have Neo enhanced versions of PS4 games. It won't have exclusives. We're not sure about framerate as that quote was unclear and it doesn't sound like you can put a PS4 disk in and play PS4 games. But most importantly, that's from content not directed at us. They've said they're not ready to talk Neo. You can be sure when Sony are ready to talk to consumers about what Neo is, they'll have a clear message. We'll know if it's only for better VR, or better games even on TV, or 4K versions of PS4 games, because they'll explain it.

You can't make that same claim for MS and Scorpio. MS invited the public eye and started the conversation with the public, only to not know what to say!

And most importantly, the reason Sony are getting it right now is because they got it wrong 10 years ago with some crap PR and have recognised they were wrong and learnt and changed. MS needs to do the same. No? Do you think there's nothing better MS could do and no clearer message than that we're arguing over?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Well that's just the thing, Sony has already talked about the PS4 Neo (Enhanced) to the developers and to the financial press ahead of E3 and the message that has made its way to the community is as much a convoluted mess as any other message.

Come on BRiT, that's nonsense. Developers get information about new consoles before they are publicly announced because development cycles are so long. Neo was outted from developer channels and only then did Sony address Neo with places like the Financial Times. Sony's public messaging regarding Neo has been limited and consistent: 1) it will include an upgraded processor, it will support 4K resolution, it will support improved graphics and it is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4 with both being sold through the lifecycle. That's all they've said as far as I'm aware.

And the only message I read from Sony about Neo at E3 was that Neo wasn't being covered at E3.

You can claim that Sony aren't helping consumers make an informed purchasing decision by not talking specifics about Neo, and on that I would agree with you, but they're certainly not sending mixed messages. You are confusing mixed messages and very little messaging and these are worlds apart, although equally frustrating for potential purchasers.

 

[BRiT]

Come on BRiT, that's nonsense. Developers get information about new consoles before they are publicly announced because development cycles are so long. Neo was outted from developer channels and only then did Sony address Neo with places like the Financial Times. Sony's public messaging regarding Neo has been limited and consistent: 1) it will include an upgraded processor, it will support 4K resolution, it will support improved graphics and it is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4 with both being sold through the lifecycle. That's all they've said as far as I'm aware.

And the only message I read from Sony about Neo at E3 was that Neo wasn't being covered at E3.

You can claim that Sony aren't helping consumers make an informed purchasing decision by not talking specifics about Neo, and on that I would agree with you, but they're certainly not sending mixed messages. You are confusing mixed messages and very little messaging and these are worlds apart, although equally frustrating for potential purchasers.

So you dont take the alleged official dev documents with TRCs and the like that have made their way to the press sites to be part of Sony's message on midgen upgrades?

 

[London Geezer]

These thread titles get better every day.

 

[Scott_Arm]

...

You can't make that same claim for MS and Scorpio. MS invited the public eye and started the conversation with the public, only to not know what to say!
...

I can't understand how you could believe this is true. The interviews they have done have been very consistent. They've spoken about a lot of details and interview to interview the details are the same. You're focusing on one statement from the eurogamer interview, which to me is not even confusing, and turning that molehill into a mountain. Scorpio is a 4k box just like PS4 and Xbox one are 1080p boxes. Hint, they don't always run games at 1080! They lied to us!

 

[Scott_Arm]

...Sony's public messaging regarding Neo has been limited and consistent: 1) it will include an upgraded processor, it will support 4K resolution, it will support improved graphics and it is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4 with both being sold through the lifecycle. That's all they've said as far as I'm aware.
...

How has Microsoft's message on Scorpio been any different? It's literally the same thing. It has any upgraded processor (they even gave the spec). It will support 4k. It will support improved graphics and complement the standard Xbox One (they will run the same games, uwp). Both will be sold at the same time and there won't be exclusive games for Scorpio (no gamer left behind).

 

[iroboto]

Doesn't matter. So it's mixed. It will become straight eventually. I hate this thread because j see a lot of posters I respect going all at each other's throats and it's not worth it.

This whole console generation is going to be a hard exercise in change management. And change management starts with getting. People informed earlier and not just dumping things at their feet.

At least it's out there now. The discussions are happening now. For the public and for the developers. It will happen for the next 1.5 years until the console is released.

Parents will be fully informed by then. Kids will have a goal to work towards. They'll understand the difference between XBOS and Scorpio and has a lot of time to explain what's in it for the consumer. Why they get to choose, and why they should stick with XBox ecosystem.

Sony is the one that is in trouble IMO. You guys are freaking out now? Wait until Sony announced as gamescom and says on pre-Order next month! Console comes out Nov!!

Yea lets see that discussion happen. Lol. Even less power difference between the two and less time for people to be informed on it.

There is no PS4 slim, and the price can't come down that much, Neo is going to come in high and a lot of people won't know why they should buy it.

These aren't mobile phones people just don't buy better stuff because it's better. That market is PC market.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rodéric]

So a new backward compatible console every 3 years if it goes well this time around ?

 

[BRiT]

So a new backward compatible console every 3 years if it goes well this time around ?

Well that would be 4 years for MS and 3.5 for Sony if they hit in the Spring 2017. I doubt their 2016 target. I think 3 years is almost to tough unless you start off with lower performance or you settle on midperformance and under 2x perf increases.

 

[liolio]

I see nothing wrong with the talk about scorpio exclusive games, etc. It is an antiquated view that longer applies to what MSFT is doing: we have closed box PC, not that different from Alienware and the like. People run some PC games their low to ultra low power Core i3 without a discrete GPU, even on lesser configuration than that, other on Core i7 with discrete GPU, the games adapt in many way (geometry complexity, texture quality, drawing distance, physics, etc, for gameplay, number of simultaneous players, cars, etc. ).
It is pretty obvious to me what MSFT said in this regard.
The uneasy part about it is not Scorpio but the XB1 as they are introducing a new system pretty early they don't want they user base to feel like they are heading toward an original Xbox type of event. It should be relatively easy to support the XB1 for a little while (after Scorpio release), I don't think that the specs of the system (the XB1) are setting too low a bar, actually the most common lower denominator (some PCs) is lower.

Now the delivery of the message has just simply been awful, they should have go with their usual plan, for E3 speak about their upcoming line-up: gaming everywhere line up and the OneS. The Scorpio could have had an internet event on its own.
They should have spoken of the OneS and Scorpio at the same time, taking time to explain their views for those products, what they are bringing from the PC games world to console (games and drivers for example scale by themselves with the number of cores for example and how that translate to their new console approach, hence the strange talk about no exclusive), the thing is E3 is a show, an advertisement for things to sell and come soon, imho it was not the right place to engage in a ten minutes or more vulgarisation talk about how modern games can scale in many ways on compatible systems and how that can break the idea of generation of hardware and along with it the idea of software exclusive to a generation.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

So you dont take the alleged official dev documents with TRCs and the like that have made their way to the press sites to be part of Sony's message on midgen upgrades?

No, I do not subscribe to your conspiracy theory. What the hell is in this for Sony? No company wants to be forced to talk about a product that aren't ready to talk about, particularly as it creates uncertainly for people thinking about to buy the current version of your product?

How has Microsoft's message on Scorpio been any different?

Are you serious? Because of the things Phil Spencer has said. I as a consumer do not have time to analyse Phil Spencer's statement for inner truth or meaning beyond what he says in response to questions. The dude is paid a six figure sum to run a large business unit within Microsoft and part of his job is to clearly communicate what his products are. If one day he says developers can use the 6Tf in his new console how they like then two days later he said his new console won't look any better than XBO on 1080p TVs, that's mixed messaging, because that mens devs do not have the option to make the quality of the graphics better instead of boosting resolution.

I was genuinely excited at the Scorpio announcement at E3, then disappointed at the news that Scorpio wouldn't look any better on 1080p TVs. Then happy on the statements that devs could use 6Tf how they liked (which I thought superseded the earlier statement), then it transpired that statement was days before the one about Scorpio not being any better on 1080p. Then I went into mode. That's it. It's really that simple. One man, conflicting messages.

I see nothing wrong with the talk about scorpio exclusive games, etc.

Where is this coming from? Didn't they say no exclusive Scorpio games?

 

[liolio]

Where is this coming from? Didn't they say no exclusive Scorpio games?

Well what I mean is exclusives or their absence is the topic, right, What I answered is that there are no (not that there could not be) Xeon+TitanX+16GB of RAM exclusive on PC, how the console experience is turning into "controlled" PC experience MSFT failed to explain that, and I think the E3 was not the place to even attempt to explain that

Spoiler

ain't that post much better than the previous one, too long, unfocused, etc, and ultimately unclear ?

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm very serious. The amount of interviews that have been done, and the breadth of topics covered, people are picking up on one single answer and taking the baby-with-the-bathwater approach saying "messaging" has been terrible. I think pretty much all of it has been consistent, on pretty much all of the details. Now, that one answer, about having a 1080p tv - sure, you can take it very literally, and that might be confusing, but I'm surprised that people who have been gaming on consoles for so long would do that, especially in the larger context of that same interview.

To be honest, I think most of the confusion comes from people reading on forums and not actually reading the interviews first. You go on a forum and somebody is posting about something incorrect, and everyone runs with it without actually verifying if it's correct.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Well what I mean is exclusives or their absence is the topic, right, What I answered is that there are no (not that there could not be) Xeon+TitanX+16GB of RAM exclusive on PC, how the console experience is turning into "controlled" PC experience MSFT failed to explain that, and I think the E3 was not the place to even attempt to explain that

Spoiler

ain't that post much better than the previous one, too long, unfocused, etc, and ultimately unclear ?

What? I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. Here's what they said. All games will run on Xbox One and Scorpio. If you eventually choose to upgrade to Scorpio, you take your library with you. There are no exclusives for Scorpio. This has been more clear than anything else.

 

[liolio]

I'm very serious. The amount of interviews that have been done, and the breadth of topics covered, people are picking up on one single answer and taking the baby-with-the-bathwater approach saying "messaging" has been terrible. I think pretty much all of it has been consistent, on pretty much all of the details. Now, that one answer, about having a 1080p tv - sure, you can take it very literally, and that might be confusing, but I'm surprised that people who have been gaming on consoles for so long would do that, especially in the larger context of that same interview.

To be honest, I think most of the confusion comes from people reading on forums and not actually reading the interviews first. You go on a forum and somebody is posting about something incorrect, and everyone runs with it without actually verifying if it's correct.

They are not addressing us, they are also addressing kids, teen, gamers that don't have slightest clue about the tech and never bothered with PC,etc. The messaging was bad and it came outside of the show, possibly to fewer persons. Ultimately they will explain but it will take a while now till the proper message is carried by proxi to all its intended targets.
As an aside some PC GPU review I read no long ago ended up stating that you don't need such a GPU if you main display is 1080p, no drama. The context is completely different both the human and tech side.
They have not been really clear either with the S contrary to their previous practices with the 360.

 

[Scott_Arm]

What's not clear about the S?

 

[liolio]

What? I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. Here's what they said. All games will run on Xbox One and Scorpio. If you eventually choose to upgrade to Scorpio, you take your library with you. There are no exclusives for Scorpio. This has been more clear than anything else.

What I'm saying is pretty obvious from a PC gamers point of view you don't need exclusive games to have games that can benefits in multiples ways from a system offering improved CPU and GPU capabilities, hence MSFT spoke person comments.
I'm not sure about how Scorpio will deal with BC, and we will sure know in time, now the messaging is clearly about reassuring owners and future owners of the XB1 about its mid term support and life expectancy.

 

[AlNom]

Totally did not read the title as Mixed Massages from MidGen Consorts or How I learned to hate Pubic Relations.

Well that would be 4 years for MS and 3.5 for Sony if they hit in the Spring 2017. I doubt their 2016 target. I think 3 years is almost to tough unless you start off with lower performance or you settle on midperformance and under 2x perf increases.

10nm may not even be all that great ( a bit like how 20nm was), but it'll be years away for large ASICs.

hm...