Sony CEO On The PS4: Why Go First?

Azhar said:
Mr. Hirai, why go first? Well maybe it's so that everyone doesn't go out and buy the next Xbox and decide to forgo the PS4 because they don't need more than one console? By letting someone go first, you give that guy a chance to mature their hardware and games, that by the time the PS4 comes out, people would say "well the Xbox has more games".
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But didn't the PS2 blow the Dreamcast, and by extension Sega, out of the market, specifically by putting better HW in the thing and making the populace believe the "next gen" started with the PS2?

So from Sonys experience, going last has its advantages.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Wait, aren't the Xbox and PS3 worldwide sales are almost identical... even though the PS3 came out a year later (so it's actually sold more in less time...). They also still have the biggest selling console ever. So they can't be doing so badly. :p
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Depending on whose numbers you believe either Sony or Microsoft is slightly ahead in sales of the current generation so they've basically sold the same amount. But Nintendo has somehow managed to outsell both of them with the Wii and is still the third place finisher when it comes to game sales. So the number of consoles you can sell doesn't guarantee any sort of success.

SilverSliver said:
How about because it's their only hope of getting converts if they are the first guys on the block with the new generation consoles? It's been so long between generations that whoever drops the first new gen console will get a LOT of sales from those who, traditionally, would have preferred a specific brand.
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Sega Dreamcast released in North America September 9th, 1999. Sony Playstation 2 released in North America October 26th, 2000 (more than a year later). The Dreamcast was declared dead less than two years after it was released the PS2 was only just shown the door. Being first can be an advantage but that advantage can be mitigated.
 
gamerk2 said:
But didn't the PS2 blow the Dreamcast, and by extension Sega, out of the market, specifically by putting better HW in the thing and making the populace believe the "next gen" started with the PS2?

So from Sonys experience, going last has its advantages.
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Sony had a lot going for them at the time. The Sony of yore was a brand to reckon with. They could put out ads and commercial and blow everyone out of the water with a snap of their fingers. Sony meant quality and Sony meant business.

Nowadays? Not so much. Like with Bose, everyone else caught up with technology that Sony and Bose no longer have reasons to keep their prices as high as they do, but they're deluded into thinking people still buy into their brand.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039540419 said:
Yeah, coming from PC gaming, it absolutely disgusts me that they essentially charge you a fee in order to get online with the device you own.

I have to say, I liked the PS3 model much better...

...that is, until they got hacked, and everything went downhill.
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I played PS1 (twisted metal, gran turismo) and N64 (gooldeneye, perfect darkm mkart) like a madman but then converted to PC gaming. I am with you as well on being aggravated that you must pay to utilize something you already put money down for. For this reason I don't own either MS or PS anymore. I have a Wii but it has quite a layer of dust with dead batteries. Most of my experience with the Xbox and PS2/3 generation are friends and family asking me to play when over. I am starting to become worried at all of this must be online and call to home stuff that the PC is doing recently. Ubisoft, Blizzard and so on....

As others have said, getting hacked is a 2 way street for any argument. Everyone can and eventually will be backed if money and personal data are involved.
 
If MS and Nintendo are any good at their jobs then they already know what the specs of the PS4 are. As should Sony know what the specs of the other two are. There are no secrets.
 
It's what i have told my self, "no new console because they can't".

It's not 1990 any more! people have a world of choice and not just a TV commercial.
 
He didn't mean 'why release first', he meant 'why announce first'. Eg - let Microsoft announce whatever it is they are going to do, see if they have any hidden surprises up their sleeve, then frame the superior advantages of your system compared to perceived weaknesses in the competition. You don't even have to release later than the competition. Microsoft could announce in May, Sony in June, yet Sony could set an August release date and Microsoft a November one.

In fact - waiting to announce might even let them release it first because once they know the release date of the competition they can try to beat it and come out before then.
 
They need to produce something ground breaking in it's own right, rather than let Nintendo guide the way, and everyone else catch onto the new wave of ideas like the move, and Kinect stuff that showed up three years after Nintendo already included it as standard. Anyone can improve/refine an idea when someone else came up with it.
 
i could care less who is first, just release one all ready, so PC games will move forward.
the Wii-U is a joke on the hardware side, so that one does not count.
I thin MS is holding all the cards here and Sony is playing possum.
 
Outamyhead said:
They need to produce something ground breaking in it's own right, rather than let Nintendo guide the way, and everyone else catch onto the new wave of ideas like the move, and Kinect stuff that showed up three years after Nintendo already included it as standard. Anyone can improve/refine an idea when someone else came up with it.
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Honestly, both camps better have an amazing blow out of stuff I haven't heard of before, if they are going to sway me. For everything that I have seen up to this point, next gen starts with the Oculous Rift and not any of these same ol' same ol' consoles.

Impress me. Both of you(MS and Sony).
Or else I'll see you 3-4 years down the line after price cuts or redesign (like this generation).
I don't see either camp out doing the other by much.
 
Release after Xbox 720 so thats what 2014? Add in 4 years for a Halo launch title to arrive (I'm looking at you GT4)

Hell yeah 2018 the year of PS4!!
 
Kinsaras said:
I wouldn't be surprised if MS paid the media at least. MS has been hacked more than once where people actually lost money. You hear almost nothing.

PS3 get hacked and it's the end of the world. As far as can tell...no one got hurt. Not that I'm defending Sony totally but it was greatly overhyped.
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That's because the hack on MS was no where near as widespread, and it was brute force hacking guessing people's passwords.

The Sony hack was an SQL injection hack and pulled hundreds of thousands of user's account information.

There's a big difference between those two.
 
cptnjarhead said:
just release one all ready, so PC games will move forward.
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I've been thinking about this lately.. I wonder if we'll actually see games move forward, of if developers will still use their same engines and just turn on more of the graphics options in their games which they already make available for the pc platform.
 
gamerk2 said:
But didn't the PS2 blow the Dreamcast, and by extension Sega, out of the market, specifically by putting better HW in the thing and making the populace believe the "next gen" started with the PS2?

So from Sonys experience, going last has its advantages.
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Yeah, but Sega really pissed off a lot of developers with the Sega Saturn debacle, announcing its launch ONE DAY before it came out. Sega didn't really regain that developer trust with the Dreamcast.

Sony also had their DVD functionality in the PS2 to brag about, and people were waiting for the sequal to the Playstation, because Sony kept the hype for the system pretty strong. The next two consoles, the Gamecube and Xbox were another year away, so they were second, not last.

And last gen, the Wii outsold the other two consoles, and it was the last console out of the gate (and despite the games being ugly and the wii remote being really irritating to use).

If anything, the rules change almost every generation. Sony has consistantly been the second game console to come out (Playstation was released after the Saturn, but before the N64 as well, and their handhelds are always released after Nintendo's), and for the first and second time they did it, it worked. The Handheld releases and the PS3 didn't work out as well.
 
ballistic90 said:
That's because the hack on MS was no where near as widespread, and it was brute force hacking guessing people's passwords.

The Sony hack was an SQL injection hack and pulled hundreds of thousands of user's account information.

There's a big difference between those two.
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And yet not a soul I know was affected. There is nothing in the news about anyone losing money or their house or even their soul because of the PSN hack.

I personally know 2 coworkers hacked on 360. They made all kinds of charges on their CC, one was up to $1000. They got it fixed with their CC Company but it was a much bigger headache than the "On no! PSN is down so I can't get my overpriced CoD DLC!!" Even 360 took their time to fix it. That and the FIFA work around.

I’m not defending Sony, it was terribly mishandled no doubt. Yet I will say it was waaay overblown.
 
Godmachine said:
Nintendo's new console is so under powered compared to the next generation PS and Xbox that even with a 1 year advantage they won't be able to compete with launch day titles on those consoles graphically.

Thanks to the awkwardness of the Wii-U tablet it'll probably take at least a few years for developers to really put quality games. Nintendo shot themselves in the foot this time trying to appeal to everyone which isn't possible.
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This. If I owned consoles and did not have enough money to get all of them, I would rather spend my $400 on something that gave me a huge improvement rather than a small one. And this is how most console owners think. They want big improvements over long periods of time.
 
Godmachine said:
Nintendo's new console is so under powered compared to the next generation PS and Xbox that even with a 1 year advantage they won't be able to compete with launch day titles on those consoles graphically.

Thanks to the awkwardness of the Wii-U tablet it'll probably take at least a few years for developers to really put quality games. Nintendo shot themselves in the foot this time trying to appeal to everyone which isn't possible.
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No offense the Wii-U isn't even on the radar my man. Xbox and PlayStation sit at the big boys table.
 
I think what he means to say is "we havent had an original idea for a console since..... ever. We need to see what our competitors come up with so we have something to plagiarize."

The reason console makes are able to get away with so few updates is because video gaming has somewhat peaked. Games have reached such a level of graphical fidelity that nobody is really all that interested in graphics anymore. I mean yeah we like the idea of Crysis 3, UE4, Agni's Philosphy, etc. But none of these engines really change the way games are played now. It used to be that a new console meant a totally new game type. You could go from playing Rad Racer to Daytona USA. Mortal Kombat to Tekken. Mario World to Mario 64. Doom to Doom3. New technology meant new games. Nowadays new technology just means the same games with slightly better graphics. This is actually kinda cool since it forces dev's to develop genuinely GOOD games rather than slapping a shitty product on a shiny engine.

Obviously I'll be interested to see an xbox 720 and PS4, but I also know all this will mean is newer versions of Halo and Call of Duty. Until dev's can prove they can actually invent something, why should MS/Sony invest?
 
Not to mention the fact that ever increasing visuals require ever increasing budgets. Lets just pretend for a second that the next gen consoles will be able to produce outright photorealistic real-time rendering. We're talking reality here. Obviously a long way off, but for the sake of the argument; who could possibly invest the time to produce such material? An entire team of 100 artists could spend 6 months developing the model of a single character. Now we need 200 more of them to fill this level please. Obviously there will be ways to copy/paste some assets, but in general it will still become an astronomical feat to produce the content for a photorealistic rendering engine. Game studios already have such high budgets it's almost a wonder they are even able to produce a title. 3 years on 200 million dollars? Thats a hell of a gamble. Even the movie studios dont have it this bad.

I mean if one such company even fails with a single title, they could be out of business. You cant put all your eggs in one basket, yet that is exactly what the industry demands. I dont see how they'll keep up.
 
McFry said:
The reason console makes are able to get away with so few updates is because video gaming has somewhat peaked. Games have reached such a level of graphical fidelity that nobody is really all that interested in graphics anymore. I mean yeah we like the idea of Crysis 3, UE4, Agni's Philosphy, etc. But none of these engines really change the way games are played now. It used to be that a new console meant a totally new game type. You could go from playing Rad Racer to Daytona USA. Mortal Kombat to Tekken. Mario World to Mario 64. Doom to Doom3. New technology meant new games. Nowadays new technology just means the same games with slightly better graphics. This is actually kinda cool since it forces dev's to develop genuinely GOOD games rather than slapping a shitty product on a shiny engine.
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Which is where the Wii/Wiiu, Kinect and PSMove come into play. Bring new elements into the game play. Graphics can still get better, but they aren't the driving force anymore. Some of the newer Xbox games look damn good (I'm generally a PC gamer, so they don't look great!) for the hardware being used. Even with full realistic graphics, would they bring anything new to the table gameplay wise? Doubtful. There needs to be something NEW there.
 
They're not going to lose but a couple months of sales.
If they're late one month, it won't matter. It's not like everyone buys consoles the first month, then stop buying.

PS3 failed because it was too damned expensive when it came out, and the exclusive games were meh.

They need to build up their game arsenal before releasing ps4. They also need to price it $299 and under.
 
Sony really doesn't get it! Its not just about Who has the "best hardware" its about Who has the best Overall package. By which I mean games and the online service which promotes people playing together. But it also mean offering the console at a reasonable price.

Last time around Sony had superior hardware. But they insisted on selling it at a price premium. Introduced their console first and followed it up with Xbox Live. And Sony never really recovered from their blunder. And to prove that they didn't learn their lesson they are about to do it again...
 
Just goes to show sony is not trying to make great product; they simply want just enough to get by and charge the most they can. Yesteryears seems companies would make the best they can and up to others to try and beat them.
 
People bash the Wii, but then say that game play rules. For me, game play does rule. That's why I own the lower quality (graphics wise) Nintendo consoles. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Paper Mario. The Nintendo first party games are usually very excellent, even without the extra horsepower. Of course, the other systems have some excellent games, too. Even the same game on different systems can be very different. Call of Duty is a decent game on the Xbox. On the Wii, it BLOWS. The controls are horrible with that controller.
 
Cannydog said:
Sony really doesn't get it! Its not just about Who has the "best hardware" its about Who has the best Overall package. By which I mean games and the online service which promotes people playing together. But it also mean offering the console at a reasonable price.

Last time around Sony had superior hardware. But they insisted on selling it at a price premium. Introduced their console first and followed it up with Xbox Live. And Sony never really recovered from their blunder. And to prove that they didn't learn their lesson they are about to do it again...
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Or perhaps they actually DO get it. It could be entirely possible that they don't want to throw their package out there first only to have MS throw something in last minute to trump their offering. Granted this is Sony we are talking about and the notion of logic is far fetched at best. I just wanted to look at the glass half full for a moment.
 
Ur_Mom said:
People bash the Wii, but then say that game play rules. For me, game play does rule. That's why I own the lower quality (graphics wise) Nintendo consoles. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Paper Mario. The Nintendo first party games are usually very excellent, even without the extra horsepower. Of course, the other systems have some excellent games, too. Even the same game on different systems can be very different. Call of Duty is a decent game on the Xbox. On the Wii, it BLOWS. The controls are horrible with that controller.
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Game play does rule..which is why my Wii has collected dust for years. Of the 5 billion games nintendo has..3 are good. The rest are multi-platform and better played on the other systems. Nintendo relies too heavily on shitty gimmicks these days instead of good games. I had easily 50+ games for all my old nintendo systems, I bought 6 for the wii, 4 of them I completely regretted.
 
Inu said:
This is an entirely different situation than the Wii.

The Wii U's hardware disparity compared to the PS4 and the X720 will not be nearly as bad as it was with the Wii / current consoles.

The Wii is a great console. I've had some of my best memories gaming on it with friends. If you prefer the *online friend space* then i can see why the Wii wasn't for everyone.

The Wii Gamepad *tablet is very easy to use, its a traditional controller and touch screen in one.
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Sadly, its about the same power as current generation consoles though. The Wii-U is not an evolutionary leap above an xbox 360/ps3 if initial games are anything to go by. When the xbox 360/ps3 released, playing Dead or Alive 3 was a huge step-up graphically speaking than the previous title on the xbox.

If anything, it appears the Wii-u is only marginally better so it will likely be substantially weaker than the xbox 720 and ps4 if Microsoft and Sony goes for an evolutionary leap. Most games for the Wii-U are just ports of the xbox 360/ps3 titles with the graphics appearing equal with the PC still having substantially improving image quality even with the 'consoles-code-for-specific-hardware' considerations in favour of the Wii-U. The only good thing I see about the Wii-U is having 2GB of ram it's one of the first consoles in a while thats not significantly memory-starved having 4x the ram of an xbox 360. Although, I'm sure as most people on this forum would tell you, 2GB is not a lot of ram for something with a $350.00 price tag (deluxe model). You can find store-bought laptops for $350.00 that come with 4GB of ram.
 
WorldExclusive said:
The XBOX would still be second fiddle to the Playstation if the PS3 was released first.
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I doubt that very much. At the time MS released 360, the PS3 had no GPU and instead had a second Cell processor doing GPU work. That would of made it even harder to develop for. Which would of meant that you could easily port PC games to 360 and vice versa. But porting games to and from PS3 would of been a much bigger and harder endeavor.

Good that they came to their senses, probably due to complaints from the devs using demo units.
 
WBurchnall said:
Sadly, its about the same power as current generation consoles though. The Wii-U is not an evolutionary leap above an xbox 360/ps3 if initial games are anything to go by. When the xbox 360/ps3 released, playing Dead or Alive 3 was a huge step-up graphically speaking than the previous title on the xbox.

If anything, it appears the Wii-u is only marginally better so it will likely be substantially weaker than the xbox 720 and ps4 if Microsoft and Sony goes for an evolutionary leap. Most games for the Wii-U are just ports of the xbox 360/ps3 titles with the graphics appearing equal with the PC still having substantially improving image quality even with the 'consoles-code-for-specific-hardware' considerations in favour of the Wii-U. The only good thing I see about the Wii-U is having 2GB of ram it's one of the first consoles in a while thats not significantly memory-starved having 4x the ram of an xbox 360. Although, I'm sure as most people on this forum would tell you, 2GB is not a lot of ram for something with a $350.00 price tag (deluxe model). You can find store-bought laptops for $350.00 that come with 4GB of ram.
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That's an interesting point that a more powerful laptop which has a screen is in the same price range as a console.

After buying the expensive PS3 at the beginning mainly for Gran Turismo, I was 25 making 6 figures and thought that the PS3 was expensive. I have no idea what these companies are thinking. Will be sitting out the next generation until the smaller more efficient version comes out for half the price.
 
Some of you guys still don't grasp the concept of "gameplay is king" hardware specs have nothing to do with entertaining yourself. It also doesn't mean it will suck on lesser hardware it means that the company producing titles has to hire decent programmers instead of shuffling ports from one system to another.

On the PS4 thing it is not that important what Kaz Hirai says it is more important what he does. He opens his mouth and says nothing and finds people that will "print it".
 
Even if 2 GB of ram isn't a great deal of ram, for something like windows or a Mac. It isn't the same with a console.... at least the older consoles. I mean, a console is built to do only a couple of things, rather than how windows or macs are, where they can do many different things.

Though the more recent consoles have tried to become computers....
 
LeviathanZERO said:
Originally Posted by Kinsaras View Post
PS3 just recently outsold 360

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013%2...41248874,d.dmQ
Quote:
Originally Posted by LeviathanZERO View Post
Not exactly......
See here:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=507950

I don't think anyone really knows, or will ever.

Not exactly, see my post above
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All that proves is that the PS3 numbers of 77 million sold isn't true which we all know. The total number of systems sold by each is and has been virtually identical for quite some time.

http://www.vgchartz.com/#embed_link
 
They said they can announce first, the PS4 hardware specs are finished just like the 720. All Sony is doing is likely waiting to see what MS does and afterwards come up with a different marketing campaign or something along those lines if they feel the need. With the specs being released Sony has absolutely nothing to worry about being outpaced by superior hardware.

This generation, it looks like the winner and loser will be determined by the quality of the environments (Live and PSN) and implementation of services/hardware (Kinect + Move). The hardware looks to be extremely easy to program for unlike last time esspecially with the PS3.
 
chockomonkey said:
I've been thinking about this lately.. I wonder if we'll actually see games move forward, of if developers will still use their same engines and just turn on more of the graphics options in their games which they already make available for the pc platform.
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graphics, maps/levels, AI and design, should evolve with the new consoles.
You might be right though, PC gamers are an afterthought with most developers if not all.
 
yelsewshane said:
Just goes to show sony is not trying to make great product; they simply want just enough to get by and charge the most they can. Yesteryears seems companies would make the best they can and up to others to try and beat them.
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You don't understand how the world works, do you?

No one. Not a single company of any kind, making any kind of product in the world, goes out there just to make the best product they can make, throwing caution and cost to the wind.

It starts with market research, then they carve out exactly the cost and performance level they want to be at, where they think they will compare favorably to their competitors and make money.

If they didn't do this they would not be in business for long.

In the grand scheme of things, it is folly to look at Sony and think they are in the electronics business. If you look at it from ther eason that companies exist, there is no one in the electronics business, or the automotive business or the movie business or any business. They are all in the "making money" business (usually for their shareholders). The electronics, cars, and movies are just the way they do it.

You speak of it as if somehow things were lost. Somehow there used to be these fiscally irresponsible companies out there just looking to make a halo product at any cost.

This has never existed, and never will exist. And if it did exist, run by some fool, it went out of business before it ever produced anything.

That's not why companies exist. They exist to make money for their shareholders. Period. That's the goal. Everything else, (the coolness of their products, their customer service, etc. etc., all of it) just exists to support this main goal.

To this end, they have to analyze where they can get the best profit margin? Do end users really care if they have a $5 more expensive CPU, or can we leave in the cheaper one, and send that $5 to profit. Etc. etc. etc. Detailed analysis like this happens on every single component of every single product out there. Do it as cheaply as possible, but in a way that the consumer still wants it, and is willing to pay as much as possible for it.

This is how every single product in the world is made, whether it be a gaming console, a car, a medical device, a pharmaceutical or a space shuttle.
 
McFry said:
The reason console makes are able to get away with so few updates is because video gaming has somewhat peaked. Games have reached such a level of graphical fidelity that nobody is really all that interested in graphics anymore.
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Games today are linear, and scripted to hell and back. Basically you're in a rectangle and moving from one to the another. Ever tried leaving an area, only to find an invisible wall?

That's cause game today have to deal with limited memory on the PS3 and 360. That limited memory compresses textures to looked washed, and limits what you can do in games. Developers have always favored visuals over big open areas, and this is certainly no different. It's easy to make things look good when you're in limited space. Just make sure to keep following the yellow brick road.
I mean yeah we like the idea of Crysis 3, UE4, Agni's Philosphy, etc. But none of these engines really change the way games are played now. It used to be that a new console meant a totally new game type. You could go from playing Rad Racer to Daytona USA. Mortal Kombat to Tekken. Mario World to Mario 64. Doom to Doom3. New technology meant new games. Nowadays new technology just means the same games with slightly better graphics. This is actually kinda cool since it forces dev's to develop genuinely GOOD games rather than slapping a shitty product on a shiny engine.
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There's a lot of new technology that developers haven't exploited. For example, take a look at bump mapping in the past. Before Doom 3 and Half Life 2, bump mapping for the most part was just a added on feature to help sell games. Now it's an integrated part of all games today. There's a difference between a feature the game is built around as opposed to a feature just added to a game.

Right now the technologies that are limited in use are...

#1 Physics
#2 Tessellation
#3 High Quality textures

The only game to make good use of physics is Half Life 2. If you really think we've moved forward in physics in games today, then take a look at this video of HL2 made in 2004 vs modern games today. Physics require lots of CPU and memory that PS3 or 360 doesn't have.

Tessellation is a new technology introduced with Direct X11 but any game that has it is just added and looks gimmicky. PS3 and 360 can't do this what so ever, so developers don't waste too much time with it. When was the last time you saw a game looking like this?
Unigine_Heaven_DX11_Tessellation_10.jpg


Then there's textures. Again, consoles are so limited by memory that in order to get the "visual" you so think has peaked that they had to compress and decrease the ever living crap out of them. Yet PC games suffer cause we don't need them compressed and re-sized smaller. ID's Rage game shows how we've went two steps backwards with this. But why is it bad on PC? Cause they're not going to take the time to bump up the texture quality for PC gamers.

I'll just link this image to illustrate my point.
http://www.nag.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/rage_pc_blurry_textures_nag.jpg

Then there's a game like Minecraft. Obviously extremely dated in graphics, and limited to lego sized blocks, but imagine if the game had much more detail added to it? Where everything can literally be destroyed or built. We're nowhere near that point in hardware to probably get Call of Duty visuals with minecraft destruction and craft ability. Though it does show developers have a lot of room left to innovate.
 
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