That has more to do with corporate culture. NCL (Nintendo in Japan) pretty much decides all the big stuff. Every decision goes through them. I think the local officies of sony has more control in that regard, so also more conflict
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Former Sony Employee reveals info on the Vita, store closings, culture war
- Thread starter LebGuns
- Start date
That has more to do with corporate culture. NCL (Nintendo in Japan) pretty much decides all the big stuff. Every decision goes through them. I think the local officies of sony has more control in that regard, so also more conflict
You could tell the writing was on the wall for PSV in '17 because they stopped letting its games get mass discounts. I will never not be salty about this entire thing. I feel like if Nintendo managed to turn things around for 3DS and even supported the clearly failing proposition that was the Wii U until late in its life cycle, then Sony could and should have put more force behind it too.
Last edited:
Totally. I think their AAA output is excellent. Hell, some of my favorite games ever made were part of their AAA lineup. Still, I am pretty fond of a lot of their less glitzy IPs. I wish they saw the value in also producing games with lower budgets that earn them a moderate profit. If I were to choose between getting one more Uncharted or getting another Gravity Rush, MediEvil, and another new (but smaller in budget) IP, I would take the variety over the blockbuster. But that is the frustrating thing, they don't have to choose. They are quite capable of doing both at the same time. They just had a great run starting from the last couple of years of the PS3 to the end of the PS4. But it feels like they are heading in an unfortunate direction. Worse yet, these companies never course correct until shit blows up in their faces. Ugh...
This all feels like common sense to me, but you still have gamers talking as if Sony makes these decisions to fuck with people rather than because, you know, they're a business.
I was just thinking today I really think that prestige is EXACTLY what got them that momentum to finally eek out a lead at the end of the ps360 gen from being way behind. They then ROAD that brand onto a pretty straight forward console with the PS4.
This shit matters, a lot. I feel like the execs have like, viewed the entirety of that brand on the big sellers like Naughty Dog games, but it wasn't. Those were just the foremost ships. The big talking points. But they were part of a big sea of quality exclusives. It doesn't work if you only have those games. You need the variety to fill it out. That's how you build a brand. A feeling built on a cloud of info.
PSP Piracy Days had Sony SHOOK! PSVita suffered in an aspect because of that and it showed.
Sad.
Sad.
Really interested to see what Sony's next blowout on games is like. Big hitters? Great. But I'd be a bit sad if there aren't the unexpected/out of left field titles.
Obviously this stuff can't course correct overnight but I also wonder, if they do have a narrow focus, how aware they are of the reaction in enthusiast circles.
Obviously this stuff can't course correct overnight but I also wonder, if they do have a narrow focus, how aware they are of the reaction in enthusiast circles.
Yeah, this is the thing that leapt out at me more than anything else tbh.
A lot of the other things they've been doing as a company lately has been fairly baffling, but this is straight up dumb and almost vindictive. They'd rather not sell any extra games to their existing user base and make money out of it because they'd rather that audience NOT continue to use their Vitas? Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. At this point it's practically free money they are rejecting for really quite stupid reasons.
Incredibly so. I don't understand what could have motivated it either. I find it hard to ascribe spite to a company, but it sure feels spiteful.
This is the stupidest fucking logic. If it's the MOST REQUESTED feature, why do they give a shit if people use it or not? "Oh no, it would make the fans happy and might drive more sales for our platform, but we don't think they actually use it enough." Also, if people aren't playing old games on it, that's good you idiots because it means they're buying new games. I hate corporate beancounters.
Being the loudest voice != being the representative of the community.
For example, if THE ENTIRETY of ResetEra (as an example of a very vocal and important community in games) screamed to the heavens about backwards compatibility, if we went rabid here, on social media, everywhere about playing their PS3 games on a PS5, and we were the only ones to use the feature...
.... merely 50.000 users would use it. Out of an estimated 100 million consoles they will sell.
Of course, in reality, more people would use it. But really, we need to understand that the enthuastic people like Era or Reddit or whatever are a very very loud minority. We are not representative of 90% of the people that buy consoles or games.
Normal people want their PS5 to play the newest FIFA, GTA, COD.
Not FIFA 15 and COD World at War.
What Xbox is doing is not adding BC to mainly have more sales, but they're doing it as a reaffirmation of the idea of "Xbox as an unique platform".
Now, don't think I believe Sony is not misguided in this, Xbox has the right idea.
But on a pure business focus, BC is a small small thing, and people should understand that.
The presence of BC was a HUGE selling point when PS2 came out; everyone was like hell yeah I can toss out my old shit. It ABSOLUTELY drove sales.
I think you completely missed my point. People want shit for all sorts of impractical reasons. People spend loads of money on stuff they never use. If people buy a PS5 and don't end up playing as many PS2 games as they thought they would... oops they already bought a PS5.Being the loudest voice != being the representative of the community.
For example, if THE ENTIRETY of ResetEra (as an example of a very vocal and important community in games) screamed to the heavens about backwards compatibility, if we went rabid here, on social media, everywhere about playing their PS3 games on a PS5, and we were the only ones to use the feature...
.... merely 50.000 users would use it. Out of an estimated 100 million consoles they will sell.
Of course, in reality, more people would use it. But really, we need to understand that the enthuastic people like Era or Reddit or whatever are a very very loud minority. We are not representative of 90% of the people that buy consoles or games.
Normal people want their PS5 to play the newest FIFA, GTA, COD.
Not FIFA 15 and COD World at War.
What Xbox is doing is not adding BC to mainly have more sales, but they're doing it as a reaffirmation of the idea of "Xbox as an unique platform".
Now, don't think I believe Sony is not misguided in this, Xbox has the right idea.
But on a pure business focus, BC is a small small thing, and people should understand that.
I am quoting the supposed insider in the OP.
Last edited:
No, I got your point perfectly, but you didn't get mine.
My point is that the ones that actually request the BC are not the problem, even if they don't end up using it. The problem is that they're resources (time and money) used for something that won't matter for the rest.
If the ones that scream the loudest seem more than what they are, you develop a feature that is interesting for maybe 1M people, but not for the other 99M users that will buy the console. You won't win more people, and you developed something that's not useful for you sales wise or most of the people that have your console.
A dead end.
Specially if you are Sony, and you want people to buy PlayStation 5, not "PlayStation as a platform" like Xbox does.
Which is why I said this before:
We (as in "enthuastic users") are not the general market. We have to understand that.
ok, then your argument doesn't make any sense, unless you have inside information. The supposed insider in the OP said it's ONE OF THE MOST requested features. Not the least. Most. What does that have to do with this forum? What?
Every time I hear people talk about how backwards compatibility is unpopular my eyes nearly roll out my head.
How many people with a PS5 or XSX/S are not playing BC games? Virtually none. It was and is an absolute nonsense argument when a generation of consoles launched without it.
If you give people BC and make it work properly it will be used.
How many people with a PS5 or XSX/S are not playing BC games? Virtually none. It was and is an absolute nonsense argument when a generation of consoles launched without it.
If you give people BC and make it work properly it will be used.
Yea but it seems like it's the most requested feature by a specific group of people rather than by the general audience. You mentioned that adding BC would drive sales but wouldn't catering to the broader needs of the people do even more to drive sales?
interesting stuff but none of it surprising. I'm not even an insider and I guessed most of his answers.
The PS3 went out with a bang in 2013. Last of Us was the biggest one but it wasn't the only one.
and consider if you're a company who also made games for the thing, supported it and earned sony money on the platform. they won't let you discount games you put the work into.
What? Who said it was the least requested? I honestly think you're not reading my posts.
Or worse, do you really think Joe Normal goes to the Playstation Blog and request for backwards compatibility? You really think that the people that demand features to console makers are anyone else than the enthuastic users?
Because if you really think that, it's quite laughable.
Why would you interpret it that way?
You can't do both?
... what?
Sure. We'll just have to see how it goes. From a business POV it makes sense to focus on the tentpole releases that sell 10+ million copies, but the smaller games like MediEvil that still managed to sell well added variety to their lineup.
I have no fucking clue what more do you want me to say given how you're not even trying to read.
Still ignoring the entirety of the three posts I've written.
Wonderful dude.
Because it being the most requested and least used feature is an oxymoron.
That would be ideal but I don't have access to their finances or schedule so it's hard to say.
Your posts are claiming that these requests could have only possibly come from a tiny hardcore base residing on a single forum, yet you apparently have no idea how people in business gather product requirements.
I don't think it's oxymoronic at all.
I think it was probably a lot more true at the beginning of the 360/PS3 era than it is now. Generations were a lot more well defined, people buying new consoles wanted to play new games. Additionally back then it was way easier to buy the last-gen consoles for cheap, so if you just wanted to play some PS2 games you could pick up a PS2 for under 100$ (probably well under that if you were buying used). They also didn't have the advantage of performance boosts, and on the 360 it wasn't uncommon if BC Xbox games had performance issues.
Now generations are a lot more iterative and just getting better running versions of stuff you've already been playing is a major selling point.
I will say that I don't think pre-PS4 BC would be used much, though. But it would still be nice to have. I see no reason not to have the ability to play PS1 discs off an internal emulator or something.
We have a break down of Switch models sales in Japan (sell-through by Famitsu):
Switch (hybrid): 15.630.549 (81.3%)
Switch Lite (handheld only): 3.589.875 (18.7%)
Old people are too used to the old dichotomy between home consoles and handheld consoles, which started with the NES/GB, to understand that the Switch success is based on making that old convention obsolete, all for the gain of the end user (which don't care about that convention and just want to play console games as much as possible therefore a hybrid console that adapt to your lifestyle is a very entincing proposition).
Last edited:
Again, no one said a single forum. That's what "For example" means in my first post, which you, again, clearly didn't read.
But you do you, man, if you still want to think a regular dude who just wants to play the newest FIFA on his shiny new console fills the surveys PlayStation sends him with "please, BC is a MUST", have a blast!
That's because technically, Nintendo has already done that. Or at least, they never operated in the same way PlayStation does. NCL has all the meaningful decision making power. NoE, NoA etc. are glorified marketing and local action divisions. As far as products and development, they have very little sway and their role is really to appropriate Nintendo's messaging and brand for the regions they look after.
Yeah, I'd be really pissed off if I were those studios.
Perhaps I should rephrase the saying. It's not just Sony cutting their nose off to spite their face, they are also cutting the nose off the faces the group of people standing next to them.
It's just so easy to say something that didn't exist wouldn't be used much but now that it's there it's used but not for the very obvious fact that it's actually you know there, but these other reasons.
Games do not simply stop being wanted or playable because a new gen comes along.
Just for those memory cards to become the very reason for people to deliberately go out and find a way to use SD cards. Those memory cards were (and still are) such a terrible design choice. Combined with those ridiculous prices that really started to climb recently!
Your average JP gamer barely recognizes SIE as a Japanese company because it's controlled by SIEA. They've been restructured so much because of financial and political nonsense that it makes communicating with these people a chore.
You can't compare it to Nintendo where all of the IP and development muscle is centralized
You can't compare it to Nintendo where all of the IP and development muscle is centralized
You'll find that's the case when it's native prompts but games are not forced to use the native SDKs for the UI within the game itself as it's bespoke for the game. They can talk to a native SDK layer that will provide them the right button to prompt but that has to be a conscious decision by the developer to use it.
Hiroshi Yamauchi shaped up Nintendo around traits he thought were the best to make his company succesfull.
Japan making all the decision (NoJ doesn't exists, what exists is Nintendo Co Ltd or NCL), making products that are unique, be a platform holder that don't depend on outside companies it all started with Yamauchi.
Playstation managment wise to me is now the most simillar to late Xbox 360/early Xbox One MS. Slow abandonment of Japan after the early days of 360, concentracte on blockbusters like Halo, Forza, Gears and 3rd party games like CoD or GTA, project existing for the sake of the multimedia TV/Movie push like The Last of Us Remake while MS at that time had an obsession with Xbox being a multimedia device hyping up Halo TV series or making Quantum Break.
I'm guessing their logic is if it's not used then it's not worth investing. I am curious where they are pulling their data though. They couldn't see how the PS2 was used with its PS1 BC. Could they see it on the PS3? They quickly removed it with newer models. The PS4 only really has PS2 games that you have to buy again. That shouldn't count as BC. Are they looking at the vita and PSP BC?
His comparison with Metroid is flawed because Nintendo continued to make Metroid games. It is telling of the mentality of each company nowadays.
Sony abandons products that are profitable if they are not as profitable as they hope, or as profitable as other products. It's sad because they are the ones setting those goals in the first place. It's one of the issues of capitalism that Sony is embracing too much, perhaps a sign of moving from Japan to America over the years: making money doing what you love is not enough, you need to make a shit ton of money, even if that implies painful sacrifices along the way.
Sony abandons products that are profitable if they are not as profitable as they hope, or as profitable as other products. It's sad because they are the ones setting those goals in the first place. It's one of the issues of capitalism that Sony is embracing too much, perhaps a sign of moving from Japan to America over the years: making money doing what you love is not enough, you need to make a shit ton of money, even if that implies painful sacrifices along the way.
Not true at all. PS still has and definitely has Japanese 3rd party support unless Nintendo come up with something as powerful as PS5. (Nintendo: lol nope)
