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Sony’s Andrew House Found Microsoft’s Response to the PS4 Pro “Quite Intriguing”

Roshin

Member
What has MS done exactly? All I've seen is some tweets that mentioned more features on their system?

Is that big of a deal really?

Some people are trying really hard to turn this into a console war, it seems. We're at the "But he said, she said" stage now. I believe handbags are next.
 
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like there's a difference between the disgusting and hateful console warriors you see on Twitter and other sites, vs. these little jabs that Microsoft and Sony give to each other.
 

Melchiah

Member
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like there's a difference between the disgusting and hateful console warriors you see on Twitter and other sites, vs. these little jabs that Microsoft and Sony give to each other.

There's a difference, but still, if you make a point out of it publicly, one would assume you'd take the high road, instead of giving ammunition to them.
 
It's the job of PR to point out how their product strengths. If they didn't they should have been sacked. That's not console wars. it is quite literally their job.

At no point did the tweets explicitly refer to any other platform, but only reaffirmed the positive elements of their own product. If, by implication they are drawing attention to missing features another platform, that's fine too. Maybe House should have thought about including the damn feature in the first place.

The PR gaffs of the last few weeks are entirely of Sony's doing.
 

BeeDog

Member
Don't see at all how this would fan the console war flames; as many have said, it's literally promoting some features/bullet-points that your main competitor has stupidly left out. And God knows Microsoft could need a couple of more wins in their bag, phew.
 
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like there's a difference between the disgusting and hateful console warriors you see on Twitter and other sites, vs. these little jabs that Microsoft and Sony give to each other.

Yeah there's naturally a world of difference between twitter fanboys and jabs between companies.

Still it's hilarious to see MS with Phil go from "I don't like console wars" when they were getting pummeled (and frankly still are) to now taking pot shots at the competition when they have any leg to stand on.

I like it all though, jabs between firms are part of this industry.
 

Kayant

Member
It's the job of PR to point out how their product strengths. If they didn't they should have been sacked. That's not console wars. it is quite literally their job.

At no point did the tweets explicitly refer to any other platform, but only reaffirmed the positive elements of their own product. If, by implication they are drawing attention to missing features another platform, that's fine too. Maybe House should have thought about including the damn feature in the first place.

The PR gaffs of the last few weeks are entirely of Sony's doing.
The argument isn't PR isn't allowed to promote their product or re promote in line with news to establish it against a competitor when they have PR disasters and such but Phil as explicitly talked about not wanting to do this.

Phil Spencer 2015 said:

Also just because the PR doesn't directly compare against a competitive product doesn't mean the intentions of the promotion isn't clear when it's done in close proximity to news from a competitive product with material directly aimed at what was released.

And without directly saying it. He essentially concluded what has happened with these tweets so far.
Phil Spencer said:
 
You guys have lost the plot, lol.

Offended by a tweet and trying your best to make this more than it is. Its Marketing 101 and it was perfectly positioned and delivered as can be seen by the numerous threads it has created on this very forum.

I really hope everyone calling out Spencer as a liar or a hypocrite or calling the tweet 'console wars' is either 12 years old or a Sony shareholder, other than that I cant see why so many are so invested in this.

Its a truly incredible
over
reaction, lol.
 
tinfoil-hat-guy.jpg


Do you honestly think Phil Spencer gives a shit about "console wars"? (Which is actually just a tiny subset of people arguing over tweets, memes and games on Internet forums)

The guy has to manage the entire Xbox division, all of it's employees and partnerships, and you think he has the time of day to sanction Twitter messages?

Probably the most naive thing I've ever read on here.

Isn't it great the way he gets to claim to be morally superior while his subordinates can do anything they want irrespective of their boss's stated position? He gets to have his cake and eat it, too! Almost like they planned it that way...

Like I've said in the past, Phil Spencer is all talk. Actions speak louder than words and the actions of his employees sure don't reflect the values he claims to hold.
 

Journey

Banned
Actions speak louder than words indeed. In this case action = Scorpio's design and 4K Blu-ray support. I'm sure Phil was very involved in those decisions which I'm sure took years of planning, so it amazes me how a tweet that probably took 30 sec to plan and I'm pretty sure didn't require approval from the board of directors, suddenly = Phil Spencer is dishonest or a hypocrite.

Sound like someone pulling the trigger way too early because of their high sodium levels.
 
Actions speak louder than words indeed. In this case action = Scorpio's design and 4K Blu-ray support. I'm sure Phil was very involved in those decisions which I'm sure took years of planning, so it amazes me how a tweet that probably took 30 sec to plan and I'm pretty sure didn't require approval from the board of directors, suddenly = Phil Spencer is dishonest or a hypocrite.

Sound like someone pulling the trigger way too early because of their high sodium levels.
Is this you self-critiquing your own post? :p
 

gtj1092

Member
Actions speak louder than words indeed. In this case action = Scorpio's design and 4K Blu-ray support. I'm sure Phil was very involved in those decisions which I'm sure took years of planning, so it amazes me how a tweet that probably took 30 sec to plan and I'm pretty sure didn't require approval from the board of directors, suddenly = Phil Spencer is dishonest or a hypocrite.

Sound like someone pulling the trigger way too early because of their high sodium levels.

But he somehow wasn't part of the planning for DRM, TV and Kinect. Phil truly is Jesus all powerful but only responsible for the things we like.

So is Phil responsible for the new MS culture or not?
 
Still people try to make this MS tweet console wars. It just basic marketing, they didn't do just to make Sony workers feel bad, no matter how hurt you got in process.
 
Lmao at people saying he's salty, I bet he had a huge smile on his face as he made this completely tongue-in-cheek comment. I do find it odd that Microsoft are suddenly beating their chest again though after completely fucking up with the XBO, maybe they should wait until they've actually shown the Scorpio and some worthwhile games before being so smug.
 

EGM1966

Member
This many replies? Really. Both companies will always take a swing at the other. It's inevitable.

They take whatever ammo is available. MS more or less said they won't do X then promptly did X. So Sony call it out. MS see themselves with extra bullet points over specs. So they call it out.

There's really nothing more to say. It was obviously MS would take a pop at specs and its obvious Sony would take a pop at MS apparently backtracking on comments made.

PR and competition is all it is.
 

Hermii

Member
Do you think Phil personally wrote or approved that tweet?

I bet whoever wrote it felt really clever about it, and didnt ask upper management for permission before he did.

Also its really tame. Nothing compared to that trade in and sell your games vid sony made back in the day.
 

thelastword

Banned
Kinda sad that they can't even confirm if the PS4 Pro will support Sony's own 4K streaming service.

Really, you're leaving it up to Netflix to be the only source of 4K video on a console whose purpose is to serve 4K owners?
Everybody has Netflix, why not announce 4k service for the service you know everybody and their grannies have access to. Their service is not close to being as popular, which one would you refer to in a conference to attract buyers?

Everybody knows that 4k streaming is coming on Sony's Service, doesn't mean they should announce everything on Day 1, you have to leave some news for later. It's baffling some of the thoughts really...Should Sony announce that the PS4 firmware would be patched for HDR at launch?

Simply stating your console have something your competition don't is stepping over the line?

That's tame as all hell, especially given the ways I've seen hardware manufacturers, not just console makers, taunt each others over the years, e.g motherboard brands.
No it's not over the line to do that, but the majority of the checkmarks in that tweet was false advertising. Critiically and sales-wise MS does not have the best games. They attempted to compare an XB1 S to a pro, when the Pro runs circles around the XB1 S with it's primary objective as a gaming console. These companies tend to forget that these consoles are all about playing games, the rest is just secondary and insignificant. It was the same MS which thought that the Xb1 as a media box, with a cable port and kinnect to change channels and to skype friends would sell Xboxes like hot cakes, it did not pan out.

It's the same MS which is now thinking that a UHD drive on a weak console is going to change their forecast....NO, it's not going to happen, as if anybody would hook up an XB1 s to a 4k tv, when the thing can barely handle 720-60fps games. If my primary reason for buying an XB1 was for media capabilities and UHD, I would just buy a dedicated UHD player with more features and have my PC on hand for everything else. These consoles are sold on a combined effort of good specs and good games......especially good exclusives...

House isn't saying that Sony did not take shots at the competition. They most certainly did. Sony's 2013 press conference was Jack Tretton throwing haymaker after haymaker.

House is pointing at Microsoft's comments from the past year about the "console wars" not being important. He is saying that mindset was short-lived compared to what has been the history of competition between Microsoft and Sony since the Xbox 360.

Andy House is not saying he is not the Pot. He is saying the Kettle is talking like the Pot and Kettle again.

Basically Microsoft was acting like they were above this and the console competition when everyone was saying they were getting their ass kicked and House found it amusing.
Yes, pretty much. Ms has been acting humble only because they've behind the eight ball. All it took was for them to announce some Phantom numbers and a console a year+ away and they now believe they have regained mindshare and are now in a position to start slinging shots.


6TF is nice and all, but we have not seen it, and yet, it's so far away that Sony has a whole year to put out all it's heavy hitters on .Pro in their 4th year. So Sony really is in prime position, not only on exclusives in 2017, but to advance an even bigger gap against the competition as it relates to multiplatform games.

It will be interesting to see what all these UHD proponents have to say if the XB1 S does not outsell the PS4 Slim or the PS4.Pro this holiday season. If what gamers truly want are higher fidelity movies over higher fidelity games, then Sony will have to pick up it's brow from the floor after this huge mistake ;) (Come December and January 2017 NPD).....

I say this as a Sony fan: the only thing intriguing over the last two weeks, is the complete and total misdirection/miscommunication during the reveal of the PlayStation Pro. Andrew's intrigue should be less concerned about Xbox's Twitter tactics and more concerned with how to genuinely educate consumers- who even at the enthusiast/journalist level- are genuinely misinformed.

When the press is parroting words such as: "The Xbox One S and PlayStation Pro are comparable," ; when the PlayStation 4 Slim thread has denizens of users under the impression 1080p gamer's won't see any difference between the Pro and the vanilla machine; AND when popular Youtubers/PlayStation personalities/hardcore gamers insist they won't benefit from Pro without a 4K television or HDR: someone failed at their job.

How an organization that has been so on the ball this entire generation could fumble an introduction to an entirely new paradigm in the console space in less than an hour in a collage of the absolute worst presentation since E3 2006 intermixed techno-babble and compressed footage run through a vaseline filter- THAT IS WHAT I CALL INTRIGUING.
It was a very short presentation by Sony, they communicated benefits for both 1080p and 4k tv users right there in that short conference. Hell, even the leak slides denotes benefits for either user stating "that everygame will autocheck your TV" and apply the specific tv mode with stated benefits....

1080p TV:
Supersampling, Better Framerate, Better Presets (higher graphical quality).

4k TV :
Higher resolution, Crisper image, HDR (wider color gamut, more intricate detail), a great balance of good presets and IQ.

For the life of me, I don't know how this has been lost in translation, it's pretty much something which has been known even before the conference. At this point, I think the people saying they don't know the benefits of .Pro for 1080P TV's are just not being honest because it's been spelled out before and during the conference.

Marketing and discussions for the .Pro aren't at a standstill either. Cerny is to go on a media barrage soon, explaining the hardware in more intricate detail, but I'm sure it will be directed and discussed mostly amongst the hardcore anyway...... I'm sure the discussion will gravitate to the extra GPU hardware features beyond Polaris that Cerny alluded to at the conference....and we all want to get further details on the checkerboarding hardware, the extra 512 MB that was released to devs, improvements to Wifi. What improvements were made to the PS4 ARM processor with it's 2Gb of DDR3, what new pieces of hardware and features which have not been detailed yet......So yes, I think Cerny's message will be mainly for Hardcores and journalists and yet I'm sure he will mention the benefits to owners of both 4k and 1080p TV's which will again be filtered down to consumers before the release date

At the end of the day, what does a mom wishing to buy little Jimmy a new playstation want to know? Is it more powerful than Vanilla? Yes, Will it play games with better framerates and higher resolution? Yes. The 4k TV in the den will games look nicer or take advantage of it? Yes, Will all my current PS4 games work on the .Pro? Yes..How much is it? $400.00......That's all they need to know and I think that was communicated well...

It's a bit disingenuous for people to come on a board saying they don't know what the Pro does for 1080P tv users. That's like a PC guy saying he doesn't know what benefits going from 4k on a GTX 970 to 1080p will net him in framerate and playability....I'm also willing to say that the same benefits 1080p TV users will be getting on .Pro come November, is the same benefits Scorpio will offer to 1080p users a year+ away.

So at this point, I'm not convinced of any of the persons saying they have no idea what the .Pro does for them and their set-up, as if they were not told........

True, but the best response would be silence and a smile... or if something must be said then keep it classy (I.e., a compliment to the effect of "MS has done well and they offer a nice alternative. There's clearly room for both products to do well and we welcome the competition as it keeps us on our toes. Next question.") Instead, the way he responded clearly made it sound as if he was bitter about him perceiving MS as taking a potshot at the early market response to the Pro's lack of a UHD player. Better to acknowledge and play up the "We're all gamers" angle. Stick to the high road.

What a garbage response from Andy. Less we forget all the Sony trolling for the past 3 years. Hypocrite much?
@amdb00mer....An interview is about answering questions posed. You dislike his answer because it doesn't jive with you, but yet it's the truth, are you suggesting that he should have lied instead?

Hell, why do an interview at all?..... or perhaps not answer any of the questions posed, he should have just plead the fifth and go MUMMM... because I'm sure the other questions he answered must be considered garbage to someone else. Are we that thin skinned that we're asking for him to be quiet and diplomatic with an answer here? House didn't call anybody a fraud, he just gave a soft chuckle of an answer, which is what such a question deserves.
 
omg guys he hardly said anything at all. Was he supposed to say "no comment"?

This.

When the press is parroting words such as: "The Xbox One S and PlayStation Pro are comparable," ; when the PlayStation 4 Slim thread has denizens of users under the impression 1080p gamer's won't see any difference between the Pro and the vanilla machine; AND when popular Youtubers/PlayStation personalities/hardcore gamers insist they won't benefit from Pro without a 4K television or HDR: someone failed at their job.

The thing is the press/media also failed at their job if some of them can perpetuate that the Xbox One S (where sub-1080p games remain the same) and Playstation 4 Pro are exactly the same, when Sony showed and talked about examples of benefits to 1080p TV owners in addition to 4K TV owners at the briefing as one of the topics (like when they talked about For Honor for both kinds of TVs and then we also got information about Tomb Raider's impressive 3 options for both 4K and 1080p TVs), just because the Pro doesn't have a drive for playing UHD blu-ray movies when the games are getting substantial upgrades (though it's true they should have put a big list of how other big upcoming games will be handling it too). If the UHD BDs were used for games that could be a different story (like with the PS3 putting games on blu-rays). So if the media is spreading FUD that they know is false then that too is going to confuse potential buyers.
 

amdb00mer

Member
Everybody has Netflix, why not announce 4k service for the service you know everybody and their grannies have access to. Their service is not close to being as popular, which one would you refer to in a conference to attract buyers?

Everybody knows that 4k streaming is coming on Sony's Service, doesn't mean they should announce everything on Day 1, you have to leave some news for later. It's baffling some of the thoughts really...Should Sony announce that the PS4 firmware would be patched for HDR at launch?

No it's not over the line to do that, but the majority of the checkmarks in that tweet was false advertising. Critiically and sales-wise MS does not have the best games. They attempted to compare an XB1 S to a pro, when the Pro runs circles around the XB1 S with it's primary objective as a gaming console. These companies tend to forget that these consoles are all about playing games, the rest is just secondary and insignificant. It was the same MS which thought that the Xb1 as a media box, with a cable port and kinnect to change channels and to skype friends would sell Xboxes like hot cakes, it did not pan out.

It's the same MS which is now thinking that a UHD drive on a weak console is going to change their forecast....NO, it's not going to happen, as if anybody would hook up an XB1 s to a 4k tv, when the thing can barely handle 720-60fps games. If my primary reason for buying an XB1 was for media capabilities and UHD, I would just buy a dedicated UHD player with more features and have my PC on hand for everything else. These consoles are sold on a combined effort of good specs and good games......especially good exclusives...

Yes, pretty much. Ms has been acting humble only because they've behind the eight ball. All it took was for them to announce some Phantom numbers and a console a year+ away and they now believe they have regained mindshare and are now in a position to start slinging shots.


6TF is nice and all, but we have not seen it, and yet, it's so far away that Sony has a whole year to put out all it's heavy hitters on .Pro in their 4th year. So Sony really is in prime position, not only on exclusives in 2017, but to advance an even bigger gap against the competition as it relates to multiplatform games.

It will be interesting to see what all these UHD proponents have to say if the XB1 S does not outsell the PS4 Slim or the PS4.Pro this holiday season. If what gamers truly want are higher fidelity movies over higher fidelity games, then Sony will have to pick up it's brow from the floor after this huge mistake ;) (Come December and January 2017 NPD).....

It was a very short presentation by Sony, they communicated benefits for both 1080p and 4k tv users right there in that short conference. Hell, even the leak slides denotes benefits for either user stating "that everygame will autocheck your TV" and apply the specific tv mode with stated benefits....

1080p TV:
Supersampling, Better Framerate, Better Presets (higher graphical quality).

4k TV :
Higher resolution, Crisper image, HDR (wider color gamut, more intricate detail), a great balance of good presets and IQ.

For the life of me, I don't know how this has been lost in translation, it's pretty much something which has been known even before the conference. At this point, I think the people saying they don't know the benefits of .Pro for 1080P TV's are just not being honest because it's been spelled out before and during the conference.

Marketing and discussions for the .Pro aren't at a standstill either. Cerny is to go on a media barrage soon, explaining the hardware in more intricate detail, but I'm sure it will be directed and discussed mostly amongst the hardcore anyway...... I'm sure the discussion will gravitate to the extra GPU hardware features beyond Polaris that Cerny alluded to at the conference....and we all want to get further details on the checkerboarding hardware, the extra 512 MB that was released to devs, improvements to Wifi. What improvements were made to the PS4 ARM processor with it's 2Gb of DDR3, what new pieces of hardware and features which have not been detailed yet......So yes, I think Cerny's message will be mainly for Hardcores and journalists and yet I'm sure he will mention the benefits to owners of both 4k and 1080p TV's which will again be filtered down to consumers before the release date

At the end of the day, what does a mom wishing to buy little Jimmy a new playstation want to know? Is it more powerful than Vanilla? Yes, Will it play games with better framerates and higher resolution? Yes. The 4k TV in the den will games look nicer or take advantage of it? Yes, Will all my current PS4 games work on the .Pro? Yes..How much is it? $400.00......That's all they need to know and I think that was communicated well...

It's a bit disingenuous for people to come on a board saying they don't know what the Pro does for 1080P tv users. That's like a PC guy saying he doesn't know what benefits going from 4k on a GTX 970 to 1080p will net him in framerate and playability....I'm also willing to say that the same benefits 1080p TV users will be getting on .Pro come November, is the same benefits Scorpio will offer to 1080p users a year+ away.

So at this point, I'm not convinced of any of the persons saying they have no idea what the .Pro does for them and their set-up, as if they were not told........



@amdb00mer....An interview is about answering questions posed. You dislike his answer because it doesn't jive with you, but yet it's the truth, are you suggesting that he should have lied instead?

Hell, why do an interview at all?..... or perhaps not answer any of the questions posed, he should have just plead the fifth and go MUMMM... because I'm sure the other questions he answered must be considered garbage to someone else. Are we that thin skinned that we're asking for him to be quiet and diplomatic with an answer here? House didn't call anybody a fraud, he just gave a soft chuckle of an answer, which is what such a question deserves.

Wow. I think you need to take a step back and look at the post you made and think about it. It might help you answer a few questions about yourself...
SMH
 
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