"It's fair to say that the first year of PlayStation 3 was somewhat of a difficult one.."
I like Sony, as a game company at least (uh oh). Know why? They're a company that doesn't binge itself so much on marketing and PR that they won't admit their weaknesses. Too many interviews feature journalists asking the same tired questions and the company president or developer or whatever answering with the same tired answers. If we're lucky, we see the journalist asking actually honest questions, like, 'why is your system sucking so bad? How will you make it not suck so bad?' (I'm paraphrasing). But typically at this point we just get tired answers anyway, marketing psychobabble the company owner or whoever was told to say if any 'tough questions' came up. So that's why I like Sony. This isn't to say they're completely devoid of marketing psychobabble, cause I've seen it, but the fact they can admit where they've gone wrong and where they can improve speaks volumes. Marketing people and CEO's don't want anyone from the company saying stuff like that. That means potentially lower stocks, less sales, etc. What they don't realize, (some of them anyway), is at the end of the day, people who support these companies really just want them to be honest. Am I right? We need transparency if we're ever going to really know what to buy, when to buy it, and how to get the most satisfaction out of what we buy.
So yeah, at Sony's own Playstation Day, president Kaz Hirai admitted the Playstation 3 has had 'a rough year':
"It's fair to say that the first year of PlayStation 3 was somewhat a difficult one. There were some teething problems, success from our competitors, and our customers were a little underwhelmed by the range of titles that were available. This was something that we were very much aware of, and something that we were confident we could over come."
Certainly seems to be heading that way too, even though just two killer apps have hit shelves - Gran Turismo 5: Prologue and Grand Theft Auto IV.
"Things have improved since the Christmas season and 2008 has gotten off to a fantastic start," [commented Hirai]. "What fills me with even greater pleasure is that our year so far has only seen the launch of two of our key titles."
Regarding all the Home delays, Hirai apologized, and again, I respect his position. That is, to not release it until he is completely happy with it, as I had suspected:
"I realise this announcement was disappointing to many people, from TGS where we were aiming for a spring launch, so please accept my apologies for this delay. But as I said at Tokyo Game Show, I would not open up Home until I was completely happy with it, and I still stand by that statement."
He says the company believes it can provide the best possible experience with it in the autumn, hence the wait.
Honesty and transparency like this is what could eventually eliminate that hardened tyrant image Sony kind of has now. Again, customers need that with a company, and while it's possible it could hurt them in the short-term, long-term, it's very necessary and could put them ahead of the competition.
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Yeah, it has been lackluster. Sometihng about shoddy games, for the most part, can do that to a system, y'know?