Sony's Cross-Generation Game Messaging [2021]

[Deleted member 11852]

So many negatives in that sentence that I can't tell what the meaning is. If I parse it correctly, you're asking "who said Sony's messaging isn't shite?".

Two? But yes, you read me right.

I have not read Arwin's posts how you seemingly have at all. Arwin has been making the point that the statement "we believe in generations" does not mean "we still drop PS4 like a hot rock" which is how some people have interpreted it despite Sony of having a long history of supporting lastgen hardware, i.e. releasing PlayStation games after launching PS2, releasing PS2 games after launching PS3, and releasing PS3 games after launching PS4.

"We believe in generations" is ambiguous which is why it's shite. Can somebody post a quote of somebody defending it?

We go around in circles because there are many people who cling to their preferred interpretation of a non-specific statement, asserting it meant something it does not explicitly say, and cannot accept their interpretation may be wrong. It's toddlers debate club calibre arguments ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[BRiT]

Two? But yes, you read me right.

It was too early or way too late for me.

We believe in generations" is ambiguous which is why it's shite.

Agreed. Since it's ambiguous, how can it be very clear as indicated in the following post?

But Sony have actually been very clear in both their messaging

 

[Jay]

"We believe in generations" is ambiguous which is why it's shite. Can somebody post a quote of somebody defending it?

Rightly or wrongly majority of the press and the consumers interpreted it the same way.
Sony did not correct it and left that view to solidify. It wasn't the corners of the net type of thing either.

My take is that's what's got people so worked up.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

@BRiT well you have snipped his sentence mid-way through, which is a bit naughty, because in the whole sentence Arwin references factoring in Sony's past behaviour, i.e. generations of supporting older hardware. If you do that, it's perhaps less ambiguous but customers shouldn't have to read into what statement's mean.

@Jay I agree and Sony's comms were so bad last year. They only make sense if you bring a bunch of your own research along to add context and meaning.

 

[iroboto]

And it will go in a circle when enough people think facts can be negated by their opinion. This forum used to be a great place to discuss things and the type of nonsense that is not all too commonly posted would be called out but it's an endless slog to keep arguments factual and I wonder if that's what drove off Shifty Geezer. It's certainly why manux left and I feel like I won't be far behind him.

It’s an OT, but without a doubt the forum is in a death spiral. The challenge here is that we have few active members so content generation is minute compared to larger forums. If posters feel every thread or reply made is going to be a slog, people have better things to do with their time and just stop posting; resulting in even less content generation. Soon enough there will be no discussions.

We are losing members quickly I will say.

Contrarily larger forums have so many members that content generation is plentiful even though people are slogging it all the time.

 

[iroboto]

My digital edition was 399. I hardly find that expensive and I bet in two years time I will still feel good about that price. At launch, many were very enthusiastic about AstroBot and Demon’s Souls. I didn’t even buy the latter because not my thing, but my son and I platinumed the former. We also love the new controller.

Also, there is the huge room for interpretation again ... “some” benefits. The benefits are huge and plentiful.

And certainly Ratchet and Clank is proof of some serious dedication to generations. It takes just one game to prove that they believe in generations and are different from Microsoft here, and this game delivers it in spades.

But good luck with stretching your arguments to hold your position.

I'm on the same wavelength as you, it doesn't bother me and the benefit is probably larger for me since I never had a PS4 to begin with.
But I can't ignore the discussions on the general whole as a population, there are journalist responses, tons of forum threads, youtube responses, tweets etc all of it where people weighed in on the back track here.

Without a doubt it struck a nerve with some purchasers because I doubt, just looking at this thread here and going back a couple pages, that only xbox fans are responsible for this discourse that's widespread.

Recent:
https://www.techradar.com/news/sony-is-playing-games-over-ps5-exclusives-and-its-not-fair-on-fans

https://www.gamesradar.com/when-did-playstation-stop-believing-in-generations/

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...rative-sony-increases-its-ps4-support-opinion
^^ you'll find articles in support of the change like this one above. But it's hard to ignore the fact that everyone has written it in this way:

Joining Horizon: Forbidden West will be the next God of War and Gran Turismo 7. The internet is unhappy about it. There's this notion that if a new generation game is playable on an older console, then it's not truly a new generation game. It's a belief that was somewhat referenced by PlayStation chief Jim Ryan, who said that it was time to give customers something new "that can only be enjoyed on PS5," responding to Xbox's strategy of making games cross-generational.

Edit: I fully agree. But we understand the nuance that design has to mature with the hardware itself otherwise most scaling attempts are superficial.

but simultaneously this makes it rather insidious for Xbox fans (but rather ingenious play by Sony to counter the cross gen messaging). Sony understood that the internet felt this way, the messaging was played this way to make users feel that Xbox games would be inferior because all of them were cross generational. DF did have a couple traditional views that a hard cut is also desirable for a new console generation and they gave the nod to Sony here for keeping with this strategy.

until they didn’t; in actuality the play is the same as MS, they have the same reasons to adopt a cross generation model, but they signalled the opposite to make cross generational titles seem inferior. The messaging MS built up around cross-generational titles as being support for a huge back catalog for gaming for all time on all sorts of devices, and respecting the purchasing money of their customers was countered fairly hard here.

as I wrote earlier, all is fair in love and war I don't fault Sony for doing what they did. They got the win. Their customer base will get over it. And the games will still largely look and be good during this transitional period. I'm at your viewpoint but one step back, that step being that I recognize people are emotional about feeling crossed on the messaging and it's not my place to tell them they shouldn't feel that way, even though I fully agree with your logic.

It remains to be seen if this play will burn Sony in the long run in terms of losing the trust of their customer base, but I highly doubt it. It may impact their long term ability to convert xbox and PC users over to playstation however: the trend is starting to emerge with their release strategy despite what they communicate it's likely to show up on PC eventually.

 

[Arwin]

Most of those articles are actually pretty good and except the first one eschew lack of nuance, respect changing realities and that titles that are designed to make good use of the new system can still also be made to run on older systems. Yes, as I suggested before the world changed and some titles that we thought or even in some cases were told would be PS5 exclusives.

My point remains that if you actually read the interviewed with Ryan over the course of the year you can see they have been pretty clear about it.

What they are suffering from, if anything, is that Microsoft’s position was Corona proof - they didn’t need to change anything if fewer consoles could be produced or if suddenly more older machines were being sold and if people picked up their existing consoles and started playing them again a lot more.

So short of an actual campaign in the likes of “we do believe in generations but will invest in making more titles run on PS4 as well because covid” I maintain my position.

Anyway thanks for lifting the discussion with actual links etc.

And yeah, the players will in the end follow the actual quality of games being delivered. If something as good looking as Forbidden West arrives in this shape on PS5, then whoever owns a PS4 will care little that there is also a PS4 version. And while we may perhaps be impressed by how well that ends up looking, I strongly doubt the difference will be too subtle to be offended.

 

[iroboto]

My point remains that if you actually read the interviewed with Ryan over the course of the year you can see they have been pretty clear about it.

What they are suffering from, if anything, is that Microsoft’s position was Corona proof - they didn’t need to change anything if fewer consoles could be produced or if suddenly more older machines were being sold and if people picked up their existing consoles and started playing them again a lot more.

=p no worries.
And yea i don't disagree with this.

If I were to use an analogy here: Imagine you and I and 5 others played a game of Risk.

• You and I agreed to make an alliance to beat the other players down.
• Somewhere you made a misstep and I betrayed you well before that alliance should have ended, ending your chance of winning essentially.
• You get upset, and my response to you is: well this is Risk, there's only 1 winner, and everyone betrays each other so you should have known better.
• Technically, I'm correct. But that ain't going to make you feel any better about what I did to you. lol

As for COVID being the issue, it seems like a convenient excuse here. PS5 is selling ahead of PS4, they are not technically behind sales targets at least with respect to prior history. I think the reality is that the strategy is changing and rather quickly as a whole in the industry; the aim seems to be to aiming towards maximizing screen time as much as possible with as large of a population as possible, which is why you can't give up last gen so easily, and why MS is moving to XCloud and dumping all their games on Steam and Windows store day 1. There's a backlog problem, and selling games at a discount doesn't make as much profit as selling it day 1. I think they must see this which is why taking a loss on the cut to be on PC is still better than bringing your exclusives to PC at a much later date. By that time the game is too old to get major sales and it gets pushed out by other better looking titles.

It's going to be an interesting gen.

 

[Arwin]

I am not sure. PS5 is selling well, but it is the upsurge of PS4 sales, hardware, software sales and dlc, time spent gaming etc all skyrocketing due to Corona. Of course the question is will they deliver games before the pandemic is over and or will this have been a structural change that lasts beyond this year. If things go back to normal soon, the benefit may have been small or negative. We’ll see around the holidays I’m sure.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

This is the core of the problem:

“what Sony had us believe we should expect and no more cross gen (we believe in generations)”

Your interpretation, and the one from some others, of the phrase “we believe in generations”, is that this means from this point onward only PS5 exclusives would be made.

You have 0 evidence however that this is what they originally meant, and that they then changed their mind.

I do understand why you would want to believe this is what they meant though. I think everyone with a PS5 would have liked all exclusives going forward to be PS5 exclusives that could only be done on the new hardware.

But Sony have actually been very clear in both their messaging and in their past behavior. So it is really a matter of having projected your own desires upon reality.

You also conveniently leave out where Sony simultaneously said that cross-gen games are bad and will stifle any game that is cross-gen on the PS5.

You also conveniently leave out the exquisite timing of those two statements that Sony made ... immediately after Xbox announced cross-gen support.

The wording obviously leaves wriggle room for interpretation as the best PR messages often do. Plausible deniability is the name of the game.

Sony knew they were going to be investing heavily in cross-gen games. Sony wanted people to think that MS' support of cross-gen games is bad.

That leads to Sony stating that there will be "a clear generational line" combined with cross-gen games = bad combined with the fact that Sony has never released a cross-gen game in previous generations (yes, it was a lot harder). That is all deliberately crafted by their PR to lean on player's expectations (no Sony 1st party title in the past being cross-gen) as well as their carefully chosen wording that there is "a clear generational line" and cross-gen limits innovation in games.

Obviously, the use of the English language combined with wording that can be taken multiple ways means that not everyone reads it the same. But from the point of effective propaganda (not a bad word) which is all that PR is supposed to be, it was exceedingly effective in painting MS' having cross-gen support in their 1st party games as a very bad thing.

I mean this is the same merry-go-round that we had with MS's bad XBO PR messaging where many MANY people on the internet totally interpreted what MS said completely wrong.

If anything, this just points out how much better Sony's PR is than MS'. At least in their case, it was mis-interpreted (or was it?) in a Sony favorable light (until recently, perhaps this is where it's mis-interpreted in a favorable light?) whereas MS' was interpreted immediately in a MS unfavorable light.

Regards,
SB

 

[PSman1700]

F did have a couple traditional views that a hard cut is also desirable for a new console generation and they gave the nod to Sony here for keeping with this strategy.

Yes even DF fell for it, now were left with mostly cross gen games, and it shows in the fidelity of the games. Yes i would have liked if HZFW was a true next gen experience but atleast all PS4 users can play it aswell.

it's likely to show up on PC eventually

I think they must see this which is why taking a loss on the cut to be on PC is still better than bringing your exclusives to PC at a much later date.

Its going that direction anyway, probably will (or hopefully will) be the end of mid end hardware wars on forum boards.

You also conveniently leave out where Sony simultaneously said that cross-gen games are bad and will stifle any game that is cross-gen on the PS5.

You also conveniently leave out the exquisite timing of those two statements that Sony made ... immediately after Xbox announced cross-gen support.

The wording obviously leaves wriggle room for interpretation as the best PR messages often do. Plausible deniability is the name of the game.

Sony knew they were going to be investing heavily in cross-gen games. Sony wanted people to think that MS' support of cross-gen games is bad.

That leads to Sony stating that there will be "a clear generational line" combined with cross-gen games = bad combined with the fact that Sony has never released a cross-gen game in previous generations (yes, it was a lot harder). That is all deliberately crafted by their PR to lean on player's expectations (no Sony 1st party title in the past being cross-gen) as well as their carefully chosen wording that there is "a clear generational line" and cross-gen limits innovation in games.

Obviously, the use of the English language combined with wording that can be taken multiple ways means that not everyone reads it the same. But from the point of effective propaganda (not a bad word) which is all that PR is supposed to be, it was exceedingly effective in painting MS' having cross-gen support in their 1st party games as a very bad thing.

I mean this is the same merry-go-round that we had with MS's bad XBO PR messaging where many MANY people on the internet totally interpreted what MS said completely wrong.

If anything, this just points out how much better Sony's PR is than MS'. At least in their case, it was mis-interpreted (or was it?) in a Sony favorable light (until recently, perhaps this is where it's mis-interpreted in a favorable light?) whereas MS' was interpreted immediately in a MS unfavorable light.

Regards,
SB

Fully agree with you. Sony just could have been honest about going cross gen for almost everything. They won the PR war last year, but its not looking all that nice now.

 

[Gerry]

=p no worries.
And yea i don't disagree with this.

If I were to use an analogy here: Imagine you and I and 5 others played a game of Risk.

• You and I agreed to make an alliance to beat the other players down.
• Somewhere you made a misstep and I betrayed you well before that alliance should have ended, ending your chance of winning essentially.
• You get upset, and my response to you is: well this is Risk, there's only 1 winner, and everyone betrays each other so you should have known better.
• Technically, I'm correct. But that ain't going to make you feel any better about what I did to you. lol

Surely you're talking about Diplomacy here?

 

[iroboto]

Surely you're talking about Diplomacy here?

That would also work lol. Yes. That’s probably an even more sure fire analogy

 

[PSman1700]

Aliens is a nice game only available on next generation hardware.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Yes even DF fell for it, now were left with mostly cross gen games, and it shows in the fidelity of the games. Yes i would have liked if HZFW was a true next gen experience but atleast all PS4 users can play it aswell.

And by "fell for" you mean people took the statement "we believe in generations" to mean "we will not publish any more games for PS4 after the launch of PS5, despite having done so for three generations of consoles". DF's podcasts are too long for me so I don't know what DF said, but if they really think that then I extremely roll my eyes at them - like this.

Fully agree with you. Sony just could have been honest about going cross gen for almost everything. They won the PR war last year, but its not looking all that nice now.

You are the first person I've seen say this. Sony said nothing for months, then gave a few brief ambiguous statements (like the one we're discussing) then did the consumer-facing tech brown down by Mark Cerny. Sony's comms last year in the run-up to launching PS5 were a mess. Uncertainty about backward compatibility, uncertainty when pre-orders would happen, the screwed-up pre-order process. Just utter shit.

 

[PSman1700]

DF's podcasts are too long for me so I don't know what DF said, but if they really think that then I extremely roll my eyes at them - like this.

Well maybe you should watch. They noted that what Sony, MS have done regarding cross-generation has never happened before, calling in sony's case that almost everything is on PS4 aswell. They even touched upon what ive been saying, its not like previous generations where Sony would go true next gen leap from day one (shadowfall was mentioned).
Also some on the UE5 tech, that last years demo actually was played at the same settings on a laptop.

You are the first person I've seen say this. Sony said nothing for months, then gave a few brief ambiguous statements (like the one we're discussing) then did the consumer-facing tech brown down by Mark Cerny. Sony's comms last year in the run-up to launching PS5 were a mess. Uncertainty about backward compatibility, uncertainty when pre-orders would happen, the screwed-up pre-order process. Just utter shit.

Ye, they could have been honest about going cross-gen, but, they choose to act like if it would be just like previous generations.

 

[see colon]

And by "fell for" you mean people took the statement "we believe in generations" to mean "we will not publish any more games for PS4 after the launch of PS5, despite having done so for three generations of consoles". DF's podcasts are too long for me so I don't know what DF said, but if they really think that then I extremely roll my eyes at them - like this.

So, for me it wasn't just what Sony's public statements about cross generation games were explicitly stating, but their own history that would lead me to believe that they weren't making cross generation games. Outside of sports titles, they never have. At least not day and date releases of the same game with the same title. God of War 2 came out on PS2 after the launch of PS3, and they later released a PS3 version of it in the GOW Collection. Last of Us came out the same year as PS4, and was remastered a year later for PS4. Stuff like that. They have a history of supporting their hardware with new software fairly long after they release a new generation of hardware, but it's usually with releases exclusive to the older hardware.

The shift here is that instead of supporting the older console with unique older console games, they are releasing the same game across the generations day and date. That's totally different from what they had done previously done.

Also, I hate to have to qualify any statements with a disclaimer of bias, but I'm happy about this. I can wait on getting a PS5 now. Thank you Sony. I know not everyone else feels the same way, and that's fine. Was it misleading? Yeah, I think so. Was it an intentional lie? I have no idea. I sort of always got the impression that Ryan just sort of says things to try to casually shade the competition without fully understanding the context of ramifications of his words, nor does he have a grasp on the history of Playstation as a brand or how gamers hate to be mislead. I mean, to publicly disparage what I believe to be the pinnacle of PS1 graphics in Gran Turismo 1/2... Probably the most impressive games of their generation; made by a first party studio no less. IIRC Gran Turismo (1) outsold Gran Turismo 6 2 to 1, so who wants to play what now? 10 million copies sold, and over 20 years old. That's a retro game that people have nostalgia for now. I just don't get it.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

And by "fell for" you mean people took the statement "we believe in generations" to mean "we will not publish any more games for PS4 after the launch of PS5, despite having done so for three generations of consoles". DF's podcasts are too long for me so I don't know what DF said, but if they really think that then I extremely roll my eyes at them - like this.

The "we believe in generations" statement was made in a gamesindustry.biz interview and it was an answer to a question related to Microsoft's earlier statement that said "Xbox Game Studios titles we release in the next couple of years will be available to play great on Series and One". This interview was made in late May 2020, meaning it was published prior to later clarifications made by Microsoft.
So at the time the question was "are all SIE Studios games going to be available on PS4, which is what Microsoft is doing for the first 2 years?".
The answer to that was "No". Which became true because so far Returnal and Ratchet&Clank Rift Apart aren't coming to the PS4. We're still less than a year away from the PS5's launch, let alone 2 years, so Jim Ryan's answer was true.


Some people and certain media outlets focus a lot on Jim Ryan's "we believe in generations" sentence, forgetting that in the very same interview he also said the following:

We have always felt that we had a responsibility to serve that [PS4] community for several years after the launch of PS5 and that it represented a huge business opportunity for us," Ryan says. "The numbers are quite straightforward. If you say in broad brush figures that we have a community of 100 million PS4 owners right now, and in the first couple of years... I don't know, somewhere between 15 and 25 million might migrate to PS5, that still leaves a huge number of people with PS4s.

Sony going cold turkey on the PS4 on November 2020 was never in their plans, and they never lied. The only thing people "fell for" was a made-up idea. They said their 2021-2022 games didn't have to run on both the 8th and 9th gen consoles, and some of those didn't.





That said, it seems in the last year they've been changing their plans on some games to bring them to the older console. This is probably related to COVID and the worldwide semiconductor shortage, which is preventing Sony from ramping up the PS5's production as much as they initially planned. From Jim Ryan's statements it looks like Sony initially planned the capability to put up to 25 million PS5 consoles in the hands of gamers by late 2022, but there's a good chance they won't be able to produce that many consoles until then.

It needs to be said that the semiconductor shortage isn't getting better, it's apparently getting worse. There are automotive assembly factories in my country closing down and putting thousands of employees on layoff because they're missing the infotainment and autopilot SoCs. There's word of Samsung delaying the production of the highly anticipated Galaxy S21 FE because they're not getting enough SoCs. I know from my job that Industrial IoT devices are suffering a lot from this shortage as well, as they're breaking supply deadlines left and right.
A big customer like Sony might have upper hand on getting the minimum contractual volume of ICs for assembly, but it could still mean they can't ramp up production.

At the same time, people are spending more time at home so they're investing more on home entertainment - videogames included. Not only are they putting less PS5 consoles in the hands of gamers than they hoped (lower total addressable market than anticipated), the PS4 users are willing to spend more money on games.
These seem to me like a valid reason to change their mind on a couple of games, though. I hope this decision doesn't hurt the PS5 versions in technical terms, but contrary to some devs' statements I think it certainly can and it probably will. However, these are different times and to be honest I'm just glad we're getting excellent 1st parties throughout the console's first year, despite everything that's happened.


Being angry because all the people who couldn't and won't be able to buy a PS5 in 2020-2021 will still be able to enjoy some games on their PS4 is a very childish and petty way to think. That was never a valid point, and IIRC there's a tweet from Phill Spencer mocking a guy from saying that about xbox games.

 

[PSman1700]

I think saying soley corona/semi conductor is to blame might not be all that accurate, i mean, theres more PS5's shifted in the same time era as there are PS4's. Atleast, thats how DF's take is on that matter. It could be due to corona, or it could be partially due to corona, no idea. It seems like if there just has been a general shift towards 'rolling generations' from both MS and Sony, planned before 2020 perhaps.

But, it doesnt matter why sony choose this route to go cross-gen, its the right one afterall. Doing what happened in previous generations would be abit.... yeah you cant just drop 100 million PS4 users. People also have less money to spend due to the corona virus etc.
Also, scaling does work quite well, i dont think were loosing that much anyway, yes theres limits but it aint that bad, in special considering hardware leaps have decreased over the years.

Anyway sony going cross-generation isnt the problem (MS does it too), its the way it was communicated that is the problem i think. If sony had been more clear, then news sites and forum users couldnt twist it as much as it was done now.
Something like 'were going cross gen for almost all games for the first two years or so', there would have been less wiggleroom to go on about. Maybe many also thought it would like going from PS3 to PS4 (or PSX to PS2, PS2 to 3 etc) and assumed it would be the same thing again just by hearing 'we believe in generations'.

I think it doesnt matter all that much going into the generation all said and done.

Edit: just listen to what John from DF has to say on it, theres two parts on this timestamped in their last podcasts if you dont want to listen to the whole 1.44h podcast.
Im just mostly repeating what ive heard from them in this post. And seeing John is a hardcore PS fan, i dont think he has much bias for another platform there.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The shift here is that instead of supporting the older console with unique older console games, they are releasing the same game across the generations day and date. That's totally different from what they had done previously done.

I agree with all of this. This generation was different in that Sony could not have done this before before because PS2 was radically differently hardware from PS2, likewise PS3 from PS2 and PS4 from PS3. Previously, it was always about including a backwards compatibility mode - a brute force approach to running last gen code.

The "we believe in generations" statement was made in a gamesindustry.biz interview and it was an answer to a question related to Microsoft's earlier statement that said "Xbox Game Studios titles we release in the next couple of years will be available to play great on Series and One". This interview was made in late May 2020, meaning it was published prior to later clarifications made by Microsoft.

I had forgotten that Microsoft's initial message was all games will run on all Xbox hardware for two years (from the point of that statement) then a few months later Microsoft said that whether Xbox One was supported by games was really down to the developers.

So both companies really need to work on their communications.