Sony: Home 'Disconnected' by Business Minds

Jack Tretton's backwards compatibility regret

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Sony: Home 'Disconnected' by Business Minds
Jack Tretton, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment America, has blamed "business minds" for problems with PlayStation Home.

Speaking in an interview, Tretton said part of the reason issues have arisen with Home stemmed from, "the disconnect of when Sony took Home out of the creative minds and put it the hands of business minds... but I would rather ship it two years from now with a lot of good stuff, than open it as some ghost town. We have to do a good job of populating it." (Before anyone gets too up in arms, that's a hypothetical "two years from now").

Home was meant to be out last year, but won't be appearing until we get an open beta this Autumn.

On backwards compatibility, Tretton said Sony had to decide how to, "not take a greater hit on production cost, without losing PlayStation's heritage ... Hardware / software for backwards compat wasn't all that expensive ... but we're selling PS2 software to PS2 customers, and selling PS3 software to PS3 consumers."

Tretton's not too chuffed about that, but don't expect a reversal of the policy. "I would like to have had it in there, but Sony's collective strategy determined we could afford to lose it. We've now gone down that road, and we're not going back", he said.

Tretton also made the dubious statement that Sony is "still going to support UMD" as a platform for movies. Feel free to take a punt at that in the forum...

Source: Engadget
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Comments

SPInGSPOnG 17 Jul 2008 13:24
1/6
"Still going to support UMD". As in man has still to land on Mars, I guess.

Hasn't happened yet. Won't happen soon.


schnide 17 Jul 2008 14:11
2/6
Losing backwards compatibility, what there was of it in the first place, is one of the key reasons that PS3 success has been slower than it could have been.

Just like DS3 in the same way, although at least there were legal reasons for that.

PULL YOUR FINGER OUT SONY.

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SuperSaiyan4 17 Jul 2008 15:47
3/6
BC on the PS3 is terrible its nowhere as well made as the BC on the 360 and HOME will be out by the time PS4 is release cant believe people are still waiting on a BETA!

Microsoft is running miles ahead by releasing top quality updates like the one coming out THIS YEAR.
tyrion 17 Jul 2008 17:53
4/6
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Microsoft is running miles ahead by releasing top quality updates like the one coming out THIS YEAR.

You mean completely changing everything, making it more casual, copying Nintendo and Apple in one go, not letting it be optional and pissing off loads of people? Top Quality!
king skins 17 Jul 2008 17:56
5/6
tyrion wrote:
SuperSaiyan4 wrote:
Microsoft is running miles ahead by releasing top quality updates like the one coming out THIS YEAR.

You mean completely changing everything, making it more casual, copying Nintendo and Apple in one go, not letting it be optional and pissing off loads of people? Top Quality!


The interface is like a copy of the Window Media Center interface...
tyrion 17 Jul 2008 18:07
6/6
king skins wrote:
The interface is like a copy of the Window Media Center interface...

It's a lot closer to Vista's Flip 3D, which Microsoft seems to have based on Apple's Coverflow from iTunes. One step removed doesn't stop it being a copy.
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