‘No respect for confidentiality’ in the industry, says Tretton

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.

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.