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Eurogamer Phil Harrison interview (PS2, PSP, PS3)

SolidSnakex said:
DO you get this angry when Nintendo starts shooting off bullshit?

You crack me up. You're always trying to prove every poster is a hypocrite, it's pretty funny.

Poster1: "Sony pisses me off with its vicious LIES."
SSX: "What about Nintendo and Microsoft with THEIR vicious lies - they piss you off too, eh? HUH!? ADMIT IT YOU GOD DAMNED HYPOCRITE BASTARD!"

That's not an insult or compliment, I just find it amusing :p
 
Amir0x said:
You crack me up. You're always trying to prove every poster is a hypocrite, it's pretty funny.

Poster1: "Sony pisses me off with its vicious LIES."
SSX: "What about Nintendo and Microsoft with THEIR vicious lies - they piss you off too, eh? HUH!? ADMIT IT YOU GOD DAMNED HYPOCRITE BASTARD!"

That's not an insult or compliment, I just find it amusing :p

I do my best. ;)
 
SolidSnakex said:
DO you get this angry when Nintendo starts shooting off bullshit?

Yes. Just trying to think of the last time they lied about something.
 
Oblivion said:
Yes. Just trying to think of the last time they lied about something.

How will this affect your personal life? Sex life? Social Life?

Its also debatable if he outright lied, I'm not sure a company exec is willing to outright lie, but sure your commentary should have more credence led to it.
 
Sony has said time and time again that they don't believe in NPD numbers. All they believe in is the cold hard fact of their own internal production numbers (which are basically always larger).

And... they don't know Nintendo's internal numbers, because once they leave Nintendo they're not "internal" anymore, so they're maybe able to believe Nintendo's NPD performance numbers. Maybe. They still doubt them, so for Sony, the possibility always still exists that Nintendo's NPD numbers are too high.
 
BorkBork said:
There's spinning, and there's outright lying. That simple really.
Yeah, and here at GAF, no one knows what this is. But some people would sure like to pidgeonhole it...

For all people here know, PSP is beating DS and the PSP did sell 10million to retailers first.
 
Oblivion said:
Yes. Just trying to think of the last time they lied about something.

"We think Animal Crossing is a quality game."

Nobody can say that honestly. That's just plain bullshitting to the public.
 
BlueTsunami said:
How will this affect your personal life? Sex life? Social Life?

Lol. Dude (or is it dudette? Seriously, I'm not sure, so forgive me, that wasn't an insult :) ), I get angry but it's not like I'm gonna run on a rampage downtown or nothing. :P
 
Kleegamefan said:
"It will make you say WOW!"

Ah, of course. Yes, I was quite furious when they revealed the specs. Even though we haven't seen any footage yet.
 
DCharlie said:
well, we still don't know what the games are going to look like - they might still make us go wow.

Well I certainly hope so. But judging by the fact that even the best looking 360 launch games barely made some cynical people go "wow", I doubt that a Rev as gimped as the IGN article implied will make anyone go "WOW" in a positive way.

I'm sorry, I'm still pretty pissed at that. F U Nintendo.
 
SolidSnakex said:
DO you get this angry when Nintendo starts shooting off bullshit?
I don't know, I haven't actively noticed when/if that happened.

The closest I can think of was when they said "one million brains trained" - which was shipped. There may have been other incidents that I didn't hear of. The figures I see them using in their powerpoints are usually "according to NPD group" etc and match the numbers Fuzzy keeps us up to date with for the most part.

I don't know why I argue with someone that is so seemingly and absolutely indifferent about almost everything, be it company press releases or grafitti advertisements. No wait, actually that is only the case when they are Sony related, nevermind.

(See, I can do it too, but my avatar is probably not helping matters right now :lol)
 
It's ok elostyle just change your avatar to a hot chick doing some dance moves and then nobody will care what the content of your posts are.
 
I just wish for once the person doing the interview would call bullpoop. Just flat out tell the person they are full of it. And for once could the person being interviewed answer a tough question instead of spinning it?

any way..go get em n-bots. Sony smugness is getting out of hand. And his comments on hdtv are just too stupid to comment about.
 
Norse said:
any way..go get em n-bots. Sony smugness is getting out of hand. And his comments on hdtv are just too stupid to comment about.

<SolidSnakex> Oh, really. What about Nintendo and Microsoft's smugness? Do they annoy you too? HM? You hypocrite bastard.
 
Norse said:
Sony smugness is getting out of hand.
They've got a looong way to go before they could hope to match the smugness of people in this very thread willing to call someone a bald-faced liar on the strength of nothing more than cobbled together sales estimates.

But, you're right, it would have been nice to have seen a more probing interview.
 
People are so stupid...Ds isn't outselling the psp because of the so-called "great" games, it's it's damn price. Had psp have the price of ds, DS would've gotten murdered.
 
Pity they made this interview before the holiday sales are over as Mr. Harrison will most likely be much more interested in talking PS3 release details somewhere in January next year.
 
Pimpwerx said:
As for the sales, I don't believe Sony ever uses sell-through. But as long as retailer continue to order shipments, sell-through means nothing. Units have to be sold somehow, unless retailers are just buying them for paperweights or something. There's a finite capacity in the distribution chain, so continued shipments mean continued sales, and the shipments should be a fair indication of sell-through. PEACE.
It's possible Sony may be forcing retail orders to reach certain levels to "ensure" future shipments of other hot products like PlayStation 3. Sony and Nintendo have both done this before to boost lagging products actually.
 
pixelbox said:
People are so stupid...Ds isn't outselling the psp because of the so-called "great" games, it's it's damn price. Had psp have the price of ds, DS would've gotten murdered.
Catch 22. Have a DS with the same graphics as PSP, then it'd get murdered.

Pricing isn't arbitrary here. Sony wanted cutting edge visuals, that demands a cutting edge pricepoint. Nintendo wanted a low end pricepoint, that forced a low end chipset. Even if DS is outselling PSP only due to pricing, that's a planned strategic victory for Nintendo and a loss for Sony.
 
kaching said:
They've got a looong way to go before they could hope to match the smugness of people in this very thread willing to call someone a bald-faced liar on the strength of nothing more than cobbled together sales estimates.
They're industry wide accepted estimates though. Even the manufacturers themselves reference them.

It's all beside the point though, as I believe GBA actually shipped 10 million units faster than PSP even. Phil's either avoiding or distorting the truth here.
 
jarrod said:
They're industry wide accepted estimates though. Even the manufacturers themselves reference them.
These estimates that you refer to as industry wide accepted are not assembled under one consistent tracking system for all retailers globally, don't get data from all retailers and they're tracked regionally by different groups with different standards for estimating final numbers. That the manufacturers reference them doesn't speak to anything other than the fact that there's nothing better, which is why they also tend to fall back on shipped numbers so much.

It's all beside the point though, as I believe GBA actually shipped 10 million units faster than PSP even.
Not really beside the point if Phil is answering the question put to him, which only asked about DS and PSP.

Phil's either avoiding or distorting the truth here.
Could be. The existing evidence doesn't prove that though.
 
Well, this should be easy...

kaching said:
These estimates that you refer to as industry wide accepted are not assembled under one consistent tracking system for all retailers globally, don't get data from all retailers and they're tracked regionally by different groups with different standards for estimating final numbers. That the manufacturers reference them doesn't speak to anything other than the fact that there's nothing better, which is why they also tend to fall back on shipped numbers so much.
As a wise man once said... could be. The existing evidence doesn't prove that though.


kaching said:
Not really beside the point if Phil is answering the question put to him, which only asked about DS and PSP.

Phil Harrison said:
PlayStation Portable has been the fastest-selling machine to ten million units.
Isn't that factually incorrect? :)
 
Kaching, while your points about NPD data may be correct, it's really, really clear that Phil is trying to paint a picture other than the truth here. It is being blown a little out of proportion by the Nfans, but Phil wants people to believe the PSP is doing gangbusters when in fact, it's merely solid.

Now, in the UK it certainly does seem to be very hot, so that may color the perspective of the interview-- but claiming 10 M sold is bogus.
 
Rhindle said:
He's actually uncharacteristically demure in this interview. As other Sony reps have been lately. It's all a bit odd.
It's all part of the new "Emo-Era" that will mark the real shift in this generation. Hell, we even have Balmer crying like a little bitch that he can't buy Xbox for his kids, instead of threatening that he'll personally go and kill each and every ebay Xbox re-seller so that his kids can play.
 
pixelbox said:
People are so stupid...Ds isn't outselling the psp because of the so-called "great" games, it's it's damn price. Had psp have the price of ds, DS would've gotten murdered.
Why are you so hateful young one? I have plenty of money to spare and no desire for a PSP, TAKE THAT!
 
elostyle said:
Why are you so hateful young one? I have plenty of money to spare and no desire for a PSP, TAKE THAT!

haters shouldn't admit they don't have a particular system which they try to shoot down in every single thread.
 
jarrod said:
Isn't that factually incorrect? :)


He didn't say 'first to 10m', he said 'fastest to 10m'. I am assuming he wants to avoid a direct comparison of sales between DS and PSP as they are later to market with PSP in some areas.

'faster than' is something they are fond of using with PS2 (and do in that interview). It paints a picture of greater overall sales, and therefore its the platform you should be developing on. Harrison's other speculative comment about 150m PS2s helps in that regard to keep publishers on PS2 (thats his job after all)

Of course, all of this hinges on whether Sony have sold/shipped/made/invented 10m PSPs worldwide. Harrison wouldn't say so unless he thinks they have by their measurements.

I'm guessing he doesn't get his figures from GAF, which keeps us all in popcorn.
 
Ignatz Mouse said:
Kaching, while your points about NPD data may be correct, it's really, really clear that Phil is trying to paint a picture other than the truth here. It is being blown a little out of proportion by the Nfans, but Phil wants people to believe the PSP is doing gangbusters when in fact, it's merely solid.

Now, in the UK it certainly does seem to be very hot, so that may color the perspective of the interview-- but claiming 10 M sold is bogus.

It isn't completely bogus, though. Especially as we are in middle December and he may be claiming numbers for year end. Look at the potential breakdown by the end of December for PSP sales:

Europe - 3 million
USA - 3 million
Japan - 2.5 million
Canada - Already > 500K I believe it just cracked 600K

So that is over 9 million sold right there. Add in other small territories and the PSP could be around 10 million sold by years end.
 
In Target stores in my district the DS (all bundles and normal handheld) outsell the PSP 3:1 DAILY.

And people rarely bring in the Catalog with our error.
 
Mrbob said:
It isn't completely bogus, though. Especially as we are in middle December and he may be claiming numbers for year end. Look at the potential breakdown by the end of December for PSP sales:

Europe - 3 million
USA - 3 million
Japan - 2.5 million
Canada - Already > 500K I believe it just cracked 600K

So that is over 9 million sold right there. Add in other small territories and the PSP could be around 10 million sold by years end.
That could be but even then the fastest selling bit would still make no sense - UNLESS he is meaning that in the context of the UK in which case using the 10m number would be a tough spin since it is the worldwide one.
 
jarrod said:
Catch 22. Have a DS with the same graphics as PSP, then it'd get murdered.

Pricing isn't arbitrary here. Sony wanted cutting edge visuals, that demands a cutting edge pricepoint. Nintendo wanted a low end pricepoint, that forced a low end chipset. Even if DS is outselling PSP only due to pricing, that's a planned strategic victory for Nintendo and a loss for Sony.

I would add that I think Sony to an extent had to take that cutting edge strategy since Nintendo already dominated the sweetspot in terms of pricing with the Game Boys and they knew that they could not enter the market at all without jumping the technology curve and go for the high-end market. So I don't think it was a simple matter of choice, they both forced each other to steer away from the norm established by the Game Boy line, one with its specs and the other with game design.
 
jarrod said:
As a wise man once said... could be. The existing evidence doesn't prove that though.
Right, existing evidence isn't enough to prove anything here - that there's reasonable doubt is the whole point.

Isn't that factually incorrect? :)
See above.
 
mrklaw said:
He didn't say 'first to 10m', he said 'fastest to 10m'. I am assuming he wants to avoid a direct comparison of sales between DS and PSP as they are later to market with PSP in some areas.

'faster than' is something they are fond of using with PS2 (and do in that interview). It paints a picture of greater overall sales, and therefore its the platform you should be developing on. Harrison's other speculative comment about 150m PS2s helps in that regard to keep publishers on PS2 (thats his job after all)

Of course, all of this hinges on whether Sony have sold/shipped/made/invented 10m PSPs worldwide. Harrison wouldn't say so unless he thinks they have by their measurements.

I'm guessing he doesn't get his figures from GAF, which keeps us all in popcorn.
Funny that, when GBC & GBA have actually been the fastest selling platforms since Sony even got into videogames. Both had hit 10 million in less time on market than PSP I believe, both also passed 45 million within 3 years. No matter how you slice it, PSP isn't the first machine to hit 10 million in the shortest amount of time.

Phil's statement can also be put under scrutiny thanks to exactly what Sony Corp counts as "shipped" versus other manufacturers. As Sony counts unsphipped production units and unit orders, while Nintendo and Microsoft don't, it makes any direct comparison by them on those figures questionable. At best here, Phil's being misleading...
 
Look back at Sony previsions back in April:
Twelve million units apiece of the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable consoles will be shipped worldwide in the financial year through to March 31st, 2006, according to the latest projections released by Sony.

The figures would bring worldwide shipments of the PSP to around 15 million units by the end of the financial year, while the PlayStation 2 - which currently has a global installed base of well over 80 million units - would be within shouting distance of 100 million units.
How many of these 15 million units does Sony expect to sell exactly?
 
Mrbob said:
It isn't completely bogus, though. Especially as we are in middle December and he may be claiming numbers for year end. Look at the potential breakdown by the end of December for PSP sales:

Europe - 3 million
USA - 3 million
Japan - 2.5 million
Canada - Already > 500K I believe it just cracked 600K

So that is over 9 million sold right there. Add in other small territories and the PSP could be around 10 million sold by years end.

europe 3 million ??? 500k canada seems unrealistic as well, canada is usually 10% of US market.
 
thorns said:
europe 3 million ??? 500k canada seems unrealistic as well, canada is usually 10% of US market.

I don't know, man. At least in Toronto, PSPs are getting a little harder to find. They can still be found, but not as easily as it was a few months ago (Gigapack was a real hit for Sony; I'm not sure why they discontinued it).
 
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