Support NeoGAF

[Voost Kain]

Sony is continuing to lose their minds at least twice a week for the last several months but overall have been diving into anti-consumer/censorship policies for around 2 years now overall. Some smaller ones earlier this generations have been overlooked but now it's been an ever-increasing trainwreck and the people at the top of Sony know this is going on.

1. Shutting down game servers despite still having bigger player pools than games they aren't shutting down, and we are talking FIRST-PARTY games as well.

2. Still to this day developers are calling out Sonys lies about reasons for not having cross-play, breaking it down proving Sony has been lying, and saying Sony themselves are the only reason why Crossplay isn't happening.

3. Related to number 2, the same is happening with companies being allowed to add their apps or features to Sonys console. Sony will make up an excuse and it won't be true.

4. Screwing around with Indie Developers.

5. Trying to force a company to hand over their IP to support it (Sunset overdrive etc.)

6. Removing digital codes from offline and most ONLIINE retailers.

7. Customer Service struggles on basic customer service needs.

8. Ignoring consumer feedback or issues.

9. Locking a PS2 emulator already built-into the PS4 behind a paywall to get more money from consumers.

10. Messing with Japanese companies through censorship.

11. Messing with outreach and marketing campaigns of Japanese companies that are the result of number 10, leading to developers closing or making less money.

12. Several Studio closures.

13. Banning some devs to limit mods or to remove mods altogether.

14. Some free to play games still need PSN+

15. The Fornite fiasco. Along with Epic account fiasco.

16. Their last E3 they actually got rid of the Indie reel they promised to indie developers and replaced it with (entirely)VR because "It's more important to focus on real games" or something to that effect.

17. Struggling with game refunds.

18. PSNOW is a rip off that's charging you a high price to stream games that are cheaper on other services, and are charging you high for PS2 games even though theirs a PS2 emulator built-into the PS4.

19. Still has Minimum deposits for the PlayStation store.

20. Being so full of themselves that last E3 they had an event just to stroke their Ego's and then had everyone get up and pause the show to go to another venue. What?

I mean holy shit, what's going on? This isn't a post-Kaz thing either since he was there. Since Q4 2016 Sony's been diving right into the shit. I've never seen anything like this before. A year ago it was already no longer an argument that this wasn't a small thing, but people still tried to waive it like it was nothing. Now it's even worse and I think it's time to start letting Sony know that we don't like their direction.

Many people are concerned about the future of PS including the PS% unless they start apologizing and reversing on many of their stances that seem to get worse every week. Since Q4 2016 something caused sony to become completely insane, and this is the opposite of the Sony that was trying to come out as the best and most Pro-consumer options. I think it's time to admit that if Sony doesn't shape up they will likely shoot themselves in the foot and the PS5 will be a bumpy ride, as the PS4 is already starting to become a bumpy ride, AT THE END which it shouldn't but what can you do?

People are taking more and more notice and I really don't understand why or what pressured them to keep running down this direction but I think we as gamers need to voice our concerns and MAKE Sony realize that we aren't going to take anything LESS than the Sony that was present in 2013.

 

[rivv3r]

Woop. First person to vote. I win. It's really just the censorship that bothers me. The rest of that I don't much care about tbh.

 

[Shifty]

 

[ShirAhava]

The censorship is something I could never support. I'll be protesting with my wallet when the PS5 is released.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

This kind of stuff is all too common when companies get too comfortable in their position, which is why competition is crucial.

 

[Javthusiast]

The shittiest part is that nobody really complained about fanservice like they are trying to ban outside of a small minority in shit forums like reeeera etc. But sony just went ahead and introduced a new policy out of nowhere and for no reason in the most prude way they could have.

Their games and consoles would continue to sell millions and the normies wouldn't be the wiser about some niche fanservice games they never play anyway or nude stuff like buttocks in dmcv which they wouldn't complain about, same as with mature tv shows like Game of Thrones.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

It's not bad now but they seem to be sliding down the slippery slope.

 

[Turbo Killer]

I play games for the gameplay, censoring boobs and panties is not a big deal to me. You can vote with your wallet, but I like Sony’s internal studios too much to not buy their games.

Also don’t care about cross play since I rarely play online.

 

[Isa]

It does kind of suck. What impacts me is the censorship and shutting down game servers. I love Gravity Rush 2 and Driveclub, but knowing they shut 'em down so soon is very discouraging. One would have hoped that all that free PSN money would have gone to help improve and maintain servers at least in some minor way but it seems it went into corporate wallets and new imperial western ethics and guidelines offices. I'd hope they'd improve but so far nothing they have done in the past several years has been reassuring.

I'm typically a BIG spender but I have little optimism left for the next gen, from any party. I'm probably just going to sit the launch out this gen and see how the first few year(s) play out and save some money.

 

[Fbh]

Didn't you pretty much make the exact same thread like a week ago?
We get it, you don't like Sony and think they are anti consumer. Will you be reminding us of this with a thread every week?

Since we are into posting the same thing over and over I'll just quote my reply from your previous thread:

Shawn Layden: Coughs once during and interview
Voost Kain: Now that Shawn Layden clearly has lung cancer is it the end for Playstation?

Anyway. I definitely think they do have a bunch of shitty practices, particularly in regards to refunds and backwards compatibility (I get no Ps3, but no Ps1 and 2 was disappointing) and I'm also not a fan of their push for censorship.
With that said, I don't think any company is without issues. I have my fair share of complains about Nintendo too and while I don't have an Xbox I'm sure MS probably also has a few problems. I don't really think any big company is ·pro-consumer", all the "good" things they do are done because they think it will be beneficial for the company (either financially or as PR).


Serious question though. Do the analog sticks still have issues on a large scale? My launch dualshock had the "peeling" problem but I've had no issue at all with the 3 other controllers I've gotten since.

 

[TGO]

Voost did Sony kill your dog, fucked your wife in a gang bang and burn down your house and pissed on the ashes or something?

But yeah the whole BC thing is annoying and the censorship is unwarranted.
But that's the sign of the times.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Voost did Sony kill your dog fucked your in a gang bang and burn down your house and pissed on the ashes or something?

But ya the whole BC thing is annoying and the censorship is unwarranted.
But that's the sign of the times.

It's not a sign of the times at Microsoft.

 

[Armorian]

Another thread VK?

 

[Zog]

I play games for the gameplay, censoring boobs and panties is not a big deal to me. You can vote with your wallet, but I like Sony’s internal studios too much to not buy their games.

This is just the beginning, violence will be 'toned down' soon too. Game consumers like to wait until things go too far to complain and seem to have no foresight.

 

[Petrae]

This hubris is common once a platform-holder reaches the top of the mountain. The company inevitably makes poor self-serving decisions which sometimes (not always) comes back to bite them when the slate clears for the next generation. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have all fallen prey to this, and (contrary to what Shawn Layden claims) nobody ever learns from it. They react after the damage is done and the bottom line has been affected.

This doesn’t mean Sony won’t win Gen9, of course. Consumers on average these days are conditioned to accept corporate foolishness more than in the past— and there’s no surefire sign that Microsoft has done enough to make up ground as the other competition.

 

[Turbo Killer]

This is just the beginning, violence will be 'toned down' soon too. Game consumers like to wait until things go too far to complain and seem to have no foresight.

How is that gonna make the gameplay worse?

 

[TGO]

It's not a sign of the times at Microsoft.

Yet.
And Microsoft isn't market leader.
You don't think Sony just "woke" up
and decided to start censorship for no reason?
There a person, a group of people or a vocal majority that has probably triggered them to do so.
And yes they are fucking idiots for doing it.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

I play games for the gameplay, censoring boobs and panties is not a big deal to me. You can vote with your wallet, but I like Sony’s internal studios too much to not buy their games.

Also don’t care about cross play since I rarely play online.

Sony has their hook in me with their first party games. As long as those studios/IPs remain Sony-side, I will buy Sony consoles.

 

[xrnzaaas]

I'd add several points to the list:

- Allowing for shit tier games to be sold in the PS Store. It's turning into a big stinking pile like Steam.

- The store itself is a mess no one is trying to fix. You can't buy the game if you've redeemed it thanks to PS+ and a lof of the games in the store have their descriptions (or even titles) taken straight from Google translator.

- Certification process is a sham. Games with huge bugs are being allowed to be sold. Anthem wasn't the first game to shut down people's PS4's.

- Removing four games from the monthly PS+ lineup and not offering anything in return (for example they could start by adding a single PSVR game each month).

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

those mean a bit little to me. the biggest problem is the fact that we havent seen a good sony conference since 2016. 2017 and 2018 had some of the worst E3 i've ever seen. they didnt show up.

they are disappointing fans of niche games. they just want your ps+ money and want you to play fortnite and buy gaas items

they are dragging the same games across 2-3 years of events. and in the case of days gone. 4 years already

before people say they shows stuff too early. no they didn't. the ps4 has less than half the ps3 exclusives.

they are going down the path that microsoft went. and it makes it very easy for me to never buy a dedicated console again.

 

[ph33rknot]

How is that gonna make the gameplay worse?

Kratos will be trying to talk the the gods into just giving upin the new Gow

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

How many times do we got to have this thread from Voost Kain? Half of those points scream [CITATION NEEDED].

 

[Shifty]

As ever, your points read like a stream-of-consciousness rant that got itemized into a list. But, let's see...

1. Shutting down game servers despite still having bigger player pools than games they aren't shutting down, and we are talking FIRST-PARTY games as well.

Crappy, but fairly normal as the industry goes.

2. Still to this day developers are calling out Sonys lies about reasons for not having cross-play, breaking it down proving Sony has been lying, and saying Sony themselves are the only reason why Crossplay isn't happening.

Yeah, at this point everyone knows they were fronting.

3. Related to number 2, the same is happening with companies being allowed to add their apps or features to Sonys console. Sony will make up an excuse and it won't be true.

Care to elaborate on this, post some sources? A fair few of these points are pretty well-known, but this one is vague.

4. Screwing around with Indie Developers.

Normal-ish for any small venture trying to deal with platform holders. Examples?

5. Trying to force a company to hand over their IP to support it (Sunset overdrive etc.)

What?

6. Removing digital codes from offline and most ONLIINE retailers.

Yeah that kind of sucks I guess.

7. Customer Service struggles on basic customer service needs.

Ayup.

8. Ignoring consumer feedback or issues.

Big Business 101: If it costs extra, don't fix it.

9. Locking a PS2 emulator already built-into the PS4 behind a paywall to get more money from consumers.

This was bullshit last week, and it's still bullshit this week. The emulator and PS2 BIOS are packaged separately with each game and no amount of "nuh-uh I'm right tho" is going to change that.

If you're going to make the argument for why BC emulation should be free then you should at least address the facts rather than your own baseless assumptions.

10. Messing with Japanese companies through censorship.

Yup.

11. Messing with outreach and marketing campaigns of Japanese companies that are the result of number 10, leading to developers closing or making less money.

You're gonna need to explain this one a bit more, because it sounds like you're trying to spread one point across two bulletpoints to pad this out.

12. Several Studio closures.

Again, normal for the games industry.

13. Banning some devs to limit mods or to remove mods altogether.

Needs receipts.

14. Some free to play games still need PSN+

That's dumb.

15. The Fornite fiasco. Along with Epic account fiasco.

I remember the Epic accounts being locked to PSN-only, but what was the 'Fortnite fiasco'?

16. Their last E3 they actually got rid of the Indie reel they promised to indie developers and replaced it with (entirely)VR because "It's more important to focus on real games" or something to that effect.

When you say 'promised to indie developers' do you mean "they told indies it would happen and it didn't", or "they promised it for previous years and it didn't happen"? Because the latter is itsfuckingnothing.gif

17. Struggling with game refunds.

Yuuuup.

18. PSNOW is a rip off that's charging you a high price to stream games that are cheaper on other services, and are charging you high for PS2 games even though theirs a PS2 emulator built-into the PS4.

Who gives a fuck about streaming tho ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And your point about the PS2 emulator remains bullshit until you can show some proof that what you claim is in fact true.

19. Still has Minimum deposits for the PlayStation store.

That sucks.

20. Being so full of themselves that last E3 they had an event just to stroke their Ego's and then had everyone get up and pause the show to go to another venue. What?

Being insufferably smug is absolutely the industry standard for trade shows. Sony just happened to out-smug everyone else that year.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Give Voost credit. He's just balancing out the console warring threads where it was probably a 20:1 ratio of Xbox Sucks Anti-Consumer threads back in 2013-2016.

 

[Verdanth]

GAF be like:

Because we have to chase him. Because he's the hero Stadia deserves, but not the one it needs right now, so we'll hunt him. Because he can take it, because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector, he is Voost Kain.

 

[MDSLKTR]

Another thread VK?

This time he added colors, bold colors.

 

[Shifty]

This time he added colors, bold colors.

Very important for adding emphasis

 

[ph33rknot]

most of what he says its true but it's something everyone has done it just happens to be Sony's turn

 

[TLZ]

How many threads are you going to create to keep pushing this? You already have a similar thread.

Just fucking stop.

 

[93xfan]

A couple of things to add to the OP.

Their treatment of the Socom franchise when MANY have made it clear that we at least want a remaster of 2’s online.

They make consoles that sound like a jet engine, and then brag about how sleek it is.

Their touting of how they would have PS1 BC this gen through emulation (before the PS4 was released).

Lack of any meaningful OS updates for years. Why can I not join parties from my smart phone like I can on Xbox?

I won’t be getting a PS5 at launch unless they make some drastic changes.

 

[ph33rknot]

How many threads are you going to create to keep pushing this? You already have a similar thread.

Just fucking stop.

you can just ignore the thread

 

[AlexxKidd]

What kind of ebonics is this thread title "Sony is self sabotaging themselves"? You didn't not write that, didn't you not?

 

[PropellerEar]

I dislike censorship, but other than that I'm very happy with PS and Sony.

Nothing on that list that will keep me from buying their games and consoles.

 

[TLZ]

you can just ignore the thread

I will. But creating the same thread not long after the other same one, why? Just keep posting in that same thread. Or are we going to expect the same thread created each week? It's like ground hog day.

 

[ph33rknot]

I will. But creating the same thread not long after the other same one, why? Just keep posting in that same thread. Or are we going to expect the same thread created each week? It's like ground hog day.

he's passionate what can i say

 

[Damian black]

Censorship sucks ass but, Im pretty sure that when xbox was still getting niche japanese games, during 360 years, they either refused to release at least 1 game on the console or asked the dev to tone down something.
Why was nobody bitching about that?

 

[Afro Republican]

He made the same thread twice because he got like 13 likes in the first thread and though he could bVoost his ego image with the same topic.

I noticed OP omitted this bulletpoint from the other thread:

Controlling some Japanese retail release dates in the west.

So I guess OP gave up on that. Still going hard on the built-in emulator though. Even though that's not how it works. Granted, I do I agree PSNOW is a ripoff but that's another topic.

Of course, the likelihood OP has ever had a PS4, is as likely as you flying by flapping your arms while wearing handcuffs. Which means Zero%.

 

[Shin]

Pointing out Sony's fault is the same as not breathing air on most online forums and a civil conversation isn't to be had.
In the end people will only care about themselves and their enjoyment until it affects them directly, by that time it's too late.
This is why I don't wish anything ill of the big 3, because without them the market will just become more boring as we go.

 

[Panajev2001a]

he's passionate what can i say

Or he wants to make sure he stays in the front page and as many people as possible are exposed to his... content and maybe as many people that disagree with him have ignored him as possible so it becomes more of a monologue?

 

[ODESZA]

I don't care about censored anime boobs nor cross-play.

Most of that list is non-issues for the majority since PS4 doesn't look to be slowing down yet.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

I don't care about censored anime boobs nor cross-play.

Most of that list is non-issues for the majority since PS4 doesn't look to be slowing down yet.

Anecdotal cares has no relevance to what should or should not be happening.

 

[Afro Republican]

Very important for adding emphasis

IF I SAY STADIA HAS NO LATENCY ISSUES IN GIANT LETTERS LIKE THIS IT WILL BECOME TRUE EVEN IF ITS FALSE.

 

[ph33rknot]

Or he wants to make sure he stays in the front page and as many people as possible are exposed to his... content and maybe as many people that disagree with him have ignored him as possible so it becomes more of a monologue?

that's passion

 

[theHFIC]

 

[Humdinger]

No.

Boo hoo. Get over it.

 

[ph33rknot]

No.

Boo hoo. Get over it.

No what?

 

[Dirk Benedict]

Sony delisting Driveclub, almost entirely, can be added to the list.
https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/03/29/all-driveclub-content-will-be-delisted-from-psn-in-august

 

[LuvOfThaGame]

Sony delisting Driveclub, almost entirely, can be added to the list.
https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/03/29/all-driveclub-content-will-be-delisted-from-psn-in-august

Not only delisted, which can be understandable with licenses, but MP will be completely shut down. That is anti consumer as hell.

 

[Tarkus98]

Was on the fence but voted NO. Then the DRIVECLUB debacle happened and I just had to change my vote to FUCK YES!

 

[CatCouch]

I really am incredibly unhappy with Sony. Censorship is the big one for me. While I am sure it is tainting my view of the whole platform Sony is selling me a product and if I feel uneasy about it I don't need to buy it.

Most the issues listed are not deal breakers for me but that Japanese censorship is devastating. I buy damn near every Japanese RPG and live for games like Gravity Rush. Sony has made it clear these games are not something they care about nor want on their platform. The fact Devil May Cry V is censored (more) on PS4 is just sad.

More Japanese games seem to be releasing on other platforms now so I think I'll support them there. Sword Art Online on Xbox? Yes!

I'm not a fan of console wars and I don't consider censorship a console war issue as I did drop Nintendo for a while after all the localization changes a few years ago. Nintendo has proven to me they want my money and I'm happy to give it to them. If Sony stops the censorship I'll be right there to buy games again! Let me give you money, Sony!