Sony's content platform and business strategy *spawn
- Thread starter boommoob1
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I read the random review and sure it can be anyone. However, I have been in his position before. I used to work for an owner (that will not be named) for an Internet Service Provider (who will not be named), that was clueless about what our customers wanted and the company is headed into the ground.
When I worked there, I learned a lot of what not to do, so when I open up my own company I can simply avoid those mistakes.
My point is that it sounded like someone got laid off or quit and just telling things how they see it and I don't blame them, Sony has been going down the casual route for a long time and none of it is selling.
A lot of the time it's not about being bitter, but actually telling the good and the bad of the company. Sometimes the highest execs at the top don't see what is in the trenches and they don't get it and they are blind by being so high up because they really don't know what their customer wants anymore and they can have a disconnect and that is where I think Sony is right now.
None of the "casual" software and none of the "causal" hardware is selling at all. If you look at what Sony is doing, you will see they are trying to follow Nintendo. Nintendo makes a Smash Brothers and now Sony does. Nintendo makes a cart racer and now Sony does. Nintendo uses motion control with the wii, Sony follows.
I have noticed a lot of what Sony is trying to do in the casual area is just following someone else and now they are not going to stop with that, they are going to keep trying over and over again until the party is over.
Sony isn't cut out to do casual and if they keep doing that they can damage the company. In the business world, we try to examine who our customer is and we try to advertise to them and if you don't know who your customer is you can get lost and start losing a lot of money.
What worked for Nintendo on the Wii in the casual space may not work again and if Sony keeps trying to follow Nintendo in that space that they can't compete in, I think that is a bad thing.
We need Sony as competition alone, but if they make HUGE mistakes on the Orbis it could be critical this time.
So, it sounds like to me that the PS4 is going to be very low priced (didn't want to use the word cheap, because they can have a negative tone) and it's going to be very casual out of the box. (http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/01/ps4_details_playstation_4/) for being low priced find "Very affordable".
http://kotaku.com/5897139/sketches-of-playstation-orbis-features-surface-then-disappear
It will still play hardcore games because Sony is not giving up completely on their hardcore, but the console hardware itself doesn't seem to be the crown jewel as in the past and it will support being more casual out of the box as I said above. Follow the pattern from PS3 generation there were a lot of casual software as I posted in the post above (Little Big Planet Karting, Playstation All Stars, WonderBook, PS Move, PS Vita, and 3D Support, even the PS3 controller had some basic Wii functionality out of the gate) and it seems like Sony is going more and more down that path.
It's all starting to add up now. Sony in many ways "seems" to be trying to be a little bit like Nintendo and support more casual out of the box at launch. In order to do this they have to have a low powered (as in electricity) and to provide a cheaper but easier to develop console. They are not dropping the hardcore part but it may suffer because they hardware while not going to be poor as Wii or Wii U, will not be top-of-the-line as in the past either.
So, it seems that maybe third parties are not happy (we have heard this from two different sources and I am not counting the other one on Kotaku), we don't know the reason for this yet.
Just drawing the obvious conclusions of what we have heard so far and I think it's finally showing itself at least for Sony. The Kotaku story does make some sense on the evidence that we have seen so far. Honestly, I would not doubt it. The Internet does allow for us to do something anonymously without giving too much to whom we are and to post our frustrations out there.
http://kotaku.com/5897139/sketches-of-playstation-orbis-features-surface-then-disappear
It will still play hardcore games because Sony is not giving up completely on their hardcore, but the console hardware itself doesn't seem to be the crown jewel as in the past and it will support being more casual out of the box as I said above. Follow the pattern from PS3 generation there were a lot of casual software as I posted in the post above (Little Big Planet Karting, Playstation All Stars, WonderBook, PS Move, PS Vita, and 3D Support, even the PS3 controller had some basic Wii functionality out of the gate) and it seems like Sony is going more and more down that path.
It's all starting to add up now. Sony in many ways "seems" to be trying to be a little bit like Nintendo and support more casual out of the box at launch. In order to do this they have to have a low powered (as in electricity) and to provide a cheaper but easier to develop console. They are not dropping the hardcore part but it may suffer because they hardware while not going to be poor as Wii or Wii U, will not be top-of-the-line as in the past either.
So, it seems that maybe third parties are not happy (we have heard this from two different sources and I am not counting the other one on Kotaku), we don't know the reason for this yet.
Just drawing the obvious conclusions of what we have heard so far and I think it's finally showing itself at least for Sony. The Kotaku story does make some sense on the evidence that we have seen so far. Honestly, I would not doubt it. The Internet does allow for us to do something anonymously without giving too much to whom we are and to post our frustrations out there.
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arijoytunir
Regular
So no hope for 2 TF ps4 from Sony !
Sony would be stupid to sacrifice a huge segment of the market that defined Playstation just to be more like Nntendo and they know this very well. And they also know very well that the core market will turn towards their most fierce competitor that is MS if they dont provide a strong enough console.
Sony will be trying to get out a console that can satisfy both casuals and core audiences at the same time because thats what MS wants to do too.
All those indications you provided above are no different from what they have been doing in the past. Sony was always providing games for casuals and core gamers since the days of the PS1 and this was one of the primary reasons why their consoles were such a huge success. With the exception of the PS3 which had such a HUGE missed opportunity at their hands of becoming that all in one console. This one of the reasons why Phill Harisson was pissed off at Sony and left.
While you point towards casual games there are also very hardcore games still offered from Sony like Uncharted, Last of Us, God of War etc. Move was marketed as a product suitable for casual and core games hence its use in Resident Evil, Killzone, Resistance etc.
3D is not an option specifically designated for casuals either. Thats a niche option. And PS Vita is still a handheld designed to satisfy hardcore gamers as much as any other Playstation.
To be able to attract the casuals it doesnt necessarily need to be a little underpowered. If they provide a well rounded product suitable for both market segments it will be a hit.
But I have my fears that Sony's internal organization suffers and will not be able to compete against the creative and well organized minds at MS
Sony would be stupid to sacrifice a huge segment of the market that defined Playstation just to be more like Nntendo and they know this very well. And they also know very well that the core market will turn towards their most fierce competitor that is MS if they dont provide a strong enough console.
Sony will be trying to get out a console that can satisfy both casuals and core audiences at the same time because thats what MS wants to do too.
All those indications you provided above are no different from what they have been doing in the past. Sony was always providing games for casuals and core gamers since the days of the PS1 and this was one of the primary reasons why their consoles were such a huge success. With the exception of the PS3 which had such a HUGE missed opportunity at their hands of becoming that all in one console. This one of the reasons why Phill Harisson was pissed off at Sony and left.
While you point towards casual games there are also very hardcore games still offered from Sony like Uncharted, Last of Us, God of War etc. Move was marketed as a product suitable for casual and core games hence its use in Resident Evil, Killzone, Resistance etc.
3D is not an option specifically designated for casuals either. Thats a niche option. And PS Vita is still a handheld designed to satisfy hardcore gamers as much as any other Playstation.
To be able to attract the casuals it doesnt necessarily need to be a little underpowered. If they provide a well rounded product suitable for both market segments it will be a hit.
But I have my fears that Sony's internal organization suffers and will not be able to compete against the creative and well organized minds at MS
I said that Sony will have their hardcore games and they will continue that I am sure, but you don't have to have 2 TF to give you the power to give you next generation games 1.5 to 1.8 TF could do fine. There are reasons why third party developers are not happy with Sony. Third parties want power, ram and a much better development environment and Sony seems to be rushing things. Sony hasn't done traditionally good with the casual crowd. Go check the sales for all of the titles that I listed above and you will see that they did very poorly at best in many regions.
BTW, I don't want to be looked down upon to be anti-Sony here. However, when you look at what Sony is trying to do now and follow the pattern it's not hard to see that those rumors are going to be hitting a lot of smoke and where there is smoke, there is fire.
This can be true, they focus more and more on casuals even with PS3. For example, SCEE forced SingStar launcher on EU accounts, which is icon placed on your XMB in game column in default boot position, backed with full screen wallpaper and can't be moved to folder or deleted. They had huge negative feedback regarding this icon and it's placement, mostly from hardcore gamers, but they did nothing about it.
Of course they didn't dare to force this icon on the US players, where is available in PS Store as any other game or application, which led to another wave of rage from EU players ... again without any reaction from SCEE apart usual "feedback being monitored".
If they release next-gen system with any "motion controller gimmick" included, I'm not buying ... I will go to PC gaming.
Sorry for off-topic but their platform strategy can influence their hw. choices.
Sony have been burnt twice by powerful but too expensive hardware so I wouldn't be surprised if they make their next console more along the lines of the original PS1/PS2. Their last 4 hardware releases have been failures from a business sense between the PS3, PSP Go, Xperia and Vita. Since the PS3 Slim could be considered a success if you were to discount the original PS3 I would likely consider the successor to the PS3 to really be the successor to the first slimline model which retailed for $299 IIRC so a price range close to that will probably be likely. If the A10 rumours are true then they may even be targeting $299 as a firm release price and the console itself may only consist of a modified A10 at its heart.
arijoytunir
Regular
i think sony designed the vita for devs with the devs - be it 1st or 3rd party . Yoshida always compares kaz approach with the ken and sony will do the same with ps4 !
Prophecy2k
Veteran
I'm sorry but this is just laughable nonesense. If anything your "huge" negative feedback to an little icon on the XMB was likely about a handful of very vocal minority gamers that get incensed and irate about even the most inconsequential things.
I can't even believe that anyone can be so anal about the singstar icon appearing on the XMB. I mean for heaven's sake its just an icon on the OS. It's certainly not Sony "forcing" anything on anyone, since its just about convenience in making a singstar app available for free for everyone, since singstar is a pretty big and popular franchise in the EU (hence why its not on US PS3s).
So Sony gives you a free app and they're somehow "forcing" casual crap on hardcore gamers?!?! I suppose netflix, lovefilm and BBC iplayer apps were also "forced" upon gamers too? Loool... It's a ridiculous notion.
The Singstar app isn't evidence of anything of Sony's potential push towards the casuals, or otherwise.
Sony have already said on the other hand that they wanted to try to push towards casuals and try to expand their userbase beyond the hardcore in the latter half of the PS3's life. They did the same with the PS2 only with more successful results. It's not wrong, its what they all will try to do, given that core gamers are more willing to buy expensive next-gen hw in the beginning, whilst casuals will buy in later once the HW costs have been reduced and new gimmicky tech like the eyetoy, Kinect & guitar hero plastic etc can be sold to them.
PS4 will be no different, thus the HW will be competitive with MS' machine so as to guarantee sales upfront with the CORE gamer, before the console can be cost reduced and sold to the casuals with whatever casual gimmick that can be sold to them.
I followed whole SingStar affair from the beginning, it's not free app, without actually buying songs, it is just demo or advertisement. And if I can't move or delete this icon and its hideous wallpaper, then yes, they forcing casual crap on everyone in EU and they doing it in most prominent place on the XMB.
I don't know single person who can logically explain why this icon have to be placed where it is and cannot be deleted or moved. Heck even SingStar players want to move it into folder.
I hope you are right and this isn't indication of anything, but I'm a bit worried.
I can' say I agree with you. Sony was practically forced to focus on the core market with PS3. But in previous generations their focus has been on core and casual and that could be seen with the plethora of software available for both PS1 and 2. And let's face it, the casual crowd has expanded with this past generation and a lot of casual gamers now flock to smart phone and tablets for their gaming fixes. That's not to say there's no room for casual games in the console market, as there clearly is or else Nintendo wouldn't have had the success they did with Wii.
They can have powerful hardware and still be able to focus on the casual market. If they focus solely on core gaming then they risk not selling as many consoles and turning some of those casual gamers into core gamers. It's just that Sony needs to be able to execute in order to gain casual gamers. That means they will need to differentiate from the competition in a way that entices the casual market. During PS1 and PS2 days they had many a gamer with Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter etc. Those are just platform games, but these are games they should have and they should be of high quality.
And I do not agree with you on Sony wanting to be like Nintendo. Sony may go after same technologies as Nintendo, but that is primarily to incorporate it as a feature for their console. Nintendo has dedicated their very existence to the "innovations". But Sony has all the aspects that make the PS3 a good console and also focus on the software to provide an overall experience that doesn't leave me wanting more. Same with 360. Not the same with Wii, and I'm guessing will be a negative for Wii U as well. And at least their 1st party games are good enough, and are more suitable to me than Nintendo's. Their business strategy is clearly different in that Sony focuses on the traditional market whereas Nintendo's strategy is to not directly compete (even though I believe they'd be a smashing success if they did...).
If there's a 1.5 - 1.8 TF GPU then that'd be fine as long as they can do heavy tessellation I'd be down with it. Tessellation will be a major feature in future games I hope. Higher geometric detail has a noticeable improvement in graphics for me. If the CPU is a 4 core Jaguar and that's enough for OS, game logic, physics, AI, blah, etc. then I think the machine would do all right. The memory package still remain a mystery but with speculation pointing towards a possible interposer setup I am excited by those prospects.
However, this is pretty much off topic, for which that I apologize.
I wouldn't call the PS2 market casual. Most of the hardcore market has gone to Xbox at least in the west. Nintendo had a casual market in which people that didn't even play games was getting one. My mother-in-law and my father-in-law which are in their late 50's was playing the Wii and they never picked up a PS2.
Sony has been following Nintendo, I even gave some examples of them trying to expand outside of their hardcore market. Anyone that is serious about video games knows that Sony has been following Nintendo for the past few years.
Sony is a very reactive company, they are not pro-active in any sense of the word and that is why they are where they are financially. There are people out there that follow Sony and know this, they may not want to admit it, but they know this.
A lot of the casual folks are moving to Cellphones and Tablets this is true. My mother-in-law which doesn't know how to work a computer, just bought a Kindle Fire for the first time this year.
This is why the WII U probably won't be doing as well as the Wii, because the Wii was like striking it rich, but that only happens once in a blue moon and that is why I said it probably won't happen for Nintendo again, it's a once in a lifetime thing that they got right.
In order to capture that market you have to have something fresh that get's people excited again, something nobody else can do well and something that isn't just a flash in a pan and Sony just isn't pro-active enough to do something like this. They are far too reactive of a company and too entrenched in their own management to pull this off.
I didn't say they can't do both, they just won't be able to do both well. Platform games != casual users like what I am referring to. Even Sony's platform games for the PS3 still don't sell really well at all. Platform games are mainly from yesteryear and really don't sell well unless it's Mario.
Look at Sony's software like their Smash Bros clone or their Kart racer, I wonder where they got those ideas and the PS Move, gee I wonder where they got that idea from and their controller in the box, it has some of the same functionality as Wii, again they have been following Nintendo for a while, that is nothing new.
Your paragraph no offense just reads about what you like and what you want. I am just dealing with facts of what has been presented to us. Not dealing with my feelings or facts on which platform that I like better, just bringing facts into the discussion.
Well, it's meant to be low priced for a reason. Tessellation will be on there of course as it's an OpenGL 4.x feature. However you may be fine with this but a lot of people buy Sony consoles because of the hardcore specs and if it doesn't offer that over the Xbox there is going to be a lot of upset people because they are used to getting exotic chipsets and power.
Also, you have to ask yourself. Why are at least some third parties not happy with Sony? I don't know the answer to this, but it is interesting to say the least.
PS2's market was casual and hardcore. It was GT3 and GTA3 and FIFA. It was SingStar and EyeToy. It was a machine that had pretty much something for everyone. PS3's reputation for the 'casual' (family wide?) market is not a patch on PS2's. The core crowd is easy enough to please with decent specs, but the casual market needs special attention. It's worth noting the current PS3 TV ads I'm seeing are all about family fun, showing Wonderbook, Move, and multiplayer titles. As that casual audience is the difference between 60 and 120 million units, and as you want everyone using your system to also be buying your content as the easiest revenue source (Music and Video Unlimited), it makes sense to design the system with the audience in mind, rather than just throwing out the most powerful hardware you can and crossing your fingers. So an emphasis on 'casual' wouldn't surprise me at all, from MS or Sony (we've heard exactly the same thing regards MS focussing on Kinect 2 on simpler hardware). That idea doesn't really help us pin down next-gen hardware.
What do you call people that never played video games and played them for the first time on Wii? I know a ton of people that played Wii that never played a video game or cared about video games in their lives?
I am talking about people in their 50's to 70's that never played a video game in their life.
They never played EyeToy or Sing Star, they didn't even know Sony made game consoles, but they know about the Nintendo Wii?
The people that I know with the PS2 is the same people with the Xbox in the west (just limited genres such as shooters) The Xbox is the new PS2 here. I was around when the PS2 was around and I remember the Eyetoy and I remember SingStar but the hardware of the PS2 world wide and the software world wide that I have seen the PS2 doesn't hold a candle to Wii world wide numbers.
Here in the states the Wii was pretty huge and sold almost 4 million one November/December for the Christmas season and I never have seen PS2 do that at all. The PS2 did have more of a variety of games, but PS3 and Xbox has really stopped making as many fighters, RPGs and platformers and made more shooters as they sell really well. For example most of the RPGs from Japan has been routed towards the portable market.
Wonderbook sold like 8 thousand units last month (US NPD), not exactly setting the world on fire. So, not seeing where the PS2 is as casual as the Wii. It sold big numbers, but it had less competition in the market (Xbox and Gamecube came late and sold significantly less world wide).
My mother-in-law doesn't even play games, in fact we have a Wii that they bought us (I never wanted one). You are right that it doesn't give us specifics, but we won't be getting that in a while anyway.
It makes sense from a huge pattern that Sony has been developing and that pattern is that they are really focusing more on casual software and hardware since Nintendo got their one time gift.
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Other gamers Sony didn't reach.
The only computer game my mum ever really enjoyed was EyeToy. She played Wii and didn't get on with it. I'm not taking anything away from Nintendo - they definitely reached a larger audience of non-traditional gamers - but it's a fallacy to say Sony never reached anyone but the core. There are plenty of girls who bought a PS2 slim just for SingStar for example. And we're not just talking Sony titles here. eg. Dance Dance Revolution and Karaoke Revolution had an appeal to certain audiences that games consoles hadn't reached before. If you weren't into dual-stick gaming, there were still plenty of options for video entertainment on PS2.
Then you don't know the rest of the world. In Europe, Sony's casual presence was far, far stronger than the US. SingStar and EyeToy were pretty big. It doesn't hold a candle in the casual space to Wii, but that doesn't render PS2's casual appeal as zero.
Wonderbook on PS3 says nothing about PS2. What? That was presented as an example of how Sony are marketing PS3 in non-core games. What has your reply got to do with anything?? PS2 wasn't as 'casual friendly' as Wii. I never said as much. But it wasn't hardcore only. It was played by people of all ages and demographics. Sony massively expanded gaming's sociability and cultural reach with PlayStations 1 and 2 (as much due to the platform with 3rd parties contributing to the expansive library). The lack of wide appeal from PS3 must have smarted given competition outmanoeuvring them, so a deliberate focus on regaining some casual marketshare makes sense.
yeah, well the Wii was all around the world and moms and dads in their 50's played in Europe and the USA and it's not even close as far as the numbers go and it's not even close for the reach.
The PS1 and PS2 were just mainly hardcore with some small crossover. The Wii is a different story. You really can't compare the two. The only people that knew about the PS2 were mainly hardcore gamers or people who were into games already.
The only way parents even knew about the PS2 is when their kid wanted one. I am not even a Nintendo fan, but the obvious fact is obvious.
I have seen more people from Europe talk about the Wii (now I am not a fan of Nintendo, so I am only reporting facts) and it was outselling the PS2 easily in most of western Europe.
The European people that I have seen on forums say that the Wii trumped the PS2 easily, it was like the new fad there. So, I have no doubt that the EyeToy sold better in Europe. However, 10.5 million worldwide isn't a lot compared to Wii and even Kinect.
Well, my point that maybe if Wonderbook didn't sell that well on the PS3, that titles like it really didn't sell that much overall on the PS2. 10.5 million world wide of Eyetoy isn't really that much.
I hear what you are saying, but experience from the Wii and PS2 and the numbers I Googled just don't add up.
I never said it was hardcore only, but you can't really compare the Wii to the PS2. They had some casual but it's not even in the same ballpark. Even Wii Fit sold 22 million copies. That is just Wii Fit alone.
So, I have a hard time understanding how the PS2 fits into the casual (had some casual games sure, but sales were not even close and it wasn't a game changer like the wii was).
One is more hardcore with some casual eyetoy games that had some sales, the other is a game changer in the industry. One isn't like the other.
Sonic said PS2 was core and casual. You said PS2 wasn't really casual and Sony are just chasing after Nintendo. I said PS2 was core and casual. You continue to claim PS2's casual appeal was virtually nil. Out of 120 million, there are tens of millions of PS2 owners who weren't into 'core' games. Long before Wii, Sony had 'non-gamers' up in front of their TVs playing games on their console. 'Family gaming', the key tennet of Wii, predates even Sony with local multiplayer present on many age-old machines. Sony's mistake this gen was to not support their wider market from the very beginning. If PS3 had launched with Move and EyeToy+ out of the box as standard, they'd have continued their already established market position. As it was, I and many obvious was expecting advanced EyeToy gaming utilising a lot of the tech Sony showcased in a concept video, and instead got a few PSN minigames and the platform was dropped. Any change they make now towards non-core gamers is not going to be knee-jerk chasing of Nintendo (who may well have fumbled the casual market with Wii U), but a self-correction back to the better balance of previous systems and a recognition that they had a broader market interested in PlayStation but their lousy management invested poorly. Maybe it has taken Nintendo to awaken Sony up to the potential, but it's not like this area is completely new to Sony.
PlayStation was always about broad appeal, variety of games and media playback, not chasing after casuals with interactive weight scale as Wii Fit. PS3 lost many customers thanks to XB360 not Wii, maybe now Sony see money in casual market, but if they chase after that with "gimmicky stuff included" combined with low power, they will lost to M$ even more.
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