Topic: Sony Hasn't Learned Anything, While Nintendo Has.

[Ian Sane]

Some of the Arcade boards where relevant for a good 10 years and there was one with a fighting game where you swear the hardware was majorly beefed up from the first to last entry on the same hardware.  Its sort of interesting what can be done with known hardware with the will to do it.

You talking about the Neo-Geo?  Because the Neo-Geo was cutting edge when it was first released and that's kind of the point.  It was a big step up from the Genesis and SNES and that helped it hold its own against the 32/64 bit generation.
 
If your goal was to last for ten years would it not make sense to be pretty damn cutting edge at launch?  Hell, if you look at the Wii 2 thread that's exactly what a fair bit of us are suggesting Nintendo has to do.
 
No sane person would aim for ten years and then go with something already somewhat out-of-date at the time.  It isn't like Nintendo tried to do that with the Game Boy.  It just kind of happened.  There's no way they were thinking "spinach green visuals will allow this thing to outlast our NES successor" at the time.  You never know how long something will last but you sure as hell don't plan for an underpowered system to go on for ten years.

[Morari]

No sane person would aim for ten years and then go with something already somewhat out-of-date at the time.

No sane person would go for ten years, period.

[BlackNMild2k1]

No sane person would aim for ten years and then go with something already somewhat out-of-date at the time.

No sane person would go for ten years, period.

Seriously, why go for broke and lose out on profits for most of a generation so that you can hold out for 2?
Meanwhile Nintendo is making money this generation and they'll be making money during the next one too.

[oohhboy]

Wow, I miss Ken Kutaragi now. When he talked **** at least it was funny, you know like laughing at insane ramblings, but Tretton is just being an Asshole. I am sure to look forward to 10 years of this rubbish.

[Guitar Smasher]

I noticed he didn't once mention "games" as a reason for why a system would be successful.  That's, in my opinion, more embarrassing than calling the DS a babysitting device.

Wait, you PS3 owners, did you actually buy your system for the hard-drive?  Maybe I'm the one who's out of touch...

[Ceric]

Honestly bought mine to keep the PS2 backward compatibility and Blu-Ray.  I think now more than ever getting to 10 years will be easier than before.  It will be a while before we can make the true next leap.  Though smell would be an interesting realm to go in now that I think of it. 

[Stogi]

I could see the console market becoming like the handheld one, with revisions rather than full on new systems replacing the older ones.

[Razorkid]

Honestly bought mine to keep the PS2 backward compatibility and Blu-Ray.  I think now more than ever getting to 10 years will be easier than before.  It will be a while before we can make the true next leap.  Though smell would be an interesting realm to go in now that I think of it.

I also bought a PS3 for BC purposes and Blu-ray back in '07.  Honestly, I've only owned like 10 PS3 games, and they were wonderful (GTA IV excluded).  But I own 20+ games for my Wii adn still have about 5 more that I want to pick up for my backlog to play. Maybe the Wii just offered more unique experiences that I couldn't enjoy on my PC than the PS3, but software is the leading determinant of a system's success.

[leahsdad]

Yeah, I've have to admit that I basically "left" Nintendo after the N64, and instead of the GC I bought a PS2.  The result?  I played a bunch of forgettable games and immediately told myself "Okay, next console must be a Nintendo one."

I've heard a lot of complaints about not having enough games on the Wii to play, and compaints about GC "New Play Control" ports.  To be honest, I love those ports, and they basically make up for not having enough new games.  In case you didn't know, the GC was not popular, and a lot of people (like me) didn't buy it.  Which means we didn't get to play the Prime games, Pikmin, Jungle Beat, Sunshine, Windwaker, etc....and getting to play those in widescreen on the Wii is pretty good.

Now, I have huge stack of Wii games gathering dust because I'm head deep into the 3DS, but that's another story.

[Stratos]

I have a huge stack of unplayed Wii games I got for cheap off of Amazon. But oddly enough I walk over to the shelf and don't feel like playing half of them now. I seem to be longing for more traditional style games versus the quirky experimental motion games.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Here is something Sony hasn't learned that Nintendo keeps trying to teach them.
How to: Make a Profit 101

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/23/sony-results-idUSL3E7GN0RW20110523

Sony on Monday changed its earnings estimate for the year to March 2011 to a net loss of 260 billion yen ($3.2 billion) from a profit of 70 billion, in the company's first indication of the financial impact of the devastating March earthquake and tsunami.

The company maintained its estimate of an operating profit of 200 billion yen, which compares with analysts' consensus of 197 billion yen, according to a SmartEstimate by ThomsonReuters I/B/E/S. SmartEstimates place additional weight on recent forecasts by top-rated analysts.

OUCH!!!

How much longer can Sony afford to bleed like this? NGP & PS3.5 better be a smashing success and extremely profitable out the gate.


http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/bf4fd94a-8506-11e0-871e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1NAJbujRg

Sony has posted a Y260bn ($3.18bn) net loss for the year ended March 31 due to the impact of Japan’s quake and tsunami and the hacker attacks that forced it to shut down its PlayStation Network, the Japanese electronics company revealed in a preliminary earnings statement Monday.

The company had called a news conference on Monday for 5.30pm local time to announce the revision. Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange are required to inform investors if they believe they will miss earnings targets by 30 per cent or more.

Sony was scheduled to report fourth-quarter and full-year results on Thursday. Analysts had been expecting a Y76bn profit and the company had forecast net income of Y70bn.

Last week Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive, acknowledged that Sony would lose money and customers as a result of the theft of customer information by the hackers, though he did not say how much.

Names, addresses and network passwords belonging to 100m people, including all PSN users, were stolen in the attack.

Looks like Anonymous was successful in hitting Sony where it hurts most. The Pockets and the Headlines.
(edit: wait a second... when did the hacker attacks happen again? wasn't that in April? how would that affect Sony's earning ending March 31st 2011?)


edit 2: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/10revision_sonypre.pdf
Impact of earthquake on operating income in FY 2011 = 17 billion Yen ($207 million)
Impact of earthquake on operating income for FY 2012 = 150 billion Yen ($1.83 billion)

Impact of PSN hacks on operating income for FY 2012 = 14 billion Yen ($171 million)

[Chozo Ghost]

I hope we'll see a far less arrogant and more humble Sony emerge from all this. A good start would be for them to drop that Kevin Butler asshole. If you look up arrogant in the dictionary, you'd probably see a picture of him. He's the mascot of the company and the way he behaves represents the company as a whole.

[NWR_insanolord]

I actually like the Kevin Butler ads. The company needs to stop behaving in the same way he does in them, though.

[lolmonade]

I actually like the Kevin Butler ads. The company needs to stop behaving in the same way he does in them, though.

This.

If you don't care for that type of humor, that's fine.  But it's sure as hell better than this or this

Nothing beats the N64 Smash Bros commercial though.

[Chozo Ghost]

I suppose Kevin Butler is a step up from those earlier demonic/satanic/disturbing PS3 commercials. Of course that isn't saying much.

[oohhboy]

Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten about that PS3 baby campaign of terror.

While I would choose Kevin over Make Believe or any other Playstation ad in existence in a 2 way false choice scenario, Kevin just isn't funny. It's not the type of humour, he just isn't funny at all and add in the fact they try to make him representative of the gamer mindset, it's salt in the wound, unlike the baby, it's a lot more insidious. The Nintendo Wii Would like to Play launch series of ads were funnier in it's weird quirky way.

[Stogi]

Kevin Butler is marketing gold. The setup to the commercials are marketing gold (with a user asking him a question). While I rarely find them "Ha Ha" funny, I wouldn't change either of them; at least not yet.

I hope their loses teach them nothing. Sony products are great because they are so ridiculously bloated with specs that they can't possibly make a profit. So what the consumer gets is a discount on something they couldn't afford before. Also, Sony will forever be in the hacker's eye now. So what ever super-computer they come up with next, you better believe a legion of hackers will make the most out of it.

But who knows. Maybe they'll look back at the PS2 and actually wonder why it was successful.

[Chozo Ghost]

I suppose it would be best if Sony never learns anything, because like Napoleon once said "never interrupt your enemy when he is about to make a mistake". Napoleon was one of the best (if not the best) military strategists of all time and he was fine with his enemies repeating their mistakes as opposed to learning from them. Do we really want to return to the PS2 era with Sony in 1st place and Nintendo far behind? Since this is a Nintendo fansite I would assume most of us would rather have Nintendo be on top.

It is also a good thing from a consumer rights perspective as well, because Sony has proven they are no friend to consumers. So if they aren't humbled and start treating consumers with more respect then the next best thing is for them to stay in the gutter of third place where they are.

[NWR_insanolord]

I don't want anyone on top, at least not to the degree we saw this generation. The reason the 16-bit era was so amazing (beside nostalgia) is that there was close competition between the major players. I want to see all three companies neck and neck (and neck), forcing them to pull out all the stops to win.

[Stogi]

Agreed except that I hope multi-platform titles are built for the console I enjoy the most.

[Ymeegod]

Guess you missed this point "the net loss comes from a $4.4 billion tax accounting write-off".

The company I used to work for done alot of similar stuff, give huge bonuses for themselves than when our yearly report came out it showed an loss. 

Sony isn't hurting as much as you think.

[Chozo Ghost]

I'm thinking that "customer appreciation program" Sony is going to be offering to the 77 million users effected by the PSN hack are going to be used as a tax write off. They're going to say they are giving away $40 or more worth of software away to 77 million people and say this is costing them an arm and a leg, when in reality it costs them very little to give it away because it is digital distribution.

Microsoft pulled some similar crap back when they were punished by the government for violating Anti-trust laws and their punishment was that they had to donate millions of dollars worth of software to schools. Linux could have been provided to the schools instead for free... and the really ironic thing about it is that it actually further solidified the Windows monopoly.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I'm thinking that "customer appreciation program" Sony is going to be offering to the 77 million users effected by the PSN hack are going to be used as a tax write off. They're going to say they are giving away $40 or more worth of software away to 77 million people and say this is costing them an arm and a leg, when in reality it costs them very little to give it away because it is digital distribution.

I think I had said that exact same thing in the PSN thread.

[Spak-Spang]

Seriously, when Brawl was being released I was fairly annoyed to hear Nintendo say, if the developer didn't come to us, we didn't put the character in.

In fact, that is one reason I want a new director heading up this team.  I want a director that understands what the game is, and what gamers want to see in the game...and try their best to provide it.  I want the director to go to the 3rd parties and say.  Hey, gamers really want Mega Man in Smash Brothers, lets make it happen together. 

I want to see a new director take a fairly perfect franchise but figure out how to tweak it even better...infuse it with new ideas, and new directions, because Brawl and Melee didn't change at all.

[Stogi]

Spak, the logistics alone to do that would be mind-boggling. This isn't Marvel vs. Capcom. This is Super Smash Bros. A game where a lot of balance is needed. The more characters there are, the harder it will be to achieve that balance. Having another company come in with their ideas and elements won't freshen up the series. It'll make the series a 'camel'.