Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?

Anything to do with games at all.
User avatar
Christopher
Emeritus
Joined in 2008
Location: Cambridge

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Christopher » Sat Jun 16, 2018 10:30 pm

the eponymous bollock wrote:
suzzopher wrote:I read that Sony executives weren’t taking to the enthusiasts press at E3, that’s bloody awful.


Source?

The interviews Phil Spencer did at the Coliseum and with Giant Bomb were both really good.


http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2018/06/soapbox_why_dont_we_hear_from_sony_executives_anymore

Gemini73

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Gemini73 » Sat Jun 16, 2018 11:38 pm

Well I suppose as long as they keep delivering the games it, as the article says, isn't really that big a deal.

User avatar
Denster
Member
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Denster » Sat Jun 16, 2018 11:52 pm

I couldn’t care less about BC. I didn’t buy a PS4 so that I could play PS3 or PS2 games on it. I bought it for the quality games it has featured and will continue to feature. The presentation of the show the other night was a misstep but they tried something - it didn’t work so what. The crux of the issue is that they showed the best games of E3. Games I want to play. That’s all I give a gooseberry fool about. All this talk of hubris and who won E3 etc is just fanboy dickwaving.

User avatar
Saint of Killers
Member
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Saint of Killers » Sun Jun 17, 2018 6:28 am

suzzopher wrote:
the eponymous bollock wrote:
suzzopher wrote:I read that Sony executives weren’t taking to the enthusiasts press at E3, that’s bloody awful.


Source?

The interviews Phil Spencer did at the Coliseum and with Giant Bomb were both really good.


http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2018/06/soapbox_why_dont_we_hear_from_sony_executives_anymore


Careful what you wish for, we'd like get more choice Jim Ryan quotes :dread:

User avatar
Saint of Killers
Member
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Saint of Killers » Sun Jun 17, 2018 6:37 am

Tbph, as long as PS5 comes in at a reasonable price and Sony keep allowing their first party teams the freedom to do what they want... I don't care about arrogant Sony. That's not to say I don't wish they did some things differently, but they're delivering on the SP games front and that's what I'm into. When they screw that up I'll go looking elsewhere to get my fix.

Will be interesting to learn just how important QoL, crossplay, and Fortnite are when PS5/Next Box roll around. Do we know if QoL and crossplay gave XB a bump in sales/negatively affected PS4 sales? I'm going to guess not. (As I haven't read anything about it.)

User avatar
Yoshimi
Member
Joined in 2008
Location: Near Edinburgh

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Yoshimi » Sun Jun 17, 2018 8:06 am

I was disgusted by Sony's attitude with the whole Fortnite account debacle. It's really painted them in a new light for me.

I'd love cross-play, I'd love backwards compatibility. (I have a load of PS3 games I'd like to go back to, and my PS3 broke).

And, yeah that E3 show was cringe-worthy, despite having awesome games to show.

User avatar
Saint of Killers
Member
Member
Joined in 2008

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Saint of Killers » Sun Jun 17, 2018 8:57 am

I really don't see how their E3 show was cringey. Making a set based on a game I thought was really clever. It seemed quite intimate too and that was even before everyone realised it was set on the TLoU2. Yeah the intermission was dumb, but cringey? :lol: I'm super cringe sensitive and I didn't feel it during their show at all. (Unless it was so bad that I repressed it...)

the eponymous bollock wrote:
Mafro wrote:They're slowly becoming arrogant dicks again and their main first party output now all seems to be the same identikit big, story-focused cinematic adventure style of game.


This is a good point I didn’t hit upon.

All of the big 4 from them at this E3 and big exclusives looking back, very much fit into a certain ‘style’. Action Adventure games with a mix of combat and exploration, third person view, ‘mature’ story telling, upgrade trees, collectibles, even down to the small white plain text in some games.

Say what you will about the quality of the likes of recent entries to Halo and Gears, plus other MS exclusives like Sea of Thieves and Recore, but at least they’re very different from one another.


Some of this is coming off as nitpicking in the extreme

Yeah, if you limit your view to just their big games then they come off superficially similar. Thankfully that isn't all they green lit. The Order 1886, Until Dawn, The Tomorrow Children, Gravity Rush 2, Infamous / LL, Alienation, Resogun, Detroit BH are wildly different. (Kinda odd you left them out but included Recore :?) To say nothing of the fact that none of their big releases feels anything like Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man or Dreams. And even though their other big games (TLoU, Uncharted 4, God of War) have a similar superficial look to them they don't really play alike. Their game worlds have a similar, semi-open structure and their stories are more mature than what came before, but gameplay wise they're very different.

User avatar
gamerforever
Member
Joined in 2010

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by gamerforever » Sun Jun 17, 2018 9:52 am

Sony won’t pull another ps3 because the architecture will follow on from ps4 and people will continue following sonys brand. Their exclusives are far beyond microsofts and microsoft need to do more than simply show multiplatform games at their press conference. Remember, most ps4 owners don’t even know what e3 is.

Gemini73

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Gemini73 » Sun Jun 17, 2018 9:58 am

Sony's exclusives are not far beyond what MS have, they just have more of them and offer more diversity on the exclusive front.

User avatar
Floex
Member
Joined in 2008
Contact:

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Floex » Sun Jun 17, 2018 10:01 am

Gemini73 wrote:Sony's exclusives are not far beyond what MS have, they just have more of them and offer more diversity on the exclusive front.


I think you might want to read that back :lol:

So Sony and Microsoft are near enough the same level except that Sony offer more exclusive and diversity....

Gemini73

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Gemini73 » Sun Jun 17, 2018 10:11 am

Floex wrote:
Gemini73 wrote:Sony's exclusives are not far beyond what MS have, they just have more of them and offer more diversity on the exclusive front.


I think you might want to read that back :lol:

So Sony and Microsoft are near enough the same level except that Sony offer more exclusive and diversity....


I assumed gamerforever was talking in terms of quality.

User avatar
KjGarly
Member
Joined in 2008
AKA: TheArbiter
Location: Liverpool

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by KjGarly » Sun Jun 17, 2018 10:14 am

Floex wrote:
Gemini73 wrote:Sony's exclusives are not far beyond what MS have, they just have more of them and offer more diversity on the exclusive front.


I think you might want to read that back :lol:

So Sony and Microsoft are near enough the same level except that Sony offer more exclusive and diversity....


Where's Nick and that list of current gen exclusives...

Image
Image
NickSCFC

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by NickSCFC » Sun Jun 17, 2018 11:09 am

Floex wrote:
Gemini73 wrote:Sony's exclusives are not far beyond what MS have, they just have more of them and offer more diversity on the exclusive front.


I think you might want to read that back :lol:

So Sony and Microsoft are near enough the same level except that Sony offer more exclusive and diversity....


They also review a hell of a lot better, where are Microsoft's "masterpieces" this generation?

They've had nothing close to the likes of God of War, Bloodborne, Horizon or Uncharted 4 this gen.

And none of the games shown at E3 look anywhere near as good as Last of Us 2 or Ghost of Tsushima.

Gemini73

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Gemini73 » Sun Jun 17, 2018 11:21 am

I don't buy my games based on Metacritic scores, or reviews in general. I wouldn't have played & enjoyed most the games that I have otherwise.

However, it was only a matter of time before this devolved into "my console is better than yours" by the usual suspects.

*yawn*

NickSCFC

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by NickSCFC » Sun Jun 17, 2018 11:32 am

Gemini73 wrote:I don't buy my games based on Metacritic scores, or reviews in general. I wouldn't have played & enjoyed most the games that I have otherwise.

However, it was only a matter of time before this devolved into "my console is better than yours" by the usual suspects.

*yawn*



Eh?

The thread was about Sony's arrogance, I was counter arguing with the fact their games have reviewed (and sold) well.

If we can't use that then it basically comes down to what you and I have enjoyed which doesn't mean anything at all in the grand scheme of things.

Sony care about good reviews and good sales, they couldn't give a strawberry float whether Gemini73 on some forum enjoyed them or not.

If you can't use Metacritic averages to define quality then what the strawberry float are you supposed to use? It's not perfect but it's the best thing we've got.

Gemini73

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Gemini73 » Sun Jun 17, 2018 12:06 pm

I haven't used Metacritic ever when it comes to choosing what games I'm buying. Not once. Now I know that might be a difficult concept for you to grasp Nick, being as you won't so much as look at anything that's averages less than 80% on the site, but there it is.

I can't imagine how many games you have very likely missed out on over the years because your overlords at Metacritic told you to.

User avatar
Venom
Member ♥
Joined in 2008
Location: London
Contact:

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by Venom » Sun Jun 17, 2018 12:08 pm

the eponymous bollock wrote:Thought this might be an interesting discussion following an E3 in which the strongly prevailing opinion is that Microsoft knocked it out of the park whereas Sony flubbed it?

A couple of points to possibly support this view:
- Starting their E3 presser in a strawberry floating church they built just to demonstrate TLoU2 then expecting people to be happy hanging around while they shifted a few hundred people to another theatre.
- Continually being tone deaf on community desire for crossplay support.
- Falling behind MS on ecosystem QoL stuff like backwards compatibility, name changes, general PSN jank.
- No 4K Blu-ray drive.
- Answering the Fortnite account blocking outcry with a statement basically gonna saying ‘look how many PS4s we’ve sold’.

I’ll leave personal thoughts on any of those for a while, but does any of this start to suggest we might be seeing the beginning of a stumble similar to the beginning of the PS3 era?

Or, are Sony at such a strong position with their first party exclusives that any of the above is just inconsequential?



There are many criticisms that can be made about Sony and their PS4 platform but most some of those you mentioned don't fall under the category of hubris (arrogance and not listening to the public). They sound like general complaints.

Not hubris
The 'church' move was intended to be a clever way to promote The Last of Us but it wasn't thought out well. This wasn't arrogance - it was badly organised.
The showcase wasn't good at all. There was a deliberate decision by Sony, for their own reasons, to not reveal new titles this year.

No 4K blu-ray - users of this would likely be a very small percentage, however it would add to cost of hardware from $20-$30 at least for hardware and licensing. Keeping cost low and console focused on games is keeping true to the philosophy that Sony promoted that the PS4 console is not focused on being a multi-media device, it's primarily a games console.

PS3 Backwards compatibility. - Different hardware between PS3 Cell and PS4 x86 architecture. PS4 not likely powerful enough to emulate PS3 games.

Falling behind MS on ecosystem. I don't think anybody can legitimately claim that either Microsoft or Sony is a generation ahead of each other in this field. Sony innovated with the Share button and features which MS took time to properly integrate. Microsoft has more in-depth achievement tracking. Sony allows you take control of a friend's game etc, etc.


Hubris

Name changes. There may well be a fundamental technical balls-up for this not being possible and to admit this may be seen as a sign of network and technical inferiority, however Sony really should have properly addressed the public. Even a short statement 'We have heard loud and clear the needs of PlayStation gamers, and you can rest assured we are working on it. It is a long-term process and we will update you when it's ready.' Instead nothing. Just years of speculation. It makes it appear that Sony is deaf to the public.

PS1 & PS2 backwards compatibility. For sure PS4 can emulate these. Sony have said that they don't think most gamers care about that. But then charging people to rebuy modified PS1 games (with trophies and minor graphic improvements) whilst preventing them from using their original discs is arrogance.

Cross-platform play. The Sony thinking (as was Microsoft's when they were leading with 360 sales) is that they have the leading platform and don't want their massive userbase to migrate anywhere. Traditionally this has been a perfectly acceptable business attitude - why should a business allow their hard fought customers to migrate? Sony allow it with mobiles and PC but not other consoles. Complaints are from a vocal minority. I don't think this one is hubris... yet.

Blocking Fortnite saves transfer to Switch - Games as a service means character saves can be multi-platform. Although save-transfers was never advertised as a feature people who have spent money in Fortnite on PS4 not being able to transfer their characters to Switch does seem anti-consumer and, yeah is hubris.


Mafro wrote:their main first party output now all seems to be the same identikit big, story-focused cinematic adventure style of game.


I said something similar in the Sony E3 conference thread. That the PlayStation advantage of all these great exclusives might become a negative if they don't diversify their output. Perhaps create an FPS or RPG or dare I say it.... try and do what MS has tried to do with Fable Legends and Sea of Thieves - create a successful game as a service title. But the actual games like Horizon: Zero Dawn and God of War are not in themselves any sign of hubris, they are Sony making games that the public want and delivering them to the highest standards.

User avatar
KjGarly
Member
Joined in 2008
AKA: TheArbiter
Location: Liverpool

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by KjGarly » Sun Jun 17, 2018 12:43 pm

Out of curiosity in regards to UHD Blu Ray drives, how many X owners on here use it for 4K BR's? I haven't even tried a Blu Ray in my X since owning it and don't even own a 4K Blu Ray title. Compared to standard BR the price is most times double so for my 4K movie needs I just be a filthy pirate and download them to watch via my external drive connected to the TVs USB slot which itself is a fantastic media player.

Image
Image
NickSCFC

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by NickSCFC » Sun Jun 17, 2018 12:46 pm

Gemini73 wrote:I haven't used Metacritic ever when it comes to choosing what games I'm buying. Not once. Now I know that might be a difficult concept for you to grasp Nick, being as you won't so much as look at anything that's averages less than 80% on the site, but there it is.


Doesn't matter, your argument was about Sony not having better games than Microsoft, if you can't use Metacritic than what other metric CAN you use?

Gemini73 wrote:I can't imagine how many games you have very likely missed out on over the years because your overlords at Metacritic told you to.


Yeah because most normal people have all day to sit and play every game ever released to figure out which ones are good or not. I still haven't had enough time to finish God of War yet.

User avatar
KjGarly
Member
Joined in 2008
AKA: TheArbiter
Location: Liverpool

PostRe: Are Sony starting to fall foul of their own hubris?
by KjGarly » Sun Jun 17, 2018 12:58 pm

I for one have never ever based a purchase on what metacritic score its received. I've spent 78 hours on State Of Decay 2, enjoyed it a lot and still working towards my last 3 achievements yet that game only has a meta score of 67. Go figure.

Image
Image

Return to “Games”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: addsy087, Christopher, Kriken, Photek, Poser, poshrule_uk, Red 5 stella and 359 guests