Before E3 2009, there were several information leaks regarding a new sliding faceplate PSP that would be without a UMD drive, an internal proof-of-concept trailer for The Last Guardian leaked and info on Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker came out early. This took some of the bite out of Sony's E3 press conference, and Sony Computer Entertainment of America president and CEO Jack Tretton is none too happy about it.
“People don’t respect confidentiality in this industry,” said Tretton to CNBC. “It’s tough enough to keep a secret within your own company, much less when you speak to third parties.”
"This is an industry that has trouble focusing on today,” he added. “We want to constantly talk about tomorrow.… You have to prepare for people to know things in advance. The frustrating thing is they only know a part of the story and that opens up a lot of conjecture and misinformation that ultimately waters down the reality when you roll it out.”
Despite the leaked announcement, Tretton is still optimistic about the PSP Go and its chances against the iPhone. “At the end of the day, the iPhone is a phone,” said Tretton. “At the end of the day, we’re a game system.… If the iPhone gets you interested in gaming, that’s good for me, because it gives me a chance to sell you a PSP.”
The company's unnamed motion device was a mild surprise at the conference, and Tretton likes the buzz he's hearing about it. He noted that its capabilities potentially enable games to be retroactively patched to be compatible with the device. “Personally, it’s very difficult for me to perceive God of War 3 being played with the Wii controller,” he noted. “It’s a different experience that doesn’t lend itself to certain types of games. [But] I think our [motion] controller can be used with every game that’s on the system now — and every game we’re working on.”
While there were certain accurate rumors, the slimmer, cheaper PS3 never materialized, and despite cries for a price cut, Tretton emphasized that Sony will do it only when they are ready and not a moment too soon. “I can’t remember a day that people who have no stake in the profitability of our company have not called for a price cut,” he says. “I think everybody but us would love to see it given away for free.”
“We’ll do everything we can do to make our pricing relevant. But remember cheapest isn’t always the most successful. It’s what you get for your dollar,” he concluded.
5 Comments
8 months ago
I can fully understand the basics of this discussion. Having worked at a number of different software publishers, it seems sometimes that no one really respects the NDA's that they sign when they're employed and either leak sensitive documents or blab to sources like Kotaku or through the various social networking tools available to them (FaceBook, LiveJournal, Twitter, etc).
Now that I've become a manager in my own right, I've become even more cognizant of what I say to people outside of the company I work for regarding what we're doing and how we're doing it. Having a military background (with a very high security clearance to go with) over a number of years before going into the games business was also helpful in my keeping my mouth shut about a number of things, particularly when something nasty or non-pleasant was happpening within.
It always have irked me when internal e-mails sent to employees have appeared on some web site or something especially since, to my knowledge, this should result in termination (or at the very least, a very stern talking to and written warning from HR) in the professional sector; in the military a leak of that nature could result in jail time.
Unless someone in the industry takes a very hard line and honestly comes down hard when they find someone leaking important information, I also think this will continue to happen at the largest companies, partly because the gaming industry is so closely-knit with people moving from company to company...
8 months ago
Although it may not have been the case with Sony this time, sometimes these leaks are intentional too as a way to start building buzz.
8 months ago
I don't think The Last Guardian revelation was hurt that much by the early reveal, and may have even built excitement, but I'm sure PSP Go was a genie Sony probably wishes it could have put back in the bottle. Not just that it was being made, but the constant accurate rumors about the project really deflated its announcement.
8 months ago
Does this mean companies are following thru with their NDA's less or are they just not finding out where the leaks are coming from?
8 months ago
I'm sure companies still enforce their NDA's- otherwise, there would be no secrets at all. I think its just becoming harder to keep things under their hat, with one person emailing with their Yahoo account can blow a story wide open.
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