Ken Kutaragi and Sony finally admits to the folly that has been… itself
posted January 21st 2005 12:20PM
Stop the presses.
Maybe it was Sony's new year's resolution to say, "I'm sorry." We don't know, but Sony, you are so seriously
getting back on the right track. First you start
supporting MP3s in your digital audio players,
then you're about (slowly) increasingly more affordable
prices, then you're murmuring about opening up UMD (we
won't hold our breath). And now you're allowing Ken Kutaragi (aka "The Father of PlayStation", and prez of Sony
Computer Entertainment, Inc.) to just come out and fess up to everything we've seen going wrong with Sony in the last
decade: the total lack of cooperation between Sony divisions, Sony's entertainment division dictating the direction of
Sony's electronics divisions, and their overarching obsession with having control of consumer standards (all of which
are directly correlated to an internal fight over content rights, of course—we touched on this before with an
insider at Sony).
This is huge. Though we’re not sure why Kutaragi was the one and only Sony exec who stood in front of the
cameras and publicly apologized for Sony’s seemingly ceaseless stream of mishaps, but we’re not exactly going to argue
the points he brings to the table. Especially the part where he called Sony’s “original spirit of innovative
technology” “diluted”, or when he said, “We have to concentrate on our original nature — challenging and creating.” We
couldn’t possibly have said it better ourselves. And though he made it very clear that upper-management at Sony (i.e.
his drinking buddies) have a lot of soul-searching to do to turn things around, he said “It’s just starting. We are
growing up.” If Ken was here, we’d give him a big hug and buy him a tall beer.
To be true to our inner cynics, we’re not really going to believe this until we see some top Sony boys take a nice,
long trip to America to feel things out and really try to understand the US consumer base—but the honorable Kutaragi
standing in front of hundreds of press to publicly humble himself is, believe it or not, about the best start to
healing the deep, gangrenous wounds of Sony as we can possibly imagine. We’re not saying we expect to see SD slots in
new Sony CyberShots later this year or anything, but if ever Sony’s future outlook was bright, it’s certainly now. Now
please excuse us as we pick up our jaws from the floor and go back to drooling over that new
VAIO FS laptop.
I have 2 words: Beta and Minidisc.
Whoa. Ballsy. Hope this continues to pan out.
Now if they only upgrade their Media Center 2004 customers with the 2005 upgrade, I might once again be able to recommend Sony products to people.
Until then, I'm staying away from any Sony product!
If they truly are sorry and want to play nice with others, then why the big push to move everyone to the retarted UMDs?
This is too little, too late. I've been shafted by Sony far too many times. When they EARN my trust, they can have it back. Until then, this is another false home in a long chain of dashed dreams and lies.
I.P Freely
Simple. It's the format that the PSP uses. By opening it up they hope more people create media for it. It's a good plan.
As it stands now UMD is going to do just fine for the sake of being the media format for the PSP. The PSP is going to do really well so the format won't go away.
You guys need to remember Sony is doing more then "just fine." The PS2 has outsold eveyone else by more then three to one. It has dominated the industry. By making this move and trying to work with the rest of the industry more it can only help them do better. All smart moves if you ask me.
Hooray! Sony admits something everyone already knew! I can't wait to start buying their overpriced, poor quality, overly complicated consumer electronics again. Yippie!
For some reason I think Sony's decline wasn't just about supporting MP3s...
new-Sony is going to be the new Apple, which was the new old-Sony.
"I have 2 words: Beta and Minidisc."
... let's not forget Memory Stick & Memory Stick Pro.
Slightly related: I have played both PSP and Nintendo DS (for a pretty good amount of time). Once people begin playing with the touch-screen of the DS, no other system will ever be designed without one (including consoles). Truly brilliant decision on Ninitendo's part, and makes gameplay on other systems (PSP included) seem antiquated.
(I am a hardcore PS2 player and wanted PSP to rock, but the touch screen is even more powerful than Nintendo's weak marketing has led us to believe). Sony is afloat without a rudder.
Dale, you've failed to tell us why the touch screen is such a revolution for games? Touch screen interfaces for games have been around since the early Palm and WinCE devices, and no one did anything astounding with the interface then. Even Nintendo seems unsure how to utilize the touch screen, as none of the current crop of DS games really do anything remarkable or new with it. So just what is it that makes you think it will become a must have for future game playing devices?
"'I have 2 words: Beta and Minidisc.'
... let's not forget Memory Stick & Memory Stick Pro."
...or Memory Stick Duo...
I liked Sony before they got caught up in the DRM fad that's affecting the recording industry these days. I won't buy anything by Sony that has to be hooked up to a computer to get full use out of it. I just hope Mr. Kutaragi manages to pull it off.
i agree with [THE]...or #11. i'm not really that impressed with the touchscreen of the DS. using it for games is an old idea...i remember playing games on a palm pilot...and like the DS...it just complicated controlling. only a few games are going to be able to use the touchscreen uniquely on the DS...most games are gonna use it as a map or something similarly simple. and for the comment on touchscreens being on consoles...what would the point of that be? touchscreens are best for handheld devices.
and as for sony's products being low-quality?? i have yet to see that happen...if anything the only thing that makes me mad is the high prices of certain products...*cough* memory sticks *cough*
Sony isn't apologizing. They're simply admitting to mistakes made within the company. In other words, not "I'm sorry," but "oops."
As a company, they have nothing to apologize to the public for. Since when are companies obligated to create high quality products? Since when are companies obligated to invent new technologies free of any DRM? It's not ILLEGAL to make products that suck (within reason). It's not ILLEGAL to create some hot new technology only to snuff out its potential by tying it down to legal issues. Whether or not these strategies were successful for Sony has nothing to do with an apology to the general public.
Too many people make it sound as though Sony indebted to the world, and this is some sort of payback of that debt. Wrong. Sony, like every other company on the planet, is out to make a profit. They can go about business however the hell they wish, sell whatever the hell they wish, and create whatever the hell they wish.
If Sony owes anyone an apology, it's their shareholders; not some clown in Nebraska who is disappointed in their failure to release a DVD player with XviD support. If you don't like what Sony has been doing as a company, try one of the hundreds of other electronics vendors in the world.
It's just like language. If all of us just stick with speaking one language we could be so much more productive already. Same goes to stupid units and scale......
liam, you make some good points, but the best way for sony to please its shareholders is to make money, and the best way to make money is to make products people want to buy. for the past few years sony has done a TERRIBLE job making products people want to buy. there are always a few exceptions--the playstation has been a huge source of profits for the company
--but they failed to recognize how the market for portable audio had changed, they let the quality of their PCs slide, they got cocky and complacent about the superiority of their TVs and DVD players while Samsung and a slew of other companies ate their lunch. If anything Sony should have started loosening up a long time ago. I think trying to please a guy in Nebraska who wants a DVD player with DivX support might actually be a good place to start. Instead of assuming that they know what features people want in their products, they should start listening for a change.
new-Sony is going to be the new Apple, which was the new old-Sony.
---
old-rhetoric
a convergence device with a 6 hr battery life that spits out UMD discs and doubles as a huge iPod that can't fit in anyone's pocket?
Pffft. how innovative.
Oh yeah.. and they're losing money on the damn thing.
the only thing they'll have in common with Apple is a low marketshare...
>>Even Nintendo seems unsure how to utilize the touch screen, as none of the current crop of DS games really do anything remarkable or new with it.
First, Mario 64 DS has about 36 mini-games. Maybe half of them are impossible to develop or play without a touch screen. Several of them are addictive and worth the price of the entire game cartridge.
Second, most of the DS games released so far are awful. Many of them don't make good use of the touch screen - using it for maps and info display. But I'm pretty optimistic about the games coming out in the next few months. I agree with the earlier post - that touch screens will probably make it into consoles. They're a new type of interface that really expands the possibilities of how the games might be played. It's hard to appreciate how limiting buttons and joysticks are if you haven't tried anything else.
Improved Customer Relations must have been a company-wide mandate for Sony. I just read that Sony will soon make the 2005 Media Center upgrade available to their Media Center 2004 customers, when in the past they have told us flat out that their policy was NOT to offer this upgrade.
This according to their website, "Coming soon! Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 Upgrade bundled with Sony DVgate Plus™ 2.0 and Click to DVD™ 2.3 software. Check back in February"
I may be able to buy and recommend Sony products again because of this news.
A change to Sony won't happen overnight. This MAY be a step in the right direction.
Until Sony gets its act together again and can proove to me that it makes products worth buying, not artifical standards that it tries to lock me into, then I'll consider it.
It will take a long time to EARN my trust back.
Sony should stop making everything proprietary. Even the simplest digital photo camera records proprietary non-standard MPEG video. Atrac, Minidisc, Betamax, everything. Nothing is ever interchangeable or compatible with industry standards.
I agree with Alexander, if I buy something I want it to work with my stuff. That said once upon a time I loved Minidisk, but that was years ago before I had my own computer.