Sony Boss gets ethered by interviewer (Lack of exclusives, broken games, PSN, day one patches)

[Ronald]

GC: Can you talk precisely about what changes occurred after the Driveclub launch? Did you put new QA policies in place? Did you tell third parties to clean up their own act?

JR: We have two roles to play, right? We are a publisher of content in our own right and we are the platform holder who overlays a level of what is called format QA. Obviously the lessons that we learnt in the context of Driveclub were many and painful, and will be applied internally in the context of every first party title that we publish going forward.

GC: In terms of third party though is there anything that you are willing to do? Because it’s not uncommon to hear stories of some indie downloadable title being delayed by a few months because it failed Sony QA, and it’s usually minor things like how their save screen works or something. And you think, ‘Well, that’s a shame but at least it shows that Sony’s QA is fairly rigorous’. But if you can be so pedantic about that sort of thing surely ‘Does it work?’ is the first thing you check for!

JR: It is very hard for us to QA the online expedience of a third party game…

GC: What about Assassin’s Creed Unity then? That’s primarily single-player and its problems were blindingly obvious the second you started playing.

JR: When a third party multiplayer game runs on the servers of that third party publishers, you’ll understand it’s virtually impossible for us to QA that online experience.

GC: Are there any financial penalties you can levy at them? Because it’s your name on the box too you know.

JR: …

GC: From seeing it at a preview it was obvious to me a couple of months out that Unity wasn’t going to be properly finished for its release date, so it should have been obvious to you as well.

JR: You’re straying into the realm of conversations between publisher and platform holder that should remain private.

GC: And presumably that conversation was you saying ‘Does it work?’ and them answering with [starts winking and miming taking a bribe].

JR: No! No, no, no!

GC: Well, what happened then? If everyone reviewing the game noticed these horrendous bugs after just five minutes of playtime how did you miss it? You’re happy to put your foot down with little indie developers but because it was a big publisher apparently those rules are ignored.

JR: [deep breath] Ah, yeah. Well, it wasn’t just offline, there were…

GC: The co-op was a minor part of that game, and was not one of the issues most people were upset about. 10 minutes into Unity and I was controlling a flying apple instead of the main character. There was no way anyone involved in that game didn’t know the state it was in when it shipped. All they cared about was hitting their deadline. And by association you were okay with that, you were part of the conversation that said, ‘Ah, who cares? You can fix it later…’

JR: No! I… I think… let’s move on.

GC: But the question of quantity also concerns me. We discussed the summer games drought, which was particularly bad last year, at Gamescom and you admitted it was an issue. Have you done anything since then to avoid similar problems this year?

JR: At the end of the day, David, the decision when to release any game is down to the publisher in question.

GC: I’ll take that as a no.

JR: No, c’mon. A platformer holder has absolutely no… I’ll point out that we released The Last Of Us in early August. What else do you want us to do?

GC: I get that completely, but it was just a prime example of PSN being less stable than Xbox Live. Would you accept that it has that reputation? And that it’s also missing key features such as friend notifications?

JR: No, I don’t necessarily accept much of that you know. I’d say we’re working constantly…

GC: Would you say it is as reliable as Xbox Live?

JR: [pauses] I’d say we’re constantly working to make it better, we’re introducing new features, such as Share Play… do you see anything else like that elsewhere?

GC: Well, my last point is that you could see the Xbox One beginning to close the gap somewhat at the end of last year, at least in the US and UK. And I think many people feel that Sony has somewhat squandered its lead since launch. You’ve released no exclusives of note, you didn’t announce any more new retail games than seemed to be the bare minimum… if the reasons for your success are so intangible how can you hope to maintain your lead?

JR: PlayStation means different things to different people. For me, one of the great joys of my middle-aged life is sitting with my eight-year-old daughter playing Knack on a Saturday.

GC: Oh, had she been bad or something?

JR: [laughs] Well, that’s just your opinion coming through again! But on another morning it’ll be LittleBigPlanet, and millions of people think similarly.

GC: But in your dotage, when you look back at your whole career at Sony, are you really going to pick out Knack as a highlight? Will you be thinking fondly of anything that’s happened in the last year and a half?

JR: I won’t, but she might.

GC: You should’ve bought her a Wii U.

GC: But you see my point? I don’t think anything you or Microsoft has done since the launch of your consoles has been in anyway notable, and that worries and frustrates me. When people are compiling best of generation lists in five years time this whole period is going to be completely ignored.

http://metro.co.uk/2015/02/23/ps4-b...ul-lot-from-the-driveclub-experience-5074388/

More at the link, just read the whole thing, this guy ethers Sony/MS execs every time

 

[Grand Conde]

Surely he should be going at Ubisoft for Ass.Creed, not Sony/MS.

 

[dBoyFresh*212]

who is this guy? this interview is excellent dude doesnt hold back at all

and who is the guy he interviews wish they had video

 

[Ronald]

who is this guy? this interview is excellent dude doesnt hold back at all

and who is the guy he interviews wish they had video

http://metro.co.uk/author/david-jenkins-ukmetro/

Sony guy is Jim Ryan president of sony europe

 

[ORDER_66]

Why is he asking the sony guy about the THIRD party games., that's not sony's fault for games THEY have no control over!!!

 

[BasedPrime]

 

[Dominic Brehetto]

If only THIS was the standard of gaming journalism.


We need more interviews like this. These studios and companies need to be held accountable for this bullshyt the last couple years.


Next gen has been a fukking joke.

In no other industry would it be acceptable for companies to consistently release a broken product and not be taken to task for it.

 

[Kings County]

is this real ?

 

[Dominic Brehetto]

Why is he asking the sony guy about the THIRD party games., that's not sony's fault for games THEY have no control over!!!

Because they do it to indies....

In reality if Sony denied the game Ubisoft would just go and release it on xbox and idiot gamers would flock to buy xbox ones to enjoy a broken game.

Sony and microsoft, hell the entire industry sans nintendo are on some bullshyt. More concerned with making a release date then releasing a finished product.

How much you wanna bet halo 5 comes out this holiday and is broken they sure as fukk aint delaying it no matter what.

I remember when going gold meant the game was finished. Now it just means its going to be packaged broken and fixed later.

But theyre more concerned with working on DLC than fixing games. And thats an industfy wide problem.

 

[ORDER_66]

If only THIS was the standard of gaming journalism.


We need more interviews like this. These studios and companies need to be held accountable for this bullshyt the last couple years.


Next gen has been a fukking joke.

In no other industry would it be acceptable for companies to consistently release a broken product and not be taken to task for it.

Yeah I get the interviewer was a sarcastic sonofabytch, but the questions man.... it's just all over the place... Ask him specifically about sony infrastructure, games and hardware...

Why ask him about 3rd party shyt???

 

[ORDER_66]

Because they do it to indies....

In reality if Sony denied the game Ubisoft would just go and release it on xbox and idiot gamers would flock to buy xbox ones to enjoy a broken game.

Sony and microsoft, hell the entire industry sans nintendo are on some bullshyt. More concerned with making a release date then releasing a finished product.

How much you wanna bet halo 5 comes out this holiday and is broken they sure as fukk aint delaying it no matter what.

I remember when going gold meant the game was finished. Now it just means its going to be packaged broken and fixed later.

But theyre more concerned with working on DLC than fixing games. And thats an industfy wide problem.

It is a serious problem... but you need to address the broken games with those that are making it...

 

[SupaHotIce]

Is there a video of the interview?

 

[Hagendas]

Sony defense force assemble

 

[Kang Deezy]

at this

Can't believe there are still idiots that support sony consoles

 

[dBoyFresh*212]

Sony defense force assemble

no no no. this interviewer is absolutely right i fukk with dude. you cant ;put a lil indie title through vigirous testing but then just let biger games slide under the gate. all games should be treated equally and if sony even played it for an hour they wouldve known the game was fukked up. i havent played it but the first patch was a 300 bug fix and there was 3 patches after that before the game was deemed playable. they knowingly approved a fukked up game because they wanted the money. but like dude who posted in here said if sony didnt approve AC, microsoft wouldve approved it with the quickness and cashed in even quicker. both sony and microsoft shouldve said theyre not releasing that shyt and they need to fix that shyt or eat a dikk. but now adays everyone just want that bread. gamers are stupid enough to buy the same basketball game every fukking year just for roster update. they can easily update the roster in a patch and charge you 10dollars.