E3 2008: Sony purposely losing PS3 exclusives to Xbox 360 like Final Fantasy XIII
By Mike Ferro
I know all you PS3 fanboys were all upset when you heard Final Fantasy XIII went multiplatform to Xbox 360. I’m sure you thought it didn’t make sense considering Final Fantasy XIII is one of the biggest anticipated PS3 exclusive out there. Well Jack Tretton spills the beans on what went wrong.
According to G4TV Jack Tretton when asked if he was disappointed with Microsoft’s announcement of Final Fantasy XIII going multiplatform he stated:
“Am I disappointed by it? Yes, Am I surprised by it? No.”
Apparently Tretton knew about Final Fantasy XIII going to the Xbox 360 beforehand. Of course this makes sense considering Square Enix promised Sony that Final Fantasy XIII would be PS3 exclusive even announcing it publicly.
Now Square Enix seems to have taken advantage Sony’s naive good nature by going back on it’s word. If you think about it Sony paid no money to Square Enix to keep Final Fantasy XIII PS3 exclusive meaning they were willing to do so out of loyalty.
That really makes me respect Hideo Kojima’s decision to keep Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 exclusive. However, I believe Kojima’s strong ambition to make the biggest game possible using the Blu-ray disc played into his decision.
As to why Sony didn’t pay for Final Fantasy XIII (aside their normal policy of not paying for exclusives), Tretton indicated Sony “can’t write checks for exclusive software.”
It seems the reason is because Sony already spent a fortune on the PS3 development as well as their first party studios which total over 20 some studios worldwide.
I suppose in contrast Microsoft has only two active studios Lionhead and Rare so they have much more budget free to try to buy out third party games.
Tretton also voiced Sony’s long term strategy of heavily investing in first party games from now. He states:
“You’ve got to create platform-defining franchises that you own,”
He believes in the future all third party exclusives will be multiplatform and the only distinguishing factor between the consoles will be their first party exclusives.
This does make sense; all third party games are going multiplatform whether it’s Xbox 360 or PS3.
Let’s just look at the list of games that went multiplatform recently despite their exclusivity tag:
Recent:
- E3 Announcements:
- Final Fantasy XIII - former PS3 exclusive
- Left4Dead - former Xbox 360 exclusive
- Star Ocean - former Xbox 360 exclusive
Now lets take a look at games that could have been PS3 exclusive but allegedly Ken Kutaragi caused the PS3 to lose the opportunity.It’s important to note these games were never officially exclusive to the PS3, there just was the opportunity for it to happen if Sony moved quickly on it.
Grand Theft Auto IV -
According to Wired Take Two offered a timed exclusive “offer” to Sony first but Ken Kutaragi sat on the deal until Take Two took that as a “no” and took Microsoft’s “offer” for exclusive content.
Assassin’s Creed -
Apparently Ubisoft first approached Sony “offering” a “deal” for PS3 exclusive rights to Assassin’s Creed. However yet again top management were slow to decide, leaving middle management scrambling around with no power to do anything.
Ubisoft, being optimistic about the deal portrayed Assassin’s Creed as being PS3 exclusive without officially confirming it; that is until the deal fell through.
In both of these cases Sony’s Policy of not paying for exclusives cost them two blockbuster titles. Obviously it seems like a stupid move hindsight, there needs to be some flexibility but there wasn’t.
Focusing on first party internal studios is important but when opportunity presents itself one should jump on it. Of course in business it’s not always as simple as that, when dealing with $50 million checks just for timed exclusives or $100 million for permanent exclusive deals you have to think about other things as well.
You still have to feed the other 20 some studios like God of War family and Gran Turismo guys as well.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
under
Read more entries by Mike Ferro.
Stumble It!
Tips N4G
July 16th, 2008
That makes perfect sense to me, look after and grow your own first party developers (especially if your got alot of em) and make your own “blockbuster” games/franchise rather than paying off other 3rd party companies to be exclusive….
Will it pay off, only time will tell.
July 16th, 2008
Oh and by the way:
” I know all you PS3 fanboys were all upset when you heard Final Fantasy XIII went multiplatform to Xbox 360″
I wasn’t. Couldn’t care less. I have no interest in FF and is no skin off my nose.
July 17th, 2008
Exactly.
Look at games like Haze, a third-party “Exclusive” and compare it Resistance.
Third Party xclusives are crap.
You know your own console best. So make your own games. They’re likely to turnout better.
July 17th, 2008
@Kev,
You said on
http://gamer.blorge.com/2008/07/15/e3-2008-sony-confirms-new-ps3-and-psn-movie-download-service/
“mike - where did you get the number that sony studios own 40% of the movies on the market? i guess you forgot that wb owns the largest library of films…not sony… i don’t even think wb is at 40% of movies available to consumers…”
First of all I don’t have to provide sources for non-primary news because since its a well known fact, if only you spent the time Googling it instead of questioning me.
Here, consider this a free one:
“Sony buys MGM:
By combining MGM’s library with its own library, Sony Pictures would then control over 40% of all of the motion pictures ever made in Hollywood.”
http://www.forbes.com/business/2004/05/27/cz_bp_0527mgm.html
Also Time Warner by far owns a much smaller piece of the total market share (14%) in comparison to Sony which owns over 20% of total studios.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_film_studio#Today.27s_Big_Six
*Don’t worry this Wiki data is cited.
July 17th, 2008
Kev will come up with some his usual garbage, or we won’t hear from him….one or the other.
July 17th, 2008
oh…somebody got told!
July 17th, 2008
The whores that Microsoft are for ‘aquiring’ exclusive content/releases, at the end of the day it still is good for their consumers, no matter what side of the fence you’re on.
If Sony want to put resources into in house/first party development - great. Hopefully they can push out some really good stuff, but hopefully not at the cost of consumer choice.
July 17th, 2008
hahaha the writers are defending themselves FINALLY!! you got “pwned” kev.
July 17th, 2008
Yes, they purposely wanted one of their marquee franchises to go to 360! Nice journalism there, schmuck.
July 17th, 2008
Another delightful piece of commentry from Harry ballsack.
July 17th, 2008
FLAME
July 17th, 2008
I am glad Sony is not playing Microsoft’s dirty money game…
July 17th, 2008
@ John
By ‘feed the GOW’ family, he obviously means that they have wages, development costs, equipment, and other such costs to add into the bill..
They have to pay their own studios first, before they can pay others, right?
Oh, and lrn2grammr
July 17th, 2008
Bioshock, Left4Dead, Star Ocean = Timed Exclusives
Resident Evil 5, Final Fantasy XIII = Simultaneous Releases
July 17th, 2008
mike - not bad, but your wiki is off. it’s still known wb has the largest library of movies of any studio due to their age in the industry. you confused library size with market share, noob. …it only gets better having spidey and bourne agreeing wtih you is just icing on the cake.. nice one.. LMAO!!!
July 17th, 2008
Kev please quote on this opinion. dont start a noob war that you cant finish.
July 17th, 2008
Why are all of the P$3 fanboys saying that they didn’t care about Final Fantasy NOW?!
July 17th, 2008
I don’t know the figures but if WB only had 14% then why is it that when WB got paid by Sony to go Bluray (which is the reason Sony can’t pay for exclusives) that, that was the deciding factor. WB clearly has to be the biggest if their decision can affect the whole industry. Don’t give me this Sony has 20 something studios crap because if that is the case then where are the 20 something exclusive titles? Their not spending money in house. The only company clearly doing that is Nindendo. Face it, your PS3 was a trojan horse for bluray and people who bought the PS3 got a whole lot of bluray and not games. Only now they realizing who the their market really was. They even packaged the PS3 when it first came out with a bluray movie. Suckersssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
July 17th, 2008
Harry
It’s like you said, they are in damage control.
July 17th, 2008
ps… the netflix/xbox live gives 360 owners access to 10,000 movies. how many does sony’s movie service give you? i have a feeling it’ll be muuuuuuch less… as sony has not made any bragging quotes.
bourne - so you want to start talking gibberish now? you, mike and spidey look pretty dumb. you shouldn’t have agreed with him, noob.
July 17th, 2008
I just wanted to paste this here so that you get the full affect of Jack’s statement.
Speaking to the concept of paying third parties for exclusives, Tretton said that Sony has “invested so much money in the [PS3] hardware” that it simply “can’t write checks for exclusive software.”
Hardware means Bluray which Sony paid WB, Disney, Target, Blockbuster, Circut City, Fox, amogist others. I guess it takes a lot of $ to make sure bluray is the format of choice.
Here is a part of Andy Pennell Blog who is a Microsoft Employee who told what happened after the format wars:
“Christmas 2007 went pretty well for HD DVD, with Toshiba reducing their 3rd generation player prices further and even forcing the BD companies to cut their heavy prices a bit. Rumours began to emerge that Warner was going to make a decision and pick a single format: as the largest studio they had some serious clout, and they knew it. After a lot of high-level wrangling among various CEOs, Warner was close to picking HD DVD (along with Fox, a long-time BD supporter), but Sony got wind of this and came calling again with their check book. After a rumored $300-$500 million deal (along with $120m for Fox) both companies decided instead to dump HD DVD on Janury 4th 2008, the day before CES opened”
July 17th, 2008
i finally agree with tretton. they can’t write checks. sce has laid off staff, ken kuturagi was ousted, harrison left, almost 4 billion in losses all due to the ps3. they have very little money or leverage left.
July 17th, 2008
harry - “Yes, they purposely wanted one of their marquee franchises to go to 360! Nice journalism there, schmuck.”
don’t you just love the way they twist even the bad news into good here? i’m thinking this is another sony planted site. maybe close cousin to the SDF.COM.
July 17th, 2008
@Kev,
noob?
Apparently you thought I was trying to say market share is the same as library.
You do realize I made two factual statements in my comment independent of each other, right?
If you read my comment carefully, you would have understood what I was trying to say.
Market share and total library are independent but go hand in hand because market share means how much piece of the pie that studio services as a whole.
Usually in order to have the largest market share not only do you need blockbuster titles you also need to have the largest library.
Oh by the way you were wrong on everything you said.
It’s just fact, regardless of how much you oddly seem to dislike Sony for reason.
July 17th, 2008
Kevin, you could have 40 billion downloadable shows for all i care, which i dont, because of the download time. It will take over 4 hours to download a HD movie, if its anything like apple tv, and then you’re going to need a large hard drive to store these downloads AS WELL AS your music, photos games etc. Why would i want to do that, when i can go buy a blu ray which wont be wiped when my 360 gets RROD and i’ll have to fork out MORE money and MORE time. Aside from that, with blu-ray it takes much less time to buy, and i get exclusive content and downloadable stuff when i use it on my ps3.
July 17th, 2008
This article has got it spot on. Sony can’t offer money for any exclusives so their first party offerings are second to little on the system. Bar MGS4 and COD4, there is little that can beat the quality of first party titles such as Resistance, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank etc. Just looking at the future games to be released first party and you see what I mean. Resistance 2, Motorstorm 2, LBP, you know the list by now.
NOW compare that to first party offerings on 360.. and um… I cant think of one except Forza. And oh yeah, Viva Pinatta. See what I mean?
But I guess thats the way the two teams are going to play this generation. PS3 will get its exclusives, as will 360. Microsoft will shell out more on 3rd party games (which too be honest I wish they wouldnt- its good to see exclusives from loyalty) and Sony will get the few 3rd party exclusives and remain making the first party games.
July 17th, 2008
Kev- did you miss the first article that Mike cited?
By combining MGM’s library with its own library, Sony Pictures would then control over 40% of all of the motion pictures ever made in Hollywood.
John- wtf? That is not what this story said at all. You need to not just read the words but also comprehend what they mean!
July 17th, 2008
hairy sachs is like the little parrot on kev’s shoulder. The kind that cowers when someone looks at it.
hairy sach, you seem to find a sentence you like, then repeat it for a few articles, then find a new one.
Didn’t PS3 lose Portal 2 completely as well? I read that somewhere. That sort of thing bothers me, because I don’t like having to play games on my PC aswell, as much as I used to. I love Final Fantasy, but at least I can still play it on the PS3.
The film thing…. as long as the downloads we have available are the good, new ones, I don’t mind if I miss out on downloading older films. Old films are so cheap by the dozen (by old I mean, say, a year or 2) in HMV, I’ll buy them all on DVD if I haven’t already got them.
July 17th, 2008
Mike
Market share changes from year to year. as to who is the biggest studio by library I don’t know. Like you said it depends on the film and how much money it generates to determine market share on a yearly basis. Sony is definately up there as they have taken the #1 spot a few years in 2006, 2004, and 2002. Last year was Paramount and pramount seems to be winning this year on a Year to date. WB took 2005 and 2001. Buena Vista took 2000 and 2003. So how has the biggest Library to date?
July 17th, 2008
Mike
I Like how you write about FF and Sony’s Money problems and then redirect it to Kevin with a non-related argument.
July 17th, 2008
So I see that nobody can comment on Sony spending Probably a Billion Dollars on securing bluray but Microsoft can spend a Billon on RROD and still claim elclusives like GTA4 DLC and Rock Band 2 amongst others titles that MS throws it’s money at. Plus you need to add the 3.3 Billon Loss that Sony racked up by selling the consoles at a loss. MS has got Sony in a choke hold and it looks like there going to keep squeezing harder till Sony’s head pops off.
July 17th, 2008
well add to that that M$ are founders of the most used software in history, windows, then I can probably guess that M$ have a better wallet than Sony right now.
I hate Microsoft simply for the fact that I bought a shiny new laptop, got it running and all that and that saw that I didn’t have any programs, word powerpoint etc. When I looked at how much that would cost me, it was around £150. To add a few programs that should’ve been pre-installed on a laptop I just paid £500 for? No thanks.
Oh yeah. Sony made a better machine aswell. Add that to your equations
lol
July 17th, 2008
Robb don’t lie
you bought a laptop form Microsoft? I don’t think so. Microsoft only provides the operating system and then there are the programs that run on the OS. What you get on your computer is what the maker of the lap top provided. That’s why you should shop around. Different manufactures provide different programs because they are all in compititon with each other. I bought an Acer and I got XPMC with Microsoft works and some games and a printer and a MP4 Player, Skype Phone, and Corel version of programs all in my package.
July 17th, 2008
Cad- M$ is still trying to make back the $6 billion they lost on the xbox, so don’t start on the losses subject! Also give me some proof that Sony spent $1 billion on bluray, I think that is your speculation. And last, glad M$ paid millions to secure Rock Band 2 for a couple of months. Hamonix is going to need it when the law suite for patent infringement goes through!
July 17th, 2008
MS has never made a penny off the xbox or xbox 360. Netflix streams old movies at 480i. Sweet.
July 17th, 2008
wylie - no they are not. the generations are different. Robbie Bach stated in the first year of the xbox they were prepped to lost billions to gain a customer base. that was their ONLY intention. rightfully so as they did not own the IP inside the xbox. please go read..
if you do a google of sony’s bluray lines you will find the $1 billion cost to sony. i’d look but am out for the day.
have fun with your opinons.
July 17th, 2008
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve created a new version of Kev that is superior to him in ever way. It’s name is Kevin and it shouts slurs at the Wii, PS3 and the 360 whenever a new article has not caused an argument.
“The Wii is evil”
HeheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheWe don’t need him at all anymore
July 17th, 2008
Kev- First, M$ lost $6 billion and they don’t want to make it back? That must be good business. 2nd, so M$ can prep to lose money, but Sony can’t. Remember bluray won because of the inclusion in the PS3, so when Sony makes money on bluray in the future they can look back and say the PS3 lost x amount of dollars, but the bluray made us x amount of dollars. So that 3.3 billion they have lost might not look so bad in a few years!
You may be right on the $1 billion spent, I never said Cad was lieing, I just hadn’t heard that number thrown around before. Unlike you I don’t think my opinions are fact.
July 18th, 2008
wylie - that’s the funny thing. you clowns call it a “loss”, when bach, blackley, and fries called it an investment (which it truly was). they were prepared as they did not own the ip inside the xbox. 4 billion to ms is peanuts. 4 billion to sony? not so much…
bluray “won” because toshiba backed out and took sony’s cell manufacturing. noone “wins” anything with less than 1% penetration and the tech only being on the market less than 6 months. that’s not even a skirmish, much less a war.
the 3.3 billion losses of sony is only growing…..
July 18th, 2008
kev seems to be more informed than most people here. Warner owns 40% of DVD releases, and that made them the deciding factor in the HD battle. Also, I haven’t read anything about MS paying for FFXIII, a payment that would have included Japan. Some other facts:
1) PS3 DIDN’T ‘win’ the HD war. Fox and Warner were ready to go HD-DVD exclusive until Sony wrote $700 million in checks. They couldn’t afford to allow the drive in PS3 to become obsolete.
2) Sony has lost almost twice the often quoted $3.3 billion on PS3. Unlike MS, Sony’s gaming division has lost over $3 billion in PS2/PSP profits since the ps3 manufacturing started, profits that averaged $800 million prior to 2005.
3) Sony moved cell manufacturing assets into the gaming division before selling them to Toshiba for $700 million, thus hiding further losses.
4) Sony has already lost big time with ps3 when you consider the dominance of ps2. Sony is looking more and more like Nintendo. Big first party titles, and not much on the 3rd party side of sales. That is why Sony buys 3rd party studios instead of just titles. Just look at all the studios that are sliding away from their previous Playstation loyalty, a trend even Square is now following.
July 18th, 2008
What a fall from grace for Sony!! they dominated last generation, and they’re running last in this generation. The public have spoken with their wallets. 360 is the better option!
July 18th, 2008
Ron- whether they paid or not doesn’t change the fact, we have bluray and hd is no more, still a win. If you want to count the bluray bill against the PS3 than you have to start counting the bluray movies sold as money made by PS3. As far as your arguement about the PS2 profit loss, never heard this before, however the PS2 is what 8 years old, of course the profits are going down. You could also blame the Wii and 360 for that, so I don’t know where you are going with that. Granted studios are leaving Sony and going multi now, but its the same on the other side of the fence. If you are going to spend 50 to 100 million making a game its hard to be loyal with that much on the line.
Kev- so Sony can’t invest in bluray and cell technology for future profits? Oh yeah, only M$ can do that. Also, I know that $4 billion is a drop in the bucket for M$, but $4 billion is still $4 billion. Bill wouldn’t have allowed them to lose that much money for very much longer either
July 18th, 2008
wylie - yes, sony’s intention was to invest in cell and bluray. unfortunately the money they needed for the cell is now going to toshiba who is fabricating and manufacturing. the $4 billion was predicted in the first year of the xbox by bach and is considered a write off to gain marketshare. that was their only intention. given the fact they unseated the king of consoles (sony), it looks like it was a smart investment. btw; don’t hype ms’ losses when sony is almost at 4 billion in less than a year on the market. it took ms 4 YEARS to “lose” that much. ps… “bill” had very little to do with the xbox, noob…
July 18th, 2008
ronhoward - you can’t talk sense to these guys. most are teens whose first console was a ps2.
July 18th, 2008
Wylie
I wrote it above, the proof that you want so I’ll post it agian.
Here is a part of “Andy Pennell” Blog who is a Microsoft Employee who told what happened after the format wars:
“Christmas 2007 went pretty well for HD DVD, with Toshiba reducing their 3rd generation player prices further and even forcing the BD companies to cut their heavy prices a bit. Rumours began to emerge that Warner was going to make a decision and pick a single format: as the largest studio they had some serious clout, and they knew it. After a lot of high-level wrangling among various CEOs, Warner was close to picking HD DVD (along with Fox, a long-time BD supporter), but Sony got wind of this and came calling again with their check book. After a rumored $300-$500 million deal (along with $120m for Fox) both companies decided instead to dump HD DVD on Janury 4th 2008, the day before CES opened”
I’m not providing links so look Him up yourself. He has a lot of write up about what happened. He worked in the HD DVD division at MS.
July 18th, 2008
Wylie
It is under the title “What Dady did during the format wars”
July 18th, 2008
Cad- I believe you, I just hadn’t actually heard the numbers before. I know Sony would do anything not to lose that format. Can you imagine if they lost out again after the Beta fiasco in the 80’s.
Kev- I understand it was an investment. But at somepoint people like to see their investment returned, that’s why to this point it is still a loss. Maybe between the 360 and the next counsole they will make it back. Either way they want to get that money back someday or it wouldn’t be called an investment. And I know Bill didn’t have much to do with the Xbox, but that is still his money backing it! That’s what I was talking about, sorry if I wasn’t clear enough.
July 18th, 2008
Wylie, where did I count the Bluray bill against PS3? I didn’t. PS3’s Bluray bill wasn’t in dollars (or Yen), it was in lost market share due to delays (blue diodes) and high price (BD drive) and mandatory hard drive (again, because of slow BD drive).
You need to understand something when comparing MS’s console lossess to Sony’s. Xbox 360 profits get erroded by money losers like Zune and Surface. There is no other profitable item in MS’s gaming division other than Xbox 360 and Live.
Sony’s gaming division includes PS3, PS2 and PSP. When Sony reports on the gaming division, they don’t break it down to each device. PSP is profitable, but the gaming division is posting losses. PS2 is VERY profitable along with the software license fees for each PS2 game sold. Despite being 8 years old, Sony sold over 14 million PS2’s in fiscal 2006, and 16 million PS2’s in fiscal 2005. Where did all those profits go? PS3 is eating them at a rabid pace and still causes losses of $3.3 dollars.
See for yourself - Sony’s own PS2 sales figures.
http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps2_e.html
30 million Ps2’s sold in 2 years, but they LOSE money?
July 18th, 2008
Wylie,
Not only would bluray have been an embarassment but yes Betamax, Mini Disk and UMD would have all been in that list. They simply could not afford to loose. I understand it but I would not slam them so hard if they would just admit it. Don’t say the customer decided the victory when that is far from the truth. That is my problem with Sony, not owning up to things. They constantly tell lies and I don’t understand why people love this lieing company. They even lied about the reason rumble was not included in the beginging.
July 18th, 2008
Wiley, there is something else you may not be aware of. The reason why MS got into the console market in the first place. Ms had been involved with PC gaming for 10 years or more, and had developed DirectX to streamline game development.
MS went to Sony, Sega and Nintendo in 1999 - 2000 and offered to develop an OS and game developers suite for their consoles. Sega said yes with Dreamcast, but Sony and Nintendo said no. No problem.
Then MS found out Sony’s plans with PS2 and the Emotion Engine, and the fact that Sony planned to get into the OS and server business. Sony and Toshiba touted EE as the next greatest processor for servers, and tried to take on the WinTel (Windows - Intel) server alliance.
That attempt fell flat, but MS had already decided to take Sony on in their own backyard by introducing a directX-BOX console of their own.
Now Sony, IBM and Toshiba hope to take on WinTel with the Cell chip, and it may work this time. Cell is more a data pusher (server) than a out of order (game code) chip. Ask yourself why Sony chose such a bulky OS (Linux) for their game console, when MS had a better one available that takes up half the memory (76 meg vs 32 Meg).
MS is perfectly happy to lose a few billion to make Sony’s game division unprofitable. MS was perfectly happy to provoke a costly format war for Sony and make them compromise their console dominance and sell off Cell assets. MS is VERY happy to see Sony compete with themselves in the format war by now offering movie downloads for Ps3 to compete with MS.
Sony picked a fight with MS, and it has been a nightmare for the past 2 years. The real bloodbath will begin when 360 hits $199 while PS3 is still over $300. Look at the link I provided. Sony sold 70% of all Ps2’s AFTER the price dropped to under $200.
Google the following if you don’t believe what I say.
“Emotion Engine” + server
Sony Wintel
MS Sony Segs OS
July 18th, 2008
Wiley, there is something else you may not be aware of. The reason why MS got into the console market in the first place. Ms had been involved with PC gaming for 10 years or more, and had developed DirectX to streamline game development.
MS went to Sony, Sega and Nintendo in 1999 - 2000 and offered to develop an OS and game developers suite for their consoles. Sega said yes with Dreamcast, but Sony and Nintendo said no. No problem.
Then MS found out Sony’s plans with PS2 and the Emotion Engine, and the fact that Sony planned to get into the OS and server business. Sony and Toshiba touted EE as the next greatest processor for servers, and tried to take on the WinTel (Windows - Intel) server alliance.
That attempt fell flat, but MS had already decided to take Sony on in their own backyard by introducing a directX-BOX console of their own.
Now Sony, IBM and Toshiba hope to take on WinTel with the Cell chip, and it may work this time. Cell is more a data pusher (server) than a out of order (game code) chip. Ask yourself why Sony chose such a bulky OS (Linux) for their game console, when MS had a better one available that takes up half the memory (76 meg vs 32 Meg).
MS is perfectly happy to lose a few billion to make Sony’s game division unprofitable. MS was perfectly happy to provoke a costly format war for Sony and make them compromise their console dominance and sell off Cell assets. MS is VERY happy to see Sony compete with themselves in the format war by now offering movie downloads for Ps3 to compete with MS.
Sony picked a fight with MS, and it has been a nightmare for the past 2 years. The real bloodbath will begin when 360 hits $199 while PS3 is still over $300. Look at the link I provided. Sony sold 70% of all Ps2’s AFTER the price dropped to under $200.
Google the following if you don’t believe what I say.
“Emotion Engine” + server
Sony Wintel
MS Sony Sega OS
July 18th, 2008
Ronhoward
Wow I never knew that side of the picture. Thanks for the insite. I’ll look into this.
July 18th, 2008
Ron- obviously you now a lot about this subject, more than me I will admit. I can’t go to that site you posted(damn bosses block stuff). All I’ve heard is the PS3 has lost 3.3 billion. You may well be correct, it could very well be the whole gaming division. I am quite aware that the PS2 went nuts when it went under $200 dollars. I’m not sure MS will mop up when they drop that low do to the Wii already grabbing much of that demographic, but things can change. I will never argue that MS doesn’t know what they are doing, they are worth billions, (just a little more than I make). I just find it silly that Xbots on this site don’t think that Sony knows what they are doing. I believe Sony is trying to help the company as a whole, not just the gaming division. Also we all know research and development costs for the Ps3 had to be massive.
I’m not in love with Sony, I enjoy their console. I debate Kev and Cad because they can’t see MS doing anything wrong.
Lastly, I don’t think Sony is competing against themselves with downloads. It’s two different demographics. Also, I think it was important for bluray for more reasons than just movies. If that is the format of the future it will be standard in computers and do I dare to say it, Xbox. Just saying I think they are looking at a larger picture.
July 18th, 2008
Wylie
If you ask me you got tunnel vision and you and the rest of your crew don’t see the big picture. Your so numb from Sony screwing you that you don’t even feel it anymore. That is called acceptance. For me and Kev I believe were trying to show your that a system can be better when the customer is put first. Were so spoiled over here that we just can’t understand how you don’t see it. If there was never a Xbox you would never understand what evolution is because PS3 wouldn’t be the PS3 it is today.
July 18th, 2008
Nicely put Ron Howard. I liked Cinderella Man btw.
July 18th, 2008
Thanks harry, that was my best work.
Just for the record, I don’t think Sony is screwing anyone. A little deception and stalling isn’t screwing your customers when you still give them the console for less than it costs to make. Sony is also far better at hardware reliability than MS. Hopefully MS learned their ‘penny saved, dollar lost’ lesson.
The deception is about how powerful PS3 is, when Sony knows it’s really a draw between 360 and PS3. Sony admits RSX needs help from Cell just to keep up with 360’s GPU.
Wylie is right about Sony computer entertainment looking at the larger picture (Format war, server business), but my problem is that they hurt gamers by turning their back to their core business and built an expensive Trojan horse for Cell and Bluray. Cell isn’t the right processor for gaming code, anyone will tell you that. Bluray isn’t the right format for gaming, because Sony still can’t get a 4X drive working reliably.
BD as a standard in PC’s? Not until Sony gets the price of BD burners and discs way down. As it stands, it’s MUCH cheaper and faster to keep an external hard drive for backups and portability.
July 19th, 2008
Ronhoward can give well thought out case and will provide pros and cons for both systems, I respect that. Kudos to you. I do agree with a lot he has to say.
As an observation, I have already started to see blu-ray drives being offered in new PC’s, so it is already starting to become a reality. Obviously a long way to go, but the momentum is begining.
I do note you comment of the 360 and ps3 being a draw in capability - I’ve been saying this alllllll along.
Can this be the moment were some people can finally realise that there is pros and cons for BOTH systems…we can only hope.
July 19th, 2008
spideydog’s last sentence is the only sentence that matters on this page.
its taken a while, but it has been spoken.
July 21st, 2008
@RonHoward-
Please stick around, you don’t spew dribble, and that’s nice to hear. I wish Kev was here, this would really get interesting!
July 21st, 2008
ron read Inside the Xbox, too. good job.
CAD
July 21st, 2008
cad- agreed. i am ms corner simply because they ASKED the gamers and developers what should go into the console and controller. sony refused to even put 4 controller ports in the ps2 even when asked. why? so they could make more money off the multitap…
i know ms has done a lot wrong as has sony. but pound for pound, as a gamer, i’ll side with the better gaming machine. which is clearly the 360.
July 21st, 2008
Kev quote: “i know ms has done a lot wrong as has sony”
*shakes hands with Kev*
As long as you keep that one thought in mind, you can be as big a fanboy as you want and I will still respect you.
-Arvis
July 21st, 2008
Kev Quote: “I know ms has done a lot wrong as has sony. but pound for pound, as a gamer, i’ll side with the better gaming machine. which is clearly the 360.”
Well, you have come some way….. The last sentance is a matter of opinion.
July 21st, 2008
Are we sure that was actually Kev? This opie guy (ron howard) shows up and all of a sudden its the apocalypse. Seriously, kev nice to here you admit it. Both companies have a long way to go!
July 23rd, 2008
Wylie wrote: This opie guy (ron howard) shows up and all of a sudden its the apocalypse.
I have that affect on people. Just ask Aunt Bee.
The way I see it, every console company that becomes top dog abuses their position. Nintendo games started to creep up to $70 with the N64, and Nintendo started really screwing 3rd party developers with higher license fees and refusal to allow some software. They are top dog again, but seem to be a bit greedy. Wii made money from day one, but they refuse to lower the price. Considering the low cost of the hardware, it seems like price gouging to me.
Then Sony got the crown with Playstation, but raised dev fees and over promised and under delivered with PS2. PS2 was also very hard to develop for, a lesson Sony hasn’t learned from. Then there was the hard drive fiasco, multi-tap and network add-ons, and $30 memory cards. Ps2 was actually more expensive than PS3 when you consider how much needed to be added on.
MS came along and lowered dev fees (Ninty and Sony followed suit) and built a console with developers in mind. The unified shaders make things easier, as does the Smart eDRAM. Even though they backed HD-DVD, they didn’t force the format on gamers. They have gotten tons of developer support they didn’t have with Xbox, but they really messed up with RRoD. That what you get when you have a bunch of software guys building hardware. It comes out great for developers, but with craptacular reliability.
I hope each company ends up with 33% of the market and the all try harder to please gamers.
July 24th, 2008
Im glad games are going multi platform, if you wanna play it on your expensive PS3 go for it, or your budget wise wii so be it , or you failling 360 im not stopping you.
Games are made for people who wanna play them not to buy a whole damn system for 2 titles!
Will be a good year hear you me
August 15th, 2008
Great article by the way. In the end Sony will end up winning by having the best exclusive and also owning them all. Without having to pay huge checks for timed exclusives deals on mediocre games.