Jack Tretton, Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO, has always been good for some mind-blowing quotes begging to be written down by any journalist within earshot. However, nothing, and we mean nothing, can compare to the latest one in EGM's March issue: "If you can find a PS3 anywhere in North America that's been on shelves for more than five minutes, I'll give you 1200 bucks for it." And every reader collectively gasps.The guys at Penny Arcade wrapped themselves in the gooey goodness of that quote already and we'd certainly like to point out our photos from January (there's about $24,000 in that photo alone). The reason we're showing January images is becase an editor's note on the EGM piece says the interview took place in early Jan. 2007. Seriously though, even the EGM guys in the same interview say, "But we called 18 random retailers, including Best Buy and EB Games, and half of them had PS3s in stock ... some had as many as 20 in the store." Come on kids, everyone in the pool, Uncle Jack is giving out free money.
(Page 1) Reader Comments
I had a picture of about 6 PS3s in a Target right down the road from me, but decided that since everyone else had uploaded at least 5 pics, it would just be overkill if I showed it to Joystiq too.
And I love that Penny Arcade, haha.
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This guy is worse than Krazy Ken, by quite a margin
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Incredible.
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He is an overly-pompous, arrogant (Oh wait, those traits are requirements for high offices in Sony Corp), complete fucking moron who doesn't know a thing about where the industry is now... and I'm not just basing that off of this article. Its as though he is assuming that the PS3 is doing as well as the PS2 while sitting in his straitjacket in that foam-coated room of his.
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Here's some of my favorites:
EGM: A while back we learned that Sony was looking into copying Xbox 360's achievements system, calling them "entitlements." Are you familiar with that?
JT: To be honest with you, I'm not familiar with that discussion.
And this gem:
EGM: What happened to your previously announced plans of having games run on two side-by-side widescreen HDTVs? It seems kind of impractical, but you guys brought it up.
JT: To be honest with you, I don't know the answer to that one. I don't recall the statement, and I don't know what the status of it is...
Almost the whole article is like that. You thought Sony had lost it before. This guy takes the cake... and then tells you it's a ham sandwich... (that he forgot he ate).
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The PS3 is a good console, but...
ARE THE SUITS AT SONY FUCKING MAD OR SOMETHING!?! I mean, seriously- this is just getting fucking pathetic! If its not one ignorant Sony guy saying something, its another...
Its a good thing the PS2 is still selling at a profit or these guys wouldn't be able to afford the weed they're so clearly smoking.
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Maybe he's right because I just checked Best Buy and Circuit City's websites and the Playstation 3 isnt in stock online or in store.
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You may have a point but ebgames and gamestop online has ps3 in stock!
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as for this tretton idiot. Sony (because they need to do something about the chimpanzees in head office) should make him pay every penny out of his own pocket
which means:
They sell EVERY unsold PS3
Jackie boy goes bankrupt and gets fired
If they need to turn around their forunes thus far theyve got a spectacular scapegoat ready to taken to the cleaners.
Of couse, thatll probably mean the next day thousands of PS3s will be returned.
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Of course, granted, it's like EGM grabbed the most dickheaded questions on the planet that they could find and ran with those.
You know what I miss? Good video gaming journalism. Actually, scratch that. I couldn't have missed it. It never even existed. All magazines and site flipflop their opinions and hype machines every single day, or so it seems.
I just wish, for once, these big companies would actually throw someone who knows what they hell they are talking about at the rabid press. Sony was going to go into there, take a ton of heat, and need some straight up honest answers. Is it time for David Jaffe to become Sony's Regginator? Actually, yeah. David Jaffe is rapidly gaining an iconic status amongst his fans and that's because, while he is a tad foul mouthed, he's witty, sharp, and tends not to exaggerate, and dar I even say it... honest? Honesty is the pill Sony needs to swallow right now. Getting David Jaffe up on stage talking about where they went wrong and what they plan to fix in the future would go a hell of a long way to reverse some of the damage done by Ken and maybe even Tretton.
I mean, every Nintendo speech reeks of arrogance but somehow, Reggie throws that arrogance in a wonderful pie that people tend to gobble up. Let's see what kind of pie a fatass like Jaffe can whip up.
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So when it's time for us to cash in on his bet, will he just magically forget that he made this bet?
Us: But Jack you said if I found a PS3 sitting on a shelf, I'll get $1,200.
Jack: To be honest with you, I'm not familiar with that discussion.
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This is the same kind of interview Shoe gave Peter Moore post 360 launch. It's kind of a "kick ass, take names" and considering the rags.. erm, magazines history with these kinds of questions, he should have gone in better prepared.
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But most mainstream consumers flock to circuity and bestbuy and mostly ps3 hateboys go to gamestop/eb so theres bound to be ps3's in stock there.
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FREE MONEY!!!
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Here's my opinion on how the PS3 is going to fare in the market: it will fail miserably unless Sony can bring the price down. And by that, I mean they need to reduce the core PS3 package to $400 and drop production of the expensive one to about 10% of the total. Gamers talk a lot about how out of touch analysts are with the game market, and I don't disagree with that, but I think to some extent most hardcore gamers are just as out of touch with the market as these analysts are. The casual gamer is not going to eventually decide that it's worth it to pay $600 plus tax for the next PlayStation when their PS2 or Xbox 360 suits their sporadic gaming habits just fine.
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And sheppy you are the master at sounding smart while saying less than intelligent things. Are you trying to say that asking hard questions is bad journalism. That makes me laugh last time I checked good journalism meant asking the hard questions even if they were kind of "dickheaded". And the most recent reggie interview I read was mostly about how they were surprised by how successful the Wii is. That seems like the opposite of arrogance to me. Nintendo was also the company that admitted that if the Wii didn't do as well as the game cube it would be a failure and acknowledged the mistakes they made with the gamecube. I know Nintendo does have arrogance in some of its interviews but it's definitely not all of them. You confuse me man.
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Indeed ! unless things changed a few seconds ago circuit city online has ps3 in stock !" I live in NYC
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Jack Tretton is not a marketer, he is the President and Chief Executive Officer of SCEA, it sure seems that he doesn't know what he's talking about and that's even scarier.
Dickheaded questions? They were questions directly related to Sony's claims over the last two years. Jack T himself said that the PS3 would offer everything XB Live does but for free, so they asked him about it because Sony did not deliver on this statement. They tried to pass off CG renders as gameplay at E3 05, and they called him on it. They asked for specifics on a timeline for the PS Network to catch up with XB Live, for how they specifically view their competitors. Sony stated the removal of rumble was because of cost, not legal reasons; and since Immersion debunked this claim, they asked him about it (now Jakc spins a different answer). You know what these kind of relevant, opened ended questions are called? Journalism. The President of SCEA (not some marketer) came off as completely disconnected from his company's target demographic, and (big suprise), the product reflects it.
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http://www.startblue.net
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They are not ignorant -- they are desperate.
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In any other journalism, a journalism is meant to bust their asses trying to find a scoop, a story, a tidbit about their subject. They use questions to expose a truth rather than expose a moron. They tend to try and uncover new tidbits.
Now, let's look at how game journalism works. Game Journalist zero sits on his ass, writing reviews and scouring the net for rumors to throw in the old rumor columes. A company, let's say, Volition, calls game journalists and says "Hey, we want you to look over Red Faction 3's debut. You game?" Game journalist jumps on a plane, heads to champaign, is wined and dined along with other game journalists by THQ, and signs a paper specifically detailing, no matter what they saw, what they can and cannot talk about. These are called NDAs or Non Disclosure Agreements. They play the game, they are floored and they are eager to talk about it. But alas, in their agreement, they agreed not to talk about it until a certain date and likewise, what things they can and cannot talk about. Now, despite the constant work that they do, and I'm not calling them lazy by any means, a vast majority of their stories are delivered to them. How they present them, that's the true story. Now, I ask you, aside from press conferences, what other branch of journalism gets their news spoon fed to them?
That's why I follow the blogs. They tend to be biase from time to time, but they, at least, actually dig around for stories and leads. Unlike IGN, EGM, and Gamepro, they find the news, not wait for the call and sign gag orders. That's why I can't follow claim their journalism is truly finding news. Hell, imagine if all journalists were bound the way game journalists are. You know what we would have? The NY Times calling capital hill every week, "Can we please run the story about the pedophile in charge of protecting our child from sexual predators?" "Nope, we're not quite ready to expose that one yet."
Now, as for when I called Jack Tretton a marketer by trade... here you go. A corporate profile.
"Jack Tretton
Executive Vice President and Co-Chief Operating Officer
Sony Computer Entertainment America
History: Tretton has more than 23 years of consumer product experience, 20 of those directly in the videogame space. He has been with SCEA since its inception, when he joined in 1995 as director of sales. He was promoted to co-COO in 2005.
Highlights: As one of the founding members of the executive team, Tretton has worked vigorously to make all PlayStation platforms best sellers in North America.
Currently: His current departmental responsibilities include overseeing the company's sales, business development, merchandising and marketing efforts which include managing and continuing to develop the PlayStation brand and corresponding product family. "
He was the guy who created the Playstations "cool" image. He was recently promoted to his current position. By origins and trade, he's a marketer, a hypeman, a brand inflater. He came in, did his time, got his promotions, but if you think he was one of the people telling 989 how to crumble the respectability of established franchises, well, let's just say I'm disappointed.
It's just like Reggie. He started out as a hypeman and he's constantly honest about it. Like when someone asks him what Wii software he's most looking forward to, he replied "Mainly, the Nintendo published stuff. But I'm trying to sell that stuff to you anyway and that's the only way I can answer that question."
And I'm sorry, Nintendo being humbled? My ass. They only said it was a suprise because now they are in the position they can look back at all the shit they said and agree they were on the money.
Let's just put it this way.
-"In the same way iPod has changed the music industry forever, Nintendo DS will reshape the handheld industry forever." -Reggie, Nintendo DS press release interview sent to store buyers.
-"Our way of playing is the right way." -Iwata, TGS 2005
-The megagame speech in general. Delivered by Nintendo, one of the biggest offenders to their "Megagame" crimes they outlined.
-And last but not least, anytime they mention Nintendo DS. Personally, I'm sad to see the PSP get so brutally defeated since, now that Nintendo doesn't have a competitor, their last couple quarters on DS has been rather uninspired and lazy.
And yes, those questions were dickheaded. Not that I care, but they were. It was EGM trying to sell copies by using rather "hard hitting" questions to try and move more copies. Evidence? Look at the cover. How many questions did they ask that were focused on how Sony could change or update or possibly even remove the slump they are in? Eventually they got around to some of the more important questions but even those were like "Why did UMD fail?" which, to be honest, he nailed that question. Regardless, the interview was meant to put him on the spot and it succeeded. Personally, I would like to see gaming journalism either put everyone on the spot, or quit making big deals about the times they do.
For instance? Can you find me one interview with Cliffy B that doesn't sound like the person interviewing is sliding down the old meat pole?
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Anyways, The guy was obviously doing major PR talk and damage control but ironicly, the damge control only seems to do even MORE damage to Sony's image.
I don't care what anyone says, this has to be THE worst launch in videogame history, ever. It would be incredible if Sony could actually come back from this....but sadly I honestly don't see that happening.
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The cover of EGM's March issue boasts a PlayStation 3 stained with the red smear of a tomato that's been lobbed at the console and the word "BattleStation!" -- the article looks at what went wrong when the market leader entered this console cycle, and more importantly, SCEA's Jack Tretton explains Sony's side of the story.
In November, due to shortages, Sony sold roughly half as many PlayStation 3's as they'd expected to. But, Sony's PlayStation 3 steadily continued a seemingly uphill climb in the next-gen Gen Now console cycle -- selling 687k units before the end of the calendar year according to NPD figures. Sony has been the market leader for over 10 years. The PlayStation 3's forebears both sold over 100M systems worldwide and the PlayStation 2 was the top-selling gaming machine in December. Yet, the PS3 has faced tremendous amounts of scrutiny, both from mainstream and enthusiast press alike.
Sony's new system has been called a Trojan horse, designed as another way for proprietary technology, like the UMD format or betamax, to infiltrate living rooms and eclipse DVD as the standard disc format.
EGM: Do you believe the PS3 can push the Blu-ray format?
Jack Tretton: I believe we can complement the Blu-ray format. I don't think we can single-handedly drive the Blu-ray format. It's up to the consumer electronics companies; one of the [misconceptions] is that it's Sony's efforts. I don't know that we feel we can or should single-handedly carry Blu-ray on our back. I see it as an asset, though. Blu-ray is a great value for consumers as a movie format, but most importantly [it's of value] to the gamers. Blu-ray does wonderful things for the development community and what they can bring to consumers on Blu-ray & that's something that no other machine offers.
The perceived loss of exclusives (think Assassin's Creed and more recently, Virtua Fighter 5) precludes discussions on the rising costs of development. Can third parties develop exclusively for platforms before the install bases reach a critical mass?
EGM: How do you nurture innovation when the financial risks are greater than ever?
JT: You better be [Resistance developer] Insomniac, and be a very proven entity if you want us to invest upwards of $30 million and give you three years to develop a game for our platform. I don't think that's a realistic opportunity for somebody right out of college, but conversely, we definitely have development opportunities on PS2, PlayStation Portable and online [downloadable] games, where we are absolutely interested in smaller houses or people that are in the early stages of their development careers.
If somebody asked me, "I wanna get into the games industry. What field is the most wide-open?" I'd tell you it's development. That is the biggest investment we've made in employees on a worldwide basis ... because at the end of the day, you need that compelling software to make your hardware relevant.
Is this console cycle a two-horse race? Nintendo's belief that mainstream involves a brand new way of playing games, and Sony and Microsoft reinforcing the type of gaming experiences gamers have enjoyed since the PlayStation-era, who is Sony's competition this cycle?
EGM: How do you view the Xbox 360 as a competitor?
JT: Well, I wish we had no competition, on one hand. On the other hand I think the competition is good because, as we certainly saw in Japan, we had the whole market to ourselves and that put a lot of pressure on the PlayStation brand. There's not only competition within the games industry, there's a lot of competition in entertainment in general that's going to take [consumers] away, so we want to keep people in gaming. If our competitors get people in the aisle, looking at gaming, reading gaming magazines, we feel that's in our best interest -- we've pulled them away from other forms of entertainment.
EGM: But how do you view the 360 specifically as a competitor?
JT: I think we've got a better machine, I think we've got a better business model, and I think we're going to win in the long term. I'm extremely pleased that we're selling more PS2 units than they are [360 units]. That's something that quite frankly surprised me. But while early indicators are not completely irrelevant, you can't completely ignore them, and I'd be a little concerned if I were them. On the other hand, what concerns me is if the Xbox 360 is being rejected, are the consumers on board with [next-generation] technology and is there enough [demand] there.
EGM: Sony CEO Howard Stringer once ... admitted that the price of the PlayStation 3 is very high, but what we're really paying for is potential. Why can't we pay $600 for something that's worth the price right off the bat?
JT: What have you historically paid or would look to pay? Let's say $299 because that's what you paid for the PS2 when it came out or because that's what the low-end 360 costs. OK, if we're asking you to pay $600 for the high-end PS3, I would point out a couple of things. Historically our platforms have staying power. Not three years, not five years, but 10 years. So are you making an investment for the next 45 days, the next year, the next five years, 10 years? Because that would have a little bit of determination as far as the value.
I understand your point about, OK, the potential is there, but what's there day one? I would say that the PS3 has the best gaming experience of any platform that's ever shipped day one. [You're getting] the combination of great gaming, free online play, Blu-ray movie playback, being able to go online and surf the Internet, the ability to download your pictures, download your videos, rip your music to it & and that's all stuff that I as a consumer experienced firsthand. If you want the ultimate gaming experience and you value all of those other experiences, all of a sudden 599 bucks doesn't sound like a whole lot of money
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http://www.us.playstation.com/Corporate/ContactUs/ConsumerServices
And Sent them this e-mail:
Dear Sony Representative,
Recently in an interview with Electronics Gaming Monthly magazine Jack Tretton promised to give $1200 for every Playstation 3 that we found on store shelves in North America for more than 5 minutes. So far, in my area of North America alone, I have found 38 systems on store shelves for well over 5 minutes. I was wondering how I go about collecting the $45,600 that Mr Tretton presently owes me aswell as future monies that will be owed to me for future finds?
Thank you,
Steve Fleming
Anyway, I am waiting for a reply... I'll let everyone know what I get back!
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Poor Sony bastards!
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No. While accusing Nintendo of being a violator of their own "mega game" speech, you probably don't notice all the new IPs for DS, Wii, or even the few on the GameCube. Their more well-known IPs help pay for all the new ones as well.
Don't try to spin this. That Reggie quote is an example of them talking up their own brand rather than talking down their competitor with malice.
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I don't know if this is better then the giant crabs or ridge racer comments. It doesn't has that flair that those two have but this is just too much funny to take at once.
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Any lawyer here?
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