SCEA CEO blasts PSPgo info leaks months before the handheld was oficially announced
Sony’s Jack Tretton has revealed the extent of his displeasure at the game industry’s apparent lack of respect for confidentiality.
“People don’t respect confidentiality in this industry,” he told news group CNBC. “It’s tough enough to keep a secret within your own company, much less when you speak to third parties.”
His comments closely follow Sony’s E3 non-reveal of the PSPgo, Sony’s new UMD-less edition of the 50-million selling handheld.
Before the actual E3 conference itself, Develop’s sources revealed that a host of developers had already been briefed about the PSPgo as far back as March during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Two days before Sony’s E3 press event, and a day before E3 itself, a leaked Qore video exposed a huge number of details about the new PSP.
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On the day of the conference, Develop sister site MCV got word of a new motion-sensing controller from Sony, hours before the platform holder officially announced it.
SCEA CEO Tretton was jovial about the leaks when welcoming attendees to the conference. “Thank god you guys showed up,” he said at the time. “Given this industry’s ability to keep confidential information I was concerned there really wouldn’t be anything to be said at these press conferences,” he added.
In an interview with CNBC, his mood turned sober:
“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.”
There was much misinformation spread about the “PSP2”, especially the notion that it had a touch screen.
Some have argued that this effectively compromised the value of the PSPgo when it was announced without a touch screen.
Woah, I reckon the man would severely struggle in politics and sports news if he gets his feathers ruffled about a few leaks.
Honestly, you cannot criticise the human instinct to spread gossip. WE ALL DO IT!
Er, "few leaks"?
People found out about Sony's new console, like, months before it was announced. People know about the PS3 Slim too.
These are not small fish, they are new consoles, a platform holder's most important product.
This isn't the MOD this is the games industry, but we are not all big mouths who cannot keep a secret. At the end of the day we are living in a new age where tiny information leaks turn into big news, the fact is unless we turn to military tactics you have to accept that information gets leaked. You could try looking further into the future and delivering products with the features that people want :-P
How has this damaged Sony? You're telling me that five months of exposure is worse than a single day?
Also, if it wasn't for leaks then old Nixon would have gone on for a few more years.
Maybe it hasn't damaged Sony, but can you really say our blabbermouth culture can go on and on without damaging people.
What do we care anyway, we're gonna find out soon enough.
Of all the consoles, people care less about the handhelds. Just imagine all the **** we go through four years down the line when the new Xbox is announced.
It's actually much more about hiring practice and internal procedures. It's known fact that people like to talk. If you've got problems with your organisation start there. You might have to clean house more than you'd like.
The real breach of confidentiality in the industry is in the design pitching process.
Get 5 development teams all to write a design doc for the same game for free.
Mix together the best ideas of all 5 and then give the work to either the cheapest of the 5 companies or an internal team.
Now that is proper exploitation of peoples confidentiality
