SCEA's Jack Tretton on BC, DRM and Home
Our friends over at Engadget sat down to talk with SCEA CEO Jack Tretton, who questioned him about things on just about every PS3 owner's mind. Regarding backwards compatibility, Tretton saw the lack of it as a way to cut production costs, and even though implementing BC isn't particularly expensive, the company wants to be "selling PS2 software to PS2 customers, and selling PS3 software to PS3 consumers." He does express some hesitation about this though. "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."With the new PS Store video service, some were dismayed to find that their video purchases could not be transferred to anything except for their PSP. Tretton feels this is absolutely necessary and that it " is way too hard a business to make money in to allow people to own multiple copies for the price of one." He's "all for allowing an individual consumer having the freedom to do with their content what they want," but Sony has no plans to remove the current restrictions.
As for Home, the problems are arising because of "the disconnect of when Sony took Home out of the creative minds and put it the hands of business minds..." Tretton would rather have Home ready at a much later time with good content, than open it now as "some ghost town." Read the rest of it here.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Miguel @ Jul 17th 2008 3:02PM
Boooooo! Bring back BC for PS2!
MakaiOokami @ Jul 17th 2008 4:30PM
There's no need. The systems are dirt cheap. Besides it's the consumer's fault in the first place. I sure do remember quite a few people yelling "THE SYSTEM IS TOO CHEAP WE DON'T WANT BC WE WANT A PS3 TO PLAY PS3 GAMES NOT PS2 GAMES"
Sony listened and lowered BC. People bought it with the 80 gig bundle and then more studies found people fine with no BC at all.
It was a way for Sony to save money on production as well as cut back on a BC efforts to make sure new games were BC and old games would get FW updates to help.
Don't boo Sony because Sony gave majority of their customers what they wanted in order to save a bit.
Josh @ Jul 17th 2008 5:22PM
Yeah, we want to play our old PS1 games on our PS2! We don't want two systems sitting under the TV!
Gunegune @ Jul 17th 2008 8:51PM
Bring back Kutaragi! Phil Harrison too.
Miguel @ Jul 17th 2008 7:55PM
@MakaiOokami
I dont know who you are talking about, I dont know anyone who says they didnt want BC. Most people I know want BC because they want to be able to play the back catalog of PS1 and PS2 games for when their older systems break. Or for others who never has a PS2, they may want to purchase a PS3 to not only play PS3 games but some great PS2 games. It sucks to make the consumer purchase to separate devices when you are already willing to pay big bucks for the newest one. What if they decided to leave out DVD playback on the PS3 or on other blu-ray players? Would you be Ok with that?
adolson @ Jul 17th 2008 3:08PM
Ghost town? It looks to me like it has enough of Second Life and The Sims in there to addict lots of people as it is now.. No need to wait for more stuff to release it. Just keep updating it. Not that I care, just it's faulty logic, there.
farfisa @ Jul 17th 2008 3:15PM
I'm with you here. They should release it while the concept is hot.
MakaiOokami @ Jul 17th 2008 4:54PM
Actually the faulty logic is releasing it while it's hot.
Look at it this way... it's a free service avaible to ALL PS3 owners. That means it's not going away. It will always be there. You don't have to buy anything, you don't have do anything special, some units will ship with it, it will be easily accessible. That means they don't have to hype anything.
Also releasing it while it's Hot... Do you realize how many people just can not be satisfied? People complain about not having it, what do you think they'll do if it doesn't have enough features? They'll complain some more. They'll start trying to tell people that Sony has a bad business sense... all sorts of things.
Don't blame Sony blame the people that can't be happy unless everything is perfect. People constantly complain, and bitch, and overall just negatively affect everything. People complained with the PS3 being too expensive and asked for BC to be removed and price lowered. Sony did, then people complained about the BC not being there.
Just go to ANY message board of ANY game that hasn't been released yet, Diablo III, Prince of Persia, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero Metallica, Rock Revolution, Lips, Singstar.... Just about any game that hasn't been released. Even Resistance 2. Go to game trailers and watch trailers where people complain about every little detail. It is THESE types of people that hurt gaming. They can't be happy, and they offer no constructive criticism, they don't do petitions, they don't do anything.... They just complain...
Right now there are people saying that Sony should add FLAC even though the people that even KNOW about FLAC is limited. People can not be happy, it is these types of people that cause companies to make these sorts of decisions. Don't blame Sony they're just trying to do the best they can. Every day of development is potential lost income from Advertising as well as Clothing and Furniture Sales... Do you REALLY thing that they want to continue losing money? Or that they want to actually make the experience as good as they can so that they don't get flooded with:
"HOME SUX I"M GETTIN A 360 SCREW YOU SONY" comments, emails, phone calls, blogs, youtube videos, PS3 fanboy articles, Joystiq critiques, Retail level gossip on the failure to the customers, "I hate Home" clubs inside Home itself, and all sorts of great things that people do simply because they are too stupid to know how to appreciate things in life and EVERYTHING must be handed to them nearly free of charge?
It's not Sony's fault it's the consumers. Consumers now adays are such bitches. Look at PSPs. First they wanted more games so then they hacked the PSPs to play SNES games then they started bootlegging games, and finally companies don't even have enough confidence in releasing more games on the grounds that the PSP is being pirated so much. SCREW YOU CRAPPY CONSUMER PIRATES
Hashbrown Hunter @ Jul 17th 2008 5:13PM
Epic-Rant-Of-The-Day Award goes to...
MakaiOokami!
Reymo @ Jul 17th 2008 3:10PM
If leaving it out means more production on new things..you have my vote. I like my old titles as much as the next guy but, when I buy a new consoles I want new titles.
ps3 rules @ Jul 17th 2008 3:12PM
OLD NEWS
bayn @ Jul 17th 2008 3:13PM
I don't care if home is an outdoor outhouse at this point. You can confine me to a 3x3 square for all all I care as long as I get to have cross voice and game invites/party features to launch with my friends. I'll stay staring at the wall until you think the rest is ready...
linebeginstoblur @ Jul 17th 2008 3:35PM
So after all this time we've been waiting for Home... You know, we should have had it a long time ago... But they delayed it, saying they needed to work on it. And you're telling me that as of NOW, it's a "ghost town"? Then what the hell HAVE you been doing with it? I expect to see Duke Nukem Forever get released before Home...
Jerses @ Jul 17th 2008 5:53PM
dont forget that they also mentioned that they will release home as a changing beta like gmail... hey...wait... they dont want a ghost town... DELAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! delayed and then region locked so you play with less people...but have nice comercials and logos on home :D
freker @ Jul 17th 2008 3:37PM
I'm sure people would pay little extra for full BC. I know I would, well 'better' anyway.
Also, the combination of Home and LBP should be a relevation for social gaming on console systems.
I feel my investment of PS3 was well justified.
Also agree with the E3 conference. A PS console has NEVER had its all its best games in the second worldwide year, I found it was a risk worth taking.
partner @ Jul 17th 2008 3:39PM
I have to say: 60 GB PS3 with full backward compatibility is a beautiful thing. BC doesn't seem to be hurting the XBox 360 or the Wii, I note. Will the new 80 GB PS3 at least have the partial PS2 compatibility of the old 80 GB model, or will it just be the current 40 with a bigger hard drive?
Fane @ Jul 17th 2008 5:56PM
Current 40.
alienclays @ Jul 17th 2008 3:44PM
how about compatablity for my new SONY walkman at least?
sad that i buy my content on amazon.com for my sony product because of weak sauce DRM.
is it hard to make money? yes, but make a service for the consumer, and the consumer will come overwhelmingly. why do you think music distribution sites are dropping drm?
Concat @ Jul 17th 2008 3:45PM
Simply because you buy the movie, doesn't mean you can watch it the way you want to! That's just silly! You have to buy one copy for every device you want to watch it on. Seems fair to me.
The same should be for music. Buy one album for your home stereo, one for your ipod, and one for your car. 60 bucks for 10 songs sounds reasonable to me! It would most definately reduce piracy.
You also have to send the Major Labels one dollar via paypal every time you hum a tune in public.
Ok, sarcasm aside, you're an idiot if you use the new PSN Video Service. Even excluding illegal means, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives that don't require you to have your PS3 around to watch the damn film/show.
Then again, maybe I'm just a bitter Canadian. *goes to mininova*
HAAS599 @ Jul 17th 2008 4:09PM
I'll be using the video service for all my rental purchases.
A may a movie or two for my psp before I go on a road trip, but I'll use this service as a rental only for now.
krztov @ Jul 17th 2008 4:11PM
i sent a tip to your box, how about them mentioning that HD movies are 720p and only SOME of them are actually HD 5.1 audio.. i felt so ripped off when i found this out, then they outright refused me any refund (i didnt even watch the movie)
Deaddy @ Jul 17th 2008 4:44PM
Getting rid of PS2 compatibility sucks. I can't play PS2 games with my PS2 on my HDTV because the image looks terrible, even unplayable on very detailed games like MGS3. Playing them with PS3 looks very good. I'm just afraid that some time in the future my 60GB will die and I may be out of luck. If that happens I'm going to quit buying PS2 games, which I have been doing lately to catch up on some of the greats.
Dwag @ Jul 17th 2008 4:54PM
This is what happens when you take out the good guys and replace them with money hungry americans and europeans thats why I believe Phil Harrison left he realized all his ideas would need to produce cash in order to make it out into the world.
Like I said Sony was run by dicks this generation.
biznass @ Jul 17th 2008 5:09PM
Hate to break it to you but every big corp is run by assholes.
TypeF @ Jul 17th 2008 5:06PM
sorry for the noob question but what is BC?
Carney @ Jul 18th 2008 10:43AM
Backwards compatibility. In this context it refers to the PS3's ability to play PS2 and PS1 games. All PS3s can play PS1 titles (except for a few). But what's caused so much frustration and unhappiness among users is Sony crippling, then completely removing, all PS2 BC from the PS3.
The first generation of PS3s, the 20GB and 60GB, had FULL BC. The second generation was not nearly as good in this respect: the 40GB had NO BC, and the 80GB had crippled, limited BC. The third generation, consisting solely of a new 80GB, has no BC.
Dwag @ Jul 17th 2008 5:37PM
Does anyone know if the new 80Gb will have the new RSX chips?
Bobby @ Jul 17th 2008 9:33PM
BOOOOOOOOoo they should have had 1 and 1 sku only , the 60 GB backwards compatible. this is one of the reasons why i loved the playstation brand.
Davedrastic @ Jul 18th 2008 4:30AM
Q: Who wants BC and Home?
A: Everyone
Q: So why won't Sony give it to us (yet)?
A: Because if you don't have BC, you'll have to either buy a PS2 seperately or buy PS3/PSN games. If you don't have Home, you're more likely to spend your time playing PS3 games, which you'll have to buy.
I think Sony underestimated how popular the PS2 still is and are just trying to work around maximising their profits. Not having BC has nothing to do with saving costs. If they wanted save costs they wouldn't have used Cell and Blu-ray.