A recent topic I uncovered at NeoGAF points to a rather interesting concern over an arrogant Sony returning from years past. What baffles me most about this is that anyone thought Sony stopped being arrogant to begin with.
Now, there is nothing overly wrong with being arrogant. At times it makes you sound like an idiot, but overall its impact on the consumer base level is usually nothing notable. You could also argue every major corporation, including Nintendo and Microsoft, are arrogant in their own specific ways. However, this particular topic is going to focus in on Sony, given that many gamers out there seem to be all too willing to hop on the Sony train as if they are vastly superior in every fashion to the whole industry. In fact, that mantra is what gives Sony their bravado to begin with. So, when Sony starts making silly assertions about their superiority again, remember to look in the mirror, because they are learning it from the best.
When you dig for silly quotations, many of them come from between 2005 and 2008, a time when Sony was openly bashing pretty much any product on the market that wasn’t a PlayStation 3. In fact, this is the time when they proclaimed the PlayStation 3 was probably too cheap. You won’t find those sort of quotations from them today, but that doesn’t mean that underlying thought process has left them.
All one has to do is look back on this year's E3. After Microsoft admittedly screwed up the entire Xbox One reveal and re-showing at E3 by announcing several things that appeared to irk gamers, Sony spent a good portion on their showing firing pot shots at Microsoft without actually using their name. Obviously, in the spirit of competition, such things are going to happen as marketing ploys, and I admit to having a good chuckle at some of the stunts (the this is how you share games on the PS4 bit was awesome). However, what many gamers may have failed to realize is that none of the pot shooting was really going to affect their sales – it was done so Sony could flaunt how much better they are than Microsoft without directly saying it. Instead of the infamous "360 is 1.5 times current gen and PS3 is 3.5," they went the route of saying "so we hear you hate this about them; well, we do X, so please love us." It worked. Brilliantly so.
But this is the same sort of cockiness we didn’t enjoy seeing in the industry throughout years past. Sony claims to have humbled themselves, yet their entire marketing strategy has really been based on the question of "how can we show that we are better than Microsoft directly?" Normally, a great product will sell itself based upon what it can do, not what a competitor's console can or can’t do. Given that the Xbox One can now do much of what Sony was bashing them for to promote themselves, it all seems relative. Sony is as Sony has always been: they presume being the best and aren’t afraid to act like it. They will dismiss Nintendo, Microsoft, Apple, and anyone else who gets in their way because they are so utterly confident in themselves. It has served them well, and I don’t think they need to stop acting this way.
I do feel, however, that those gamers on the outside need to understand and grasp why Sony is the way they are. We’ve often seen how passionate Sony fans can sometimes be rather cocky, but the fact is that that is the type of gamer Sony caters to the most. We need to understand it is not wrong to be cocky, but it is important to maintain some humility in one's own statements, especially if those statements attack consumers. Calling a DS a Lollipop, which says it’s a little kid’s toy, is insulting to anyone who is in their age demographic and playing DS games.
This piece has the potential to be so much more than what it will end up being. I could go on and on about little things that point to Sony still being arrogant, but instead I will resolve to just give you a list of quotations from back in 2005
"PlayStation 3, you will see, will be far and away the winner when you look at it by March '08. They really, really will. It's something that is going to be a slow burner, and suddenly it's like a tsunami; it will just overtake you." (David Reeves, 2008)
"I believe that the Sixaxis controller offers game designers and developers far more opportunity for future innovation than rumble ever did. Now, rumble I think was the last generation feature;" (Phil Harrison, 2007)
”With the DS, it's fair to say that Nintendo stepped out of the technical race and went for a feature differentiation with the touch screen, but I fear that it won't have a lasting impact beyond that of a gimmick - so the long-lasting appeal of the platform is at peril as a direct result of that... Nintendo knows its target audience, because it has really narrowed that down; and it's pretty much defined by a boy or girl's ability to admire Pokemon.” – (Phil Harrison, 2005)
”The idea of a handheld rivalry with Nintendo is an irrelevance. Those formats don't appear in our planning. It's not a fair comparison; not fair on them, I should stress." (Phil Harrison, 2007)
"It’s probably too cheap…" (Ken Kutaragi on the $599 PS3, 2007)
"If you can find a PS3 anywhere in North America that's been on shelves for more than five minutes, I'll give you 1200 bucks for it." (Jack Tretton on the PS3 launch, 2007)
"The first five million are going to buy it (PS3), whatever it is, even [if] it didn't have games." (David Reeves on the PS3 launch, 2007)
"Microsoft does not concern us. Microsoft is not a technology company."(Nobuyuki Idei, Sony chief corporate adviser, 2007)
"A bit pricey." (Michael Ephraim, Managing Director of SCEA, on the launch price of the Wii)
"The PlayStation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC." (Phil Harrison, 2007)
"I believe we made the most beautiful thing in the world." (Ken Kutaragi on the design of the PS3, 2005)
"The Xbox 360 is more of an Xbox 1.5 than a next generation console." (Ken Kutaragi on the design of the competition, 2005)
”Did you see the movie 'The Matrix'? Same interface. Same concept.” (Ken Kutaragi on the online capabilities on the upcoming PS3, 2000)
”[PS3 is] 4D” (Ken Kutaragi, 2006)
“[Nintendo 3DS] is a great babysitting tool" (Jack Tretton, 2011)
"I would like my car to fly and make me breakfast, but that’s an unrealistic expectation." (Jack Tretton’s thoughts on those who expect backwards compatibility in future PS3s, 2007)
"This time, Microsoft has stated clearly that it is going after the PlayStation. However, they're going not after the PlayStation 3, but the PlayStation 2. They were looking at 2, and that's why [Xbox 360] became like that." (Ken Kutaragi explains Microsoft’s lack of ambition with the 360, 2005).
”Xbox is 1.5, the PS is more than what I was expecting, so it's 3.5. That's the difference." (Ken Kutaragi explains the difference between the PS3 and 360, 2005).
”We're not going to equip [the PS3 with] an HDD by default, because no matter how much [capacity] we put in it, it won't be enough.” (Ken Kutaragi on why he was hesitant to include a hard drive, 2006)
“[nothing] good has come from the internet, period” (Michael Lynton, Sony PE, 2009)
”some of our competitors, seemingly, are losing the plot” (Jack Buser, head of Sony DP, shortly after the company spent a significant portion of their E3 2012 Press Briefing focussing on the Wonderbook)
”PlayStation brand carries so much cachet with customers. In many ways it’s the most authentic brand in the games industry.” (Jack Buser, head of Sony DP, 2012 )
"the true identities of the infringers need to be determined so that a copyright owner can take appropriate action against them to stop the infringement" (Sony’s lawyers threatening to identify, expose and legally punish all those who distributed the PS3 security key, around the same time that one of their own PR twitter accounts published the key worldwide)
"The true definition of HD is the three elements of the HD value chain - the display, the content and the hardware to play back that content, and PlayStation and Sony is the only organisation that has all three bits of the value chain together." (Phil Harrison on why the PS3 is the only HD console in the market, 2005).
"[Wii] is a lollipop, and I'm too old for lollipops." (Jack Tretton, 2007)
“True generation quality only available on PS3" (Kaz Hirai, explaining how the PS3 ascends past Next Gen, 2007
"He certainly likes to make a lot of noise.” (Sir Howard Stringer on the expressed concerns of the leader of one of the biggest third parties in the industry, Bobby Kotick, 2009).
"This is not meant in terms of numbers, or who's got the biggest install base, or who's selling most in any particular week or month, but I'd like to think that we continue official leadership in this industry,” (Kaz Hirai, 2009)
"It's difficult to talk about Nintendo, because we don't look at their console as being a competitor.” (Kaz Hirai, 2009)
”The Xbox - again, I can't come up with one word to fit. You need a word that describes something that lacks longevity.” (Kaz Hirai. 2009)
"We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?" (Kaz Hirai. 2009)
”The environment where PlayStation wins is best for this industry” (Jack Tretton, 2009)
”We don’t care”. (Ken Kutaragi provides Sony’s response to the successes of the Wii and 360, 2006)
"[PS3 is] for consumers to think to themselves 'I will work more hours to buy one” (Ken Kutaragi, 2005)
At the end of the day, everyone is arrogant and cocky in their own ways. Sony may not flaunt it nearly as much as they used to, but that attitude is still there and still a huge part of how they go about doing business. Microsoft and Nintendo are this way as well, and admittedly, Microsoft has provided comedic gold with their quotations this year in regards to the Xbox One. It’s harder to pin bad quotations on Nintendo because they are the ones most careful with their public image, but you can see it within their business decisions and choices: they feel their products are going to sell just because they are made by Nintendo. What do you think with Sony? Have they actually gotten better, or are they just approaching their cockiness in a different way? Will they ever go as public as the old days and just let it rip into every single competing platform? Let us know in the comments below.
http://www.gamnesia.com/articles/the-arrogance-of-sony
