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Dave Karraker leaves Sony Computer Entertainment America
Dave Karraker, current Senior Director of Corporate Communications, is leaving SCEA. In an e-mail sent to members of the press, Karraker stated "I am saddened to leave such a great group of people, but I have been presented a global opportunity near my home in an industry where I have previous experience that I feel I must pursue." His position with the company ends this Friday. He will be moving on to Skyy Spirits.We at PSP and PS3 Fanboy are saddened to see you go, Dave. You've been so incredibly helpful in providing the answers that our readers have been looking for, and we wish the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Dave Karraker leaves Sony Computer Entertainment of America
Dave Karraker, current Senior Director of Corporate Communications, is leaving SCEA. In an e-mail sent to members of the press, Karraker stated "I am saddened to leave such a great group of people, but I have been presented a global opportunity near my home in an industry where I have previous experience that I feel I must pursue." His position with the company ends this Friday. He will be moving on to Skyy Spirits.We at PSP and PS3 Fanboy are saddened to see you go, Dave. You've been so incredibly helpful in providing the answers that our readers have been looking for, and we wish the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Sony denies the rumble Sixaxis, admits upgrades
Sony is denying recent reports that rumble Sixaxis' are ready to shake things up for consumers. Sony spokesman Dave Karraker tells GamePro that they have not added rumble to the Sixaxis and have no announcements regarding the feature. Although, if we're going to get technical with the word play, we know that Sony hasn't added rumble to the Sixaxis yet ('cause we don't have them) and, as for the future, they have no announcement at this time. They didn't actually deny the reports that developers have Sixaxis' with the rumble feature though, but of course, that's if we're getting technical. At this point, in all fairness, the rumble Sixaxis is merely rumor and speculation.What Karraker did say is that the motion sensing abilities of the Sixaxis have been enhanced and developers are currently working with those. He says, "We recently sent out to the development community some new prototypes that have a slightly enhanced sensitivity for the analog sticks and the motion sensing within the Sixaxis controller ... This is not a new controller, but is part of the normal development and evolution of controllers." This follows along with statements already made by Kaz Hirai that the Sixaxis will continue to evolve and we should expect more iterations in the future.
Estimated layoffs at SCEA were "totally off base"
Earlier, we reported that up to 100 employees were laid off by SCEA. It appears that these figures were incorrect, and "way high." In a statement to GameDaily, Dave Karraker noted that less than 50 employees were let go. Government regulations require a company that lays off more than 50 individuals to issue a WARN notification -- something Sony did not have to do in this latest step in their corporate restructuring."We had a number of different department shifts in restructuring throughout the company, but nothing that's different from what we would typically have," Karraker explained. "The stuff that's been going on and has been going on since I started, back in September, is just continual shifts and changes within departments that's nothing unusual for any company on a regular basis."According to GameDaily's findings, the lay offs affected a variety of departments, including Consumer Service, Finance, Business and Technology, Operations, 1st and 3rd party test, Marketing and Sales. Karraker refuted the claims, and made note that such layoffs are part of "normal business practice."
The challenges of being Sony's PR man
Dave Karraker has quite possibly the roughest job of any PR director in SCEA history. Having come to the company only two months before the tumultuous PS3 launch, Karraker had quite an insurmountable task to face: combat the growing negativity surrounding the PlayStation brand and convince a questioning populace the value of an expensive $600 console. In an interview with GamePro, Karraker admits the job isn't easy. However, he thinks that the console's future success is nearly guaranteed: "I am pretty sure if you asked just about any real gamer out there if they would like to have a PS3, their answer would be a resounding 'Yes!'"Negative perceptions of PS3 can be seen within our own comments section, where Xbox advocates preach about the so-called downfall of Sony. This kind of attitude seems self-perpetuating on the internet, especially when internet media incorporates the negative spin into their reporting: "I think a lot of this goes back to the proliferation of the Internet, where a very vocal minority can make a lot of noise and potentially alter perceptions of the masses, whether they are accurate or not. A lot of this, naturally, is driven by the media who seem focused on taking swipes at us lately, without taking in the full picture."So what can Sony and Karraker do to help gamers start understanding Sony's approach to the next generation of gaming? The games and hardware should speak for themselves. "A lot of the perceptions are not justified and seem fueled by people who don't have all the facts or have some kind of axe to grind. I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who wouldn't say PS3 is an amazing piece of technology."
Sony admits "lack of new software" to blame for slow PS3 sales
PLAYSTATION 3's performance at retail last month was surprisingly sluggish -- even more so than predicted. So what does Sony have to say about their admittedly disappointing showing? They don't seem too surprised. "PS3 did see a dip in sales in April that we attribute mostly to a lack of new software in the market," admitted Sony's Dave Karraker.The future should prove much brighter, as proven by Sony's incredible Gamers Day (which didn't include other high-profile games that Sony is working on). "For the remainder of this fiscal year, we expect a flood of new games for PS3 totalling more than 100 titles across all genres, including Heavenly Sword, Lair, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, LittleBigPlanet and many more. We feel strongly that this robust library will help drive hardware sales in the upcoming months."Too bad none of those games are coming out soon. A look at the release calendar for next month reveals a total of eight games.[Via GameDaily]
Black Friday leads to a 280 percent sales increase
The PSP has been on a roll lately. The launch of PLAYSTATION 3 a few weeks ago increased PSP sales by 30 percent. The Black Friday boost was even more stellar: sales have gone up another 280 percent, according to Dave Karraker, in a statement to GameDaily. Like Martha Stewart would tell you, the PSP is an awesome holiday gift, and it appears early holiday shoppers know that. Of course, the Black Friday price drops certainly didn't hurt at all either: systems were selling for as low as $150. Considering how system sales exploded with a lower price, imagine the gain the PSP would get from a permanent price drop. Why not, Kaz?
Sony exec admits PSP more about media than games
Dave Karraker, new PR head for Sony, was recently confronted by Gamasutra in a pretty intense interview. While it focuses mostly on the upcoming PLAYSTATION 3, Karraker had a few interesting things to say about the PSP:The PSP is doing incredibly well, and I think that you'll see even more interest behind it now that the PS3 is coming out, because the inner-connectivity between the two, I mean you saw the demo in terms of accessing your PS3 harddrive through your PSP. That's just the tip of the iceberg of what can be done with that... I'm not just talking about games, I'm talking about entertainment content as well. Already the TiVo-to-go option for the PSP is turning into a huge hit for us, as people discover that they can take the shows they've already stored on their TiVo and put it on their PSP and while they're riding the bus to work or to school, they can watch television shows on the PSP, I mean that's huge. You can't do that on anything else. So again, I think when you compare the two products, the Nintendo product versus our product, it's kind of apples and oranges. We're providing more of an entertainment system, and they're focused more on gaming.While the Nintendo fanboys may criticize Sony's approach to creating a media convergence machine, I highly applaud it. I do a lot more things than simply game on my handheld, as I have no desire to carry around a huge laptop to watch movies, listen to music, and use the internet.
