Phil Harrison: We Should Be Sharing Our Road Map

[Black Dragon37]

SCE Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison has admitted that Sony needs to be more open about its PlayStation road map, and that when examining product lines the company would benefit from some more experimentation. He also talked a bit more about his GDC keynote.

 

[Bad_Boy]

I wonder if Threespeech.com was apart of this plan to be more open to the community. Either way, sounds like good news I suppose. Being secretive was ok before the console launched, and very understandable. But now that the console is out there in the market, they definitely need to be more open.

 

[Titanio]

Apparently they're starting a 'blog outreach program' at GDC. Whatever that means.

An official blog for the XMB team would probably be very popular. It seems feedback does get through to them, but something like that would make it more immediate and direct.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Kind of a swings and roundabouts idea IMO. We've had people offering up ideas prior to release before. We had a clear idea of what PS2 was supposed to do, and many of the tooted features never appeared. PSP has been a long time working towards its announced abilities. We had a release date for PS3 that didn't happen. Molyneux has learnt that sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut.

If Sony want to be more open (and how exactly are they tight-lipped?), they need to explain themselves, which is something corporations don't do. They need to be confident to say 'this is what we want to do' and then say 'this is why it hasn't happened' when it doesn't. As long as they give fair reasons, they don't end up with egg on their face. Otherwise they'll get labelled as a bunch of liars promising features only to attract interest with no intention on delivering them (as if that would ever happen!); unless they can create the perfect company where every plan is executed flawlessly and to schedule!

 

[rabidrabbit]

These days companies don't get away with vague, overhyping and even misinformative PR like they used to.
The PR statements are shred to pieces on forums and blogs, and a single statement is sure to get an amazing amount of attention, which would not have happened some years ago, and especially before widespread Internet.
MS seems to have got this, they have realized the power of forums and blogs (too well, some could argue...). Sony still seem to rely on old fashioned PR tactics and think the traditional media and press still has the power to influence masses.

 

[taucias]

He also confirmed that the PS3 will at some point receive DVD upscaling.


"There is a cultural thing about our approach in Japan that has to change. Our approach in Japan is, 'Once it's perfect, we'll share it with everybody else.' Whereas I think in order to engender trust in our users, we have to share some things that might be not quite perfect, but are ready to give you an indication of what's coming," Harrison explained. "So we could say, 'You know, we're not sure when it's coming, but we're going to have DVD upscaling on Playstation 3.' There you go. There's a scoop for you. In my view, we should have a slide on a Web site, or a blog. We should have [Playstation head of platform development Izumi] Kawanishi blog his road map for the Xross Media Bar for Playstation 3. I think he would probably have the biggest blog after yours in the world."


Good news there!

 

[Zassk]

So instead of sharing their road map... he tells us they should share their road map. Ok, thanks, Phil. Get back to us on that.

 

[Nesh]

So instead of sharing their road map... he tells us they should share their road map. Ok, thanks, Phil. Get back to us on that.

Well perhaps there is an internal disagreement on that and he is probably trying to persuade they should share it.

If thats not the case perhaps they are planning for it but isnt saying they are going to do it to play it safe in case the plan doesnt work out

 

[Carl B]

I think there's a lot to be said for "keeping it secret until it's ready," as Phil indicates the current culture favors. Obviously the Internet as a whole has become a very demanding place information-wise, with 24-hr news cycles etc etc... but the console space is a highly competetive one, and I can imagine Sony and Microsoft in particular are engaged in a dance where neither wants to tip more of their hand than they have to at any given point in time.

Still, if Harrison thinks thay can achieve a more open culture wrt the public while still keeping nominal operational secrecy intact, I'm all for it. The DVD upsaling thing is certainly a good example of something Sony can share without anyone gaining any competetive advantage.

 

[TrollFace]

The NDA's suck, and extreme over-protectiveness of their games in progress is exagerated. They are thowing away free publicity and a lot of potential sold games.

If you have a good game at the desk waiting to be finished, show it, and let the makers talk. It's so eighties/ninetees with all this secrecy.

Take Gears of War. Dev-diaries all over the place. Hype from Australia to Japan, from northpole to southpole. Still it managed to deliver. And sell. In huge quantities. Don't tell me it suffered because Cliffy and Rein showed the game at every show for a long time before launch, and took every chance they could to talk about it.

Now tell me, what conservative grumpy old guy at Sony HQ is so princible and stubborn about this secret-non-transparant-NDA tactic around their games. He's ruining it for his dev-people. There' s nothing smart about this tactic anymore. Maybe in the old days, not anymore. The competition is tight now, and when they use every opportunity and hundreds of websites and magazines to get their games and consoles in the hype-machines, you got to change too and adapt. Transparency is the name of the game now. These Japs at Sony HQ need some wake up calls. I bet Phill knows it needs to change, but I guess he's not pulling the strings...