alexandros
Banned
Nah, not really. He was just using harsh language to make Sony understand how big the problem was.
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Gabe Newell bombshell quotes
- Thread starter alexandros
- Start date
Nah, not really. He was just using harsh language to make Sony understand how big the problem was.
Company A would still need to make a pay-off and company B won't be exactly be prepared to accept a worse contract with no guarantee for the future. And if it was cheaper to cancel the contract, the public damage would still be too great. A console isn't like a television where you have other televisions to make up for the public damage, it is a product you can only launch once every four-five years in an industry that is very fickle and requires a lot of support.
~65 Million down from ~150 million, remember he didn't say just up and leave gaming all together he says "do over". Who's to say a quick reworking of the console couldn't have made a lot more than 65 (that's less than both the PS1 and PS2 which both surpassed 100 mil), keep in mind this quote was about 2 months after the release of the PS3 so it was early days and I dunno how long a "do over" takes considering I'm not particularly savvy as to what would need to be changed but I would love to have some parallel universe skills to see how it would've panned it if they went down that road.
More Fun To Compute
Member
It might be a little controversial I suppose but it seems that games get cancelled or change platforms all the time. And all we are talking about is changing specs for an unreleased console and a delay for release.
You're not even addressing my post, despite quoting it. They have lost shitloads of money this generation, and next generation will likely present an even greater challenge to console makers in terms of pulling a profit.
GregLombardi
Member
Are people in this thread really trying to argue that the Playstation 3 hasn't been a disaster for Sony?
- Financial destruction? Check.
- Loss of any relevance in dedicated entertainment devices of the future? Check.
- Massive loss of market share? Check.
- Weakening of the Playstation brand? Check.
I agree there are some amazing games on PS3, and it has performed better over time. But this is not the position Sony wanted to find itself in after the success of PS2 and PS1, and to argue that it's no big deal is really kind of blind to the truth.
- Financial destruction? Check.
- Loss of any relevance in dedicated entertainment devices of the future? Check.
- Massive loss of market share? Check.
- Weakening of the Playstation brand? Check.
I agree there are some amazing games on PS3, and it has performed better over time. But this is not the position Sony wanted to find itself in after the success of PS2 and PS1, and to argue that it's no big deal is really kind of blind to the truth.
At this moment a company like Sony has 10-20 games in development, yet they still get reminded of stuff like The Getaway getting cancelled. Now look back at the storm the delay of the PS3 caused, or the fact that the specs got changed between E3 2005 and 2006. People where already in an uproar because they removed HDMI and USB ports. Newell's speech came after the release of the PS3 by the way.
What are you referring to?
More Fun To Compute
Member
Nobody cares about any of that stuff now.
Microsoft have shut down or let go a whole bunch of great prestigious studios. They dropped backing for games like Psychonauts. Their release hardware was a disaster and kinect is just not ready for prime time. But all that people care about is that they can play cod and fifa on xbox live or whatever.
corporate cheerleader
Member
MightyHedgehog
Member
They never would have had to switch so late in the game had they picked a more sensible set of priorities to begin with, but, yeah, it would have cost more to change more drastically. They were on top of the gaming and entertainment world and at the height of their brand power and sales success with tons of money to throw around...so I guess that hubris helped them into their situation. Hindsight, though, certainly makes it feel like it was nothing but bad for anyone who had to live and die by their decisions in those early PS3 days, sort of like the PS2, from what I gather.
Indeed, it just took about three years to make up for the fact their console got delayed by six months and they scraped those ports. Now think what would have happened if they delayed even further, or scraped it altogether.
Yes, and a lot of people regard their first party studio-strategy as weak because of this despite having gigantic successes like Halo.
And they wouldn't have been able to do just that on the PS3 if Sony followed your strategy.
They have lost shitloads of money this generation and they would have still lost money regardless. Sony lost money when they lanuched the ps2 as well.
sony's sucess hinges on having a large marketshare. If the ps3 had the same 60percent share like the ps2 had, we would never had these comments about friendly hardware this or software friendly that. Sony would be raking in the money and no one would be questioning anything.
Basically the wii threw a spanner into sony's plan and microsoft took their big third party gems from last generation. If the generation started like how last gen started sony would be laughing all day and every day
More Fun To Compute
Member
People were holding back on buying a PS3 last year because they removed a port from the back of the console on launch?
And people complain about Nintendo first party being too strong. So what? We are talking about Sony not making money.
Don't get your point. If the cod and fifa experience was just undeniably better on a reworked PS3 then you can bet that Microsoft would have had to react.
2006 + 3 = 2011? You expect the PS3 to launch with lower specs than expected, or even later than expected, yet think the public damage wouldn't be big.
You involved Microsoft, didn't you?
if they had canned the PS3 and waited on a weaker Wii to launch the reworked PS3, they would have launched last year and people wouldn't be able to play CoD and FIFA at all during four years. And they still wouldn't be able to counter the fact many CoD players are buying the 360 version because they started there, because Microsoft buys the DLC and because their friends are playing there.
This is laughable at best. PS3 ended up being the best console this generation for a lot of people, it just took awhile to get there. It's because of how well the PS3 ended up that I'll be getting a PS4 as soon as possible next generation over any other console.
I'm sure it wasn't their plan to lose lots of money. And it was their own fault for their loss of market share, not Nintendo. They were extremely arrogant.
Yeah, the losses really aren't comparable.....
murderofMonkey
Banned
ps2 sold ~ 120 million at the release of the ps3.
well, still bad numbers though.
derExperte
Member
Actually, a not-so-stealth "that Newell is a smart guy, maybe we should hear what he has to say and consider it".
But why yet another thread for this? All the arguments get already repeated constantly in the other ones, will there now be a new one every single time not only when Gabe says something but even when somebody quotes Gabe saying something? A bit much imo.
More Fun To Compute
Member
So in 2009 people were not buying PS3 because they didn't like the number of ports on the back but in 2010 they didn't care any more? Glad we have that straight because I was thinking we might just be going a bit off the rails.
I'm saying that Microsoft and Nintendo have their own first party development strategy and saying that have a bad public image doesn't mean that Sony are "winning" if people think their public image is fantastic.
I was thinking more like an 08/09 release than last year but if you think that the 360 is such a great package that most people would go for that instead then why think that Sony should stay in the console business at all?
Absolutely factually correct.
But even if they finish in second, they should still feel the burn of failure when they compare the PS3 to PS2. Plus they should be ashamed that Microsoft essentially split the HD market with them, despite the fact Microsoft really only sold this console in 2 territories world wide - North America and Europe.
airmangataosenai
Member
At the time PS3 was roughly 5 million behind 360, today the difference is around 2 million, maybe a little less and has shrunk dramatically every year. When all's said and done, there will almost certainly be more PS3s sold than 360s. Since when does that constitute "Firmly"?
PS2 dropped to $199 a year and a half after it launched. BIG difference in price between PS2 and where PS3 has been (plus, the global economy hasn't been kind). ~65 Mil with PS3's pricing is pretty impressive. It just hurt Sony financially, but people still bought it at its prices. A do over isn't as simple as "hey, let's scrap this and try again really quick." Pulling PS3 would've been a PR nightmare.
Well, Gabe said: "Sony lost track of what customers wanted." Not true.
Customers didn't want $599. They didn't want the Ferrari of game consoles. Sony thought they did, and it cost them dearly.
This plus that they launched a year later.
That said, compared to prev. gen they are bad.
That said, Nintendo put all on one card and was victorius.
fastford58
Member
Wow. Console WARZ all up in this bitch. Maybe some of you should head over to the chartz.
WrenchNinja
Member
Isn't the gaming division the only one that's making money?
Barack Lesnar
Banned
Yep, he got laughed out of the Windows 8 thread, ignoring so many posts that pointed out the flaws in his arguments, so he makes a thread like this. Most non-stealth stealth thread ever.
Their media buisness is making money i.e film and music as their insurance arm. Sony electronics is the issue. Bread and butter of the company. sony electronics needs to be in good health for the future of the company.
To illustrate the problem, sony accounts for 30 percent of all camera sensors sold in the world. and they have just entered the lucrative medical buisness. On the other hand they went from being the world's largest tv manufacturer to currently third with losses for 8 straight years.
1. I was talking about their public image. That is different from people deciding not to buy it for a specific reason. You can have the best console on the market, but if your public image is against you, that will reflectly poorly on your sales. People won't buy it because of negative attention in general generated thanks to causes as the delay and the lack of ports, because they'll consider it a bad product. It took three years to turn that public image back around thanks to errors like those. They won't do that in three years with your example.
3. You said when the Wii was dying off. In 2008 and 2009 that certainly wasn't the case. And did I say the 360 was a great console? I just stated why people wouldn't switch to the PS3 to play CoD, even if it was better looking. The Xbox 360 will always have the edge on Call of Duty for this generation.
The PS3 is the worst single financial disaster in the history of video games. I can say that confidently and without hyperbole.
Just because Sony does some things wrong (e.g. the basic structure and design of the PS3) does not mean they don't also do some things right (e.g. the open nature of their network relative to the competition). It's possible for someone to not be a fanboy, and criticize a company for doing X while also praising them for doing Y.
The PS3:
1) Is going to sell ~70-80M less than its predecessor. This is the largest absolute drop off in sales intergenerationally, larger even than the drop from the SNES to the N64, or the NES to the SNES.
2) Is also going to have the largest market share drop on a percentage basis rather than an absolute one.
3) Has lost ~5 Billion dollars, the most money ever lost on a single venture in video game history. More than the original Xbox (infamous for its loss leading), more than Dreamcast.
By virtually any reasonable metric, no system has ever done as poorly as the PS3 has. The only lense through which it "beats" the other failing systems (like Dreamcast or 3D0) is through total sales, which is a terrible metric since the PS3 is the follow up to the PS2 and they could have called it the PSPooh and still sold more than either of those systems. This does not mean you cannot enjoy your Playstation 3; it's the only current gen system I still own. It just means the system is a financial disaster, and it would be great if we could just move on from that discussion because there isn't a great deal of wiggle room with the facts. The system is still fun regardless, just as one could argue that Dreamcast was still fun and enjoyable even though it was a financial disaster.
1) Is going to sell ~70-80M less than its predecessor. This is the largest absolute drop off in sales intergenerationally, larger even than the drop from the SNES to the N64, or the NES to the SNES.
2) Is also going to have the largest market share drop on a percentage basis rather than an absolute one.
3) Has lost ~5 Billion dollars, the most money ever lost on a single venture in video game history. More than the original Xbox (infamous for its loss leading), more than Dreamcast.
By virtually any reasonable metric, no system has ever done as poorly as the PS3 has. The only lense through which it "beats" the other failing systems (like Dreamcast or 3D0) is through total sales, which is a terrible metric since the PS3 is the follow up to the PS2 and they could have called it the PSPooh and still sold more than either of those systems. This does not mean you cannot enjoy your Playstation 3; it's the only current gen system I still own. It just means the system is a financial disaster, and it would be great if we could just move on from that discussion because there isn't a great deal of wiggle room with the facts. The system is still fun regardless, just as one could argue that Dreamcast was still fun and enjoyable even though it was a financial disaster.
Midnight Believer
Member
Really quite unrelated to this thread but Gabe Newell suggested Kickstarter style public funding for games years ago on ABCÂ’s Good Game show
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/07/21/gabe-newell-suggests-public-funding-for-games/
Video interview
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/07/21/gabe-newell-suggests-public-funding-for-games/
Video interview
I H8 Memes
Member
Damit dude I just came in to post this : )
And like a lot of things he has said over the years I thought it sounded like a well meant, but silly idea. I've now learned to never doubt The Gaben.
That's not my point. Gabe said Sony lost track of what customers wanted. I guess MS did too, because that would be based on how many systems sold, not how much it cost Sony. I know PS3 is a disaster for Sony.
And I don't even have a PS3 anymore since it died. I'm more of an Xbox guy anyway
And I can't say how much the drop between total system sales of PS2 vs. PS3 will really prove ... price difference between the systems' cycle is drastic. A $199 PS3 in Spring 2008 would tell a different story. Then there is the economy tanking, too - lol. PS3 most likely will fall short of PS2's hardware numbers. And yes, I know it doesn't matter overall because it bled Sony pretty bad regardless of how many units they sell.
...moving on
Considering 360 has sold almost 3 times the amount that Xbox did, then based on how many systems sold, MS didn't lose track of what consumers wanted.
He was talking about price. This was something he said in January 2007, when price point was the most pressing issue with the console.
They set the specs and the price. It proves that they greatly overestimated the system's appeal. Also, Microsoft had to sell their machine under the exact same economic conditions as Sony.
alexandros
Banned
Please try reading that thread and please try reading this thread. Actually reading, not skimming to the parts that you agree with. In any case, I don't intend to be dragged into a personal conflict. You have your opinion and I respect it, even if I disagree completely.
airmangataosenai
Member
Well.... duh? None of those systems sold anywhere near 70 million units so naturally they couldn't possibly have that type of drop-off in unit sales. The PS1 skewed our perspective on what a major success looked like but in the previous generations something like the PS3 would've ended up handily being the market leader.
And I realize some will try to argue that the VirtualBoy wasn't intended to be the successor to the GameBoy, but it totally was. And it indeed would have a larger drop-off in pure unit sales.
Dreams-Visions
Member
I'm sure it wasn't their plan to lose lots of money. And it was their own fault for their loss of market share, not Nintendo. They were extremely arrogant.
Yeah, the losses really aren't comparable.....
I just looked at this graph closely and realized that through 2010, the PS3 losses not only reversed all of the income that the PS2 made them in its entire span, but also took half of all PSOne income down with it. When you think about just how successful the PSOne and PS2 were in their respective generations...it's hard to fathom this.
Disastrous.
That comparison is more than a little disingenuous.
DeaconKnowledge
Member
You saved me the trouble.
phosphor112
Banned
Except Portal 2, even exluding steamworks, is superior to the 360 version.
It also took down all the PSP profit and all the game profits they made during those years from a fairly sizable first party catalog.