Sony Lies Up A Storm
(Thanks to Matt for sending in the following story)
Arstechnica.com - Sony misleads multiple times on MotorStorm resolution, revises PS3 sales goals to allow for success
It’s starting to get frustrating to cover Sony (I know how that feels). From being misleading in their Emmy press-releases and then pulling the evidence, to switching their stated manufacturing goals, I just can’t keep the stories straight. The Emmy thing was okayâ€â€we all make mistakes, and perhaps Sony just jumped to a few conclusions. But the issue of Motorstorm’s resolution is much thicker and smacks of negligence.
It’s not like the gaming press made up the 1080p, 60fps Motorstorm story by ourselves. Sony employees were telling the press that would be the resolution and the framerate. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, and say the people running the televisions at trade shows may get their facts wrong. Of course, the Senior Vice-President of Marketing for your company should know better.
In the CES keynote, which you can watch here, Peter Dille states that we’ll see Motorstorm at 1080p running at 60fps. He makes this point strongly, in an attempt to prove the power of the PS3, before telling us it’s the only “true” high definition system on the market. I would say that point is arguable at best, but there is no doubt he was selling Motorstorm as an example of their 1080p content.
After all that buzz, they’re now saying Motorstorm will be at 720p and run at 30fps. At least according to SCEA. Then again, at this stage who do you believe? I don’t even think Sony knows anymore.
Mr. Dille also says they hit their goal of shipping 1 million systems in that speech. Since when was that their goal? We reported on what their actual goal was: they wanted 4 million by the end of the year, and 2 million at launch. That was then brought down to 2 million shipped when they talked to the press. When was it ever 1 million? Engadget has an even more damning interview with Peter Dille. Let me repeat that he is the Senior Vice-President of Marketing. He should know better than to give a keynote that directly contradicts his own interviews:
Engadget: So, you think you’re still on track for 2 million units in 2006?
Peter Dille: Yeah.
Engadget: I’m gonna hold you to that.
Peter Dille: Okay, you can hold us all to it!How can we, when you say now that your goal has been only a million units? Well, I’m holding you to it. You missed your goal. I’m sorry. Why can’t you admit it publicly instead of changing the numbers and hoping no one notices?
Sony, you need to rein in your public relations staff and start telling us the truth. You need to either make sure you know you can hit the goals that you announce, or be willing to admit that you missed them when you fall short. Revising the number after the fact is not good enough. The more these things happen the less credibility you have, and the less credibility you have the harder it is for us who’re reporting your claims to take them seriously. I’d like to think I can trust you, but after this past week I feel like anything your representatives say is going to be suspect at best, and at worst an outright lie.
I don’t know anymore. Do I continue to post about Sony, as they continue to face horrible PS3 sales figures and are trapped in even more lies, or do I ignore them and focus on all the great things Xbox and even the Wii are doing for the industry? Sony has already proven that everything myself and others predicted for nearly two years was true. In interviews, all they can brag about is that Blu-Ray is supposedly in more homes that HD-DVD due to the PS3. Is that their focus? Getting Blu-Ray into homes, instead of giving gamers an awesome gaming platform? It’s very obvious that is indeed the case. It’s sad to see the company that dominated console sales last generation stab their entire fan-base in the back. There is a reason developers are jumping off the PS3 bandwagon every week, and it’s because they see Sony does not care much about the actual gaming section of their new console.
The best part is, HD-DVD movies are still out-selling Blu-Ray movies. People may have a Blu-Ray player within the PS3, but most people didn’t buy the PS3 for that, they bought it because they believed the hype and thought the PS3 would look better than the Xbox 360 and have tons of exclusives. Unfortunately for them, Sony lied about that too.
January 12th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Good post.
January 12th, 2007 at 11:35 am
This is my thoughts, you report the news and the current events in gaming. Sony being idiots and backstabbing their fan base is nothing you have contributed to, you just report what has happened. Kinda like a drunken Paris Hilton doing something naughty on film again. It would be one thing to post rumors but everything you post has the facts to back it up. I say keep posting what Sony is doing just to show all the fanboys who are holding on to Sony what they are doing.
DQ
P.S. Plus they are good for a laugh too
January 12th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
DQ’s post FTW!!1!one!
January 12th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
If you are concerned about it, you could always create a separate page on the site dedicated to Sony info for those of us who are interested. That way certain newcomers don’t immediately dismiss the site as fanboi-ism at its worst (even though the stuff you post is true) when they see a bunch of articles pointing out Sony being Sony.
Generally, the posts about stuff for the 360 are good enough to carry their own weight, so that could be a help in not turning off some readers from the start. I personally would like to continue seeing these other stories, but moving them would be an easy solution if you think they are distracting people from the overall emphasis of the site.
January 12th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Just keep pointing out the facts, those of us in the gaming community need to have a site that is credible when we tell people where to go to read it for themselves…..just don’t ever embellish their lies, it will bite back tenfold.
We can trust this site, We love to read this stuff, maybe you need a secondary main page called The Lies in Nex-Gaming as we all know about your timelines you’ve had before posted here and they are good to link to on other sites when the koolaid drinkers need knocked down a step.
January 12th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I personally revel in Sony’s mishaps and misfortunes. It’s not because I hate their equipment - I’m currently plodding through FFXII on the PS2 and liking it - but their attitude toward consumers. I am happy that their expectations for PS3 have fallen extremely short, and that they’ve had to resort to misleading customers (and get caught!).
But I see your point - I’d probably be sick of writing about it too. Perhaps just posting big news?
January 12th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I think Cleric should just continue doing what he’s doing. I love reading the Xbox 360 news, but I also love reading the newest lie Sony has got caught up in. If the Sony boys come here and say “UNSCleric.com is nothing but a fanboy site” then let them say it, the long time readers (and I know there’s a lot of them) are still going to come back everyday, and that is what I think matters. But hey, this is just one man’s opinion.
January 12th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
two men’s opinions
::does the Fonzie’s “thumb’s up to chest pointing at self point” ::
January 12th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’. Sony is lying and you’re helping to make sure more people know about it. The longer they continue this there has to be people to ensure that the world knows. That’s the only way they’ll ever suffer from it and hopefully learn.
I was reading through an issue if GameInformer and say a PS3 ad. It was worded as follows:
“The PlayStation 3 system can perform nearly two trillion calculations per second. And its Cell Broadband Engine, with its one Central Processing Unit (CPU) plus 8 Syngergistic Processing Units (SPU), is capable of processing a multitude of tasks in parallel.”
I thought “woah woah wait a second.. One SPU is disabled for yield purposes. Another SPU is only usable by the OS. Leaving 6 available for games. And one of those must be handed over to the OS at ANY TIME by games. So there’s really 5 that can be counted on to be usable for a game 100% of the time”
You just can’t walk around anywhere anymore without stepping in some sony bullshit.
If you want to see the ad for yourself, it’s on page 61os issue 164 of GameInformer. The December 2006 issue.
January 12th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
SAW a ps3 ad, rather. Freakin typos.