Update: Activision "Might Have to Stop Supporting Sony"

[John Funk]

It is a rare occasion where you can tell an editor to use the search button.

Actually, no it isn't. Most of the news is copied and pasted.

Excuse me?

A.) Again, as I said above, the News Room is not the forum. We have much better ways of finding interesting news to report than simply waiting for members of our community to find something and "copy and pasting," as you so succinctly put it. As I said above, there are hundreds of thousands of people who visit The Escapist who never once touch the forums. Plus, we have very rigid style and format guidelines, and - no offense to the forumgoers in the first place - we hold the News Room content to a much higher bar of quality.

Do we post a "lol u shoulda used search" every time a thread comes up in Gaming Discussion or Off-Topic that we've already covered? No? Okay then.

B.) Get your facts straight. Activision never once said they wanted to exploit gamers. Their words were (paraphrasing), that they wanted to continue to exploit their licenses and IPs - granted, not the best word choice, but that's a very different thing. And Activision has very little influence over at Blizzard. I mean, I know you want to jump at them in a flurry of fanboy rage for badmouthing your beloved PS3, but at least make sure you have a better grasp on the industry before you do

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

This isn't helping the carpetbagger thing Activision/Blizzard have going for them.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Hmm if the PS3 was similar to develop for as a 360/pc then maybe it would be much easier to make the decision to fully support the PS3(as even with low software sales your still making money due to low cost) but to(I would immagine) have a separate team programing for cell would get expensive.

 

[murphy7801]

I'm not surprised valve said a similar thing the console is getting to costly for companies to support but sony cant afford a price drop with there financial troubles. Sony has put itself in between a rock and a hard place.

 

[Therumancer]

Well, Sony did tell us that the PS-3 was intended for some kind of long-term strategy. It's hard for me to really figure out what they are thinking, but in general when I hear comments from Sony's people in regards to the PS-3 they either sound totally insane/out of touch, or a bit racist when it comes to their expectations of the Western market (ie we're big round eyed children who will buy anything and make them rich).

Truthfully even if they lose this round I wouldn't count Sony out for the next round. Truthfully I think the big problem is that they decided to implement the Blu-Ray stuff into the PS-3 and then decided they needed to focus on promoting that format rather than specifically on the console wars. As a result they beat the HDDVD competition and are going to dominate video format for the next decade or so (and that is worth more than a generation of consoles), but lost a lot of steam on the PS-3. Supply issues with the PS-3 early on (causing a very weak launch) seemed to be directly linked to a shortage of components due to all the Blu-Ray lasers going into the actual Blu-Ray players (which ironically sold for more than the PS-3).

As far as the Ps-3 goes, I agree that they need to lower the price, and at the same time they need to restore the backwards compatibility. I mean right now I have an "old" 60 GB PS-3 and am afraid of it dying because even if I can afford to replace it, the newer ones won't run my library of PS-2 games and I no longer have a PS-2 (having traded mine in for money towards the PS-3 which was backwards compadible).

What's more, even if it means stepping on some of their fans who see "Japanese Only" as a big selling point for games, I think Sony really needs to start doing more to localize and export some of the more unique titles coming out in Japan. Even if this means effectively running point against US information control to avoid censorship.

But of course I don't expect much nowadays, because almost every time a Sony excecutive speaks about the PS-3 to the West they wind up putting a foot in their mouth.

I think we started to first see communication/concept barriers when Sony was first asked about the monster price of the PS-3 and how they expected people to afford that, and their answer was "we expect people to work more hours to afford one". Even if there weren't issues with American businesses downsizing, and cutting things like overtime in general, most people aren't going to kill themselves for multiple weeks to afford what amounts to a glorified toy, and that toy is only a gateway to actually being able to play with it since games are still bloody expensive (which goes into my comments on other threads about the gaming industy).


>>>----Therumancer--->

 

[dnadns]

And the good news is, less competition for Sony's first party studios which might then result in an increase in software sales, leave a bit more in Sony's pockets to reach break-even and drop the price then...

 

[Max_A_Buck]

I'd buy a PS3 if it were cheaper, to be honest. I agree with everyone who says it's too expensive the way it is now. At least $500 AUD (and that's second hand) plus $100 or so for the newer games. I guess you can save if you shop around but you get the point. As much as I'd like to see Sony lose this generation of console war, I don't want them to be slaughtered at the same time.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

Anyway, I don't care about Sony any more as they've done too many poor decisions and are quickly losing relevance. Anyway, Nintendo and Microsoft got platforms that are more straight forward to develop on than the obscur PS3 architectural abomination.

actually it's not, the only one who has really complained has been Gabe from valve and well he finds it "difficult" to develop from everything that's not windoze. ask him how easy it is to develop for linux and he'll say it's the most difficult thing in the world

now if you want some real development insight, look at what Carmack has said about them. he actually prefers the ps3 development over the 360 one

I think Microsoft's 360+Natal and Nintendo's Wii(+) will do just fine in these harsh times...

right cause m$ releasing a gadget Sony has had for several years makes it all that better

EDIT: It's interesting that a growing number of key developers and companies are threatening to drop and stop supporting Sony's platform. I hope Sony rot and die.

who else have said that besides activision who are just being a bunch of big babies cause no one wants to buy the 1782390127839021th version of guitar hero that came out this year cause people on the would rather buy other games that are actually good and new

 

[Go on]

I think it's time for me to get a xbox 360 soon. I believe my PS3 is gonna start gathering dust because of all the lazy developers complaining about the programing.

Well at least there are some pretty cheap second-hand xbox360 s to find.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Cage-rattling and poo-flinging, nothing more. Mr. Kotick hasn't been in the news for awhile and he's probably getting bored. I see this as "encouraging" Sony to get on with the price cut rather than an actual threat to drop PS3 support; the system may be faltering but it's still a major console and I really can't see dropping development for it unless you are 100 percent certain that it's no longer a viable product.

 

[Korth13]

I think Sony is a much larger and better established company that Blizzard and will probably be able to survive losing Blizzard over something as small as game development on PS3 and PSP which is a tiny part of Sony.

Also the way Activision handled the release of WoW WOTLK goes to show they are as much money grabbing (garden) hoes as the next massive corporation. He's trying to find another way to boost his companies profits (cos you think if Sony did drop their prices you'd see that reflected in game prices?!) and therefore line his own pockets with your money.

 

[John Funk]

B.) Get your facts straight. Activision never once said they wanted to exploit gamers. Their words were (paraphrasing), that they wanted to continue to exploit their licenses and IPs - granted, not the best word choice, but that's a very different thing. And Activision has very little influence over at Blizzard. I mean, I know you want to jump at them in a flurry of fanboy rage for badmouthing your beloved PS3, but at least make sure you have a better grasp on the industry before you do

Do you need to resort to insults?

If you'll note, I've held this same level of hatred for Activision for a full year, ever since the finalization of their merger with Blizzard. And forgive me, but I find it interesting that Blizzard, one of the most fan devoted, quality driven and financially healthy developers the world has ever seen suddenly adopted a style that looks curiously like Activisions.

As for exploiting gamers, I was referring more to the underlying implications of Modern Warfare 2 online (yeas, I know that there is supposedly no subscription, but it remains that this is requiring an extra payment to receive the total service).

No, but I felt it was appropriate after you accused the team that works hard to bring this site's community interesting and well-written news of plagiarism.

As someone who is probably one of the most ardent fans of Blizzard and their games in the community (and certainly on the staff), I was likewise concerned following the merger - but, y'know, actually talking to the people I know in Irvine rather reassured me of that. After actually having the people who made the decision explain it in person will do that. Vivendi had the sense to leave Blizzard alone, and if nothing else, the Activision leadership has decent business sense. Making a quick buck isn't worth tarnishing the reputation of the crown jewel in your umbrella.

I don't see that as exploiting gamers at all. Microtransactions are increasingly becoming a common way to help fund development in an environment where piracy is rampant and games are becoming more and more expensive to develop for.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Cage-rattling and poo-flinging, nothing more. Mr. Kotick hasn't been in the news for awhile and he's probably getting bored. I see this as "encouraging" Sony to get on with the price cut rather than an actual threat to drop PS3 support; the system may be faltering but it's still a major console and I really can't see dropping development for it unless you are 100 percent certain that it's no longer a viable product.

Depends. If they think they can get a better ROI from spending their money expanding development and marketing for Wii and 360 games than on developing for PS3 then that's what they'll do.

 

[Doug Damage]

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Mind Blow.

Actually, not really.

 

[T'Generalissimo]

Hmmm...I suppose that would be a worrying thing for Sony, if Activision were to abandon them that could well signal the end for the PS3, except well... I don't actually believe him.

Even if developing games for the PS3 is returning less profits than the Xbox or Wii, which, for the most part, I don't doubt, I don't think they'd stop until it reached the point of negative numbers. It's not like cutting support for the PS3 will increase profit for the Xbox and Wii. I'm sure he's just trying to scare Sony into cutting the price of the Playstation.

Plus, Kotick's face is pretty terrifying, so there's that too.

 

[scotth266]

Interesting, though I think it's a publicity ploy more than anything else. Still, one must say that this is an unprecedented statement... I'll be watching this.

 

[John Funk]

Like I said, poor choice of words. What I meant is, while the threads themselves ussually seem to be how the staff are made aware of the news itself, the poster themselves is ussually ignored, and the news post in question will quote the original source.

Actually, no. The threads on our forums are rarely ever how we find our news stories. See, we have RSS feeds, and a news editor mailing list where we get press releases. We almost always get our stories from the original source or another outlet. Not the forums.