Playstation Creator Steps Down From Sony
from the falling-on-the-sword dept
Since he was appointed as the head of Sony two years ago, Howard Stringer has been trying to turn the company around. It's been a struggle, both as the company deals with a number of quality problems, but also as it's pushed new products and technologies on consumers with little success. Some of them, like Blu-ray DVDs, are simply overpriced and unappealing, while others are so burdened with DRM that they're largely useless. The Playstation 3 was supposed to be a big part of the company's turnaround, but it was delayed as Sony waited for the Blu-ray drive to be ready -- and then the cost of the drive helped contribute to the reported $300 per-unit loss Sony takes on each PS3. Perhaps the only saving grace there is that PS3 sales haven't been too high, holding down the losses. It's not too surprising, then, to see the head of Sony's video game unit, Ken Kutaragi, announce he's stepping down. Kutaragi created the Playstation and led the unit during the launch and lifespan of the PS2 -- Sony's last significant, large-scale hit product -- but couldn't repeat the trick with the PS3. It's also worth noting that Kutaragi was about the only Sony exec to admit that the company's love affair with DRM was holding it back. Kutaragi had been replaced as president (but not chairman and CEO) of the unit last November by Kaz Hirai, who will take over his other roles as well. It's hard to see this shift leading to any substantial changes, when it's becoming increasingly clear that's what's needed at Sony.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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What's needed at Sony?
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Figures...
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It didn't take the early lead...
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Good grief, man, didn't you know that Microsoft is to blame? They're to blame for everything because Bill Gates is the Antichrist.
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Wikipedia: Mark of the Beast
And even 616 (not 969) was nothing more than a not-very-stealthy reference to an enemy-of-the-church and nothing more.
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Re: Figures...
Haha! What a joke this is the funniest thing I have heard all month! XBox is worst when it comes to games and accesories. XBox can't even make up it's mind on what they want to include in the 360, screwing past customers by releasing a "PS3-clone" unit recently. Who wants to be who now? And 200.00 for a HD-DVD addon? Are you serious? And why in the world would I want to pay just to have ACCESS to on-line content. I am not a Fanboi of any of the systems. My favorite is probably the PS3, and I love the novelty of the Wii. Which the lack of availability is a marketing/sales scheme I think. The only thing that I think the Xbox or the 360 has going for it, is the SPorts titles. They do and most likely always lead the pack on them. But none of the current console manufactures are doing any justice for thier industry. But I tell you what, let's revisit this topic in 12 months and see how it all shapes up. My guess is that Sony will be back on top, with Xbox scratching it's collective heads to fiqure out how they screwed up again, when they clearly had a chance to overwhelm the masses. And Nintendo will still be pumping out systems left and right. Like the Wii2 or WiiBoy.
But to call the PS3 a dead system after only 5 months of release is very very unrealistic.
Flame ON!
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lmao
-I owned a portable MD player back in 01 and after a month the screws started randomly falling out of it!
-My home MD player needed to be serviced twice within the timeframe of one year.
-My receiver stopped working after two years.
-Half of the people I know with old ps2s are having problems with them.
Sure, I guess a ps3 would be kind of nice, but I don't feel like taking out a second mortgage on my home to afford a ps3 with an extended warranty.
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Hello, SONY called the PS3 dead (for now) when they canned katuragi for its massive failure.
Flame ON!
Yes, it's totally transparent from your lack of any knowledge of what you posted that you are jsut trying to start a flame war. Wrong site tho.
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It's kinda like how we somehow turned "satan" into a proper noun when in reality it only ever meant "adversary" or "opposite" which is why, of course, the 'terrists' call the United States "The great satan".
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Re: Re: Figures...
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Re: lmao
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Sony is catch between DRM and a hardware place!
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And as too the PS3's bursting into flames. The XBox has/had the same problems, so that point is completely moot.
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A comment from Microsoft:
“We have received a few isolated reports of consoles not working as expected.”
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According to a copy of the complaint seen by Ars Technica, Kevin Ray was a happy Xbox 360 player until November 1 of this year, at which point he updated his console with the Fall 2006 Update. After installation, his system was unusable, and Microsoft has allegedly refused to repair it unless Ray pays them $140. The class action, filed in a Washington federal court, seeks more than $5 million in damages and free repair of all Xbox 360s damaged by the update.
The worst thing about this lawsuit is that Microsoft has acknowledged this defect, yet, they still choose make the consumer pay for the “mistakes” they made themselves. Even though Sony’s products may not have the quality standards that they did a few years back, they have a much better attitude towards these types of problems as recently shown with their camera defects, which they repaired for free.
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Because HDMI has limited bandwidth, and there are monitors that have more pixels than a single HDMI channel can fill.
No, these screens are not TVs, but the PS3 wasn't supposed to be limited to TV output.
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Woe is the Playstation
When the PS2 came out it was amazing! Backwards compatible (with faster load times on the PS1 games) so I could enjoy it right away, and then the games that came out were amazing. Many of the best games didn't even get much, if any publicity.
Like with Nintendo, the games I keep going back to. I play most of them at least once or twice a year still. The PS3 promised to be just as amazing.
Then it all went to Hell. If they had stuck by their original philosophy with the PS2, the PS3 would have been a strong competitor against the Wii (which is amazing if you don't own it, try to. One of the best consoles ever made hands down).
Instead the delay it to add in their Blu-Ray, which sounded like a 'good idea' to the uninformed. Then you had Sony lying to their consumers about potential games (I think everyone creamed their pants when they say the Killzone 2 trailer, then were equally dissapointed when it wasn't the actual in game graphics; at least thats' what IGN reported so long ago).
All of that made several developers jump ship. Most of the cool games aren't even coming out yet for the PS3. Sony's been blundering a lot latley, and I just have the feeling it's because someone talked them into it promising untold profits.
I almost feel bad for them. I used to like them a lot, but now I'm starting to go to their competitors. I'm just glad Nintendo redeemed themselves, the Game Cube was a waste in my eyes.
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Except that is a 5 or 6 month old story...
Find another bridge...if you can understand...
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Bill Gates is satan
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ARGH
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re: #28
And btw even if I am not a fan of microsoft. The Xbox has the best games ;)
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Re: What's needed at Sony?
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