The EGM Jack Tretton interview

Wait, wait, wait. This idiot thought that the Motorstorm E3 2005 demo was IDENTICAL to the finished product? Did EGM check any of his pockets for bribed cash from Sony?

OK, that's it. Whew. Lot of typing. Last time I do that. Anyway, I agree that some of the things he said at the beginning of the interview in regards to the PS3 sales and his remarks about the competition make me wonder about his grip on reality. The last half about the industry in general did make me gain some respect for him, though. I can see why Sony picked him for SCEA CEO. As for the $1,200 deal, this was in early January, as noted in the article. Though I think they should have offered to take him up on it during the interview.GrlGmr

I'd just like to say, "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you GrlGmr" for taking the time to type up that huge interview. You did a great job with very few mistakes. Kudos to you.

As for the interview itself, Mr Tretton is amusing. He really needs a reality check. Even though the PS3 sold like crazy for the first 3-4 weeks, the hype and damand died after 30 days. By the 1st & 2nd week of January PS3 started piling up in stores everywhere. Wal-Mart, EBGames, Gamestop & Best Buy all reported getting a couple dozen PS3 returned in a weeks time from people who only bought the system to sell on Ebay for a profit. Now don't get me wrong. Both the XBox360 and Wii we sold on Ebay too for high prices. The difference, however, is no one returned them back to the stores. Even when the hype died, most people either kept them or sold them to a friend or co-worker. There were more returns to M$ factory then returns to retail stores. :wink:

Sony needs to take a step back and look at the big picture. What are they doing wrong and how can they change the negativity around the PS3? They need to do this now and when the quality titles come out this summer, more fans will be eager for them. Right now I could care less about the PS3, as the price is still to high to me and there's really nothing to play on it. I've even heard many PS3 fanboys state they were bored with the PS3 just after having it for 4 weeks or more. Eventually the PS3 will get a pickup once the price comes down, but will it be too late at that time. We'll have to wait and see.

I just finished reading this interview in this month's EGM magazine and I am just amazed at Jack Tretton's arrogance and fanboyism.  He's in total denial of what's happening around him and he makes it seem like Sony has never done one thing wrong.  Some examples:

"EGM: How do you view the Wii?

JT: I think Nintendo is trying to find their place in the market. The early results from what I've seen have been fairly positive, but I don't know if that's the type of machine to take this industry in the quantum leaps that we've taken it over time. Again, are you reaching 100 million consumers worldwide, are you reaching upwards of 50 million consumers in North America, are you attracting new consumers, are you expanding the base? I think we've done a tremendous job of doing that over the last 11 years, and we've done it pretty much singlehandedly. I don't know if (the Wii) ultimately has the horses to do that."

Fairly positive?  Haha, I don't think anyone can argue that the Wii has had the most successful launch out of all the next gen consoles.  Sony would kill to have a launch like the Wii did.  And it's basically a fact that the Wii has expanded the base of video game users.  Everyone and their mother has played the Wii now.

"EGM: How come you weren't really able to push the UMD format with PSP?

JT: The mistake we made in UMD as a movie format was assuming the movie studios understood our consumers and their tastes...that they knew what they were doing. They flooded the market with movies-I don't know that it was necessarily movies that appealed to your consumers. I know it wasn't at prices that appealed to our consumers. (I'd ask these questions) as a consumer: If you're charging me $19.99 for a DVD, why are you charging me $29.99 for a UMD? I'll pay 20 bucks for it-I'd certainly pay 15-but I'm not paying 29. And I'm not buying On Golden Pond.
   What we're doing now is we're going out and trying to educate the studios as to who our consumer is, and what their price tolerances are. We feel that UMD could be a viable format for movies on the PlayStation Portable if it's handled right."

Tretton's comments about UMD left me speechless.  He's actually blaming the movie studios for the failure of UMD because they "flooded the market with movies".  That's priceless.  Did he ever think that consumers didn't want another movie format shoved down their throats just to play the movie on their PSP when they've already bought the exact same movie on DVD? Amazing, just amazing.

[QUOTE="GrlGmr"]

Going to start typing this out. It's very long, so it's probably going to take awhile and several updates. Mods, just lock the thread if it falls under the copyright violation post. Any typos are mine.

Jack Tretton isn't worried about the PS3's negative press. Sony Computer Entertainment America's new president and CEO has a clear message for everyone: Just wait and see. Armed with our own tough questions (and a few zingers from our intrepid readers), we ask him to defend the PS3's troubled debut, map out its path to future success, and comment on the overall state of the gaming industry.

Jack Treton joined Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) at its inception in 1995 as director of sales and was around for the launch of every PlayStation platform. He was promoted to president and CEO of SCEA in November of 2006. He is responsible for day-to-day management of operations, licensing, business development, marketing, sales, and cheering for the New England Patriots.

EGM: In all these years of covering this industry, we've only really seen one other system launch that had this much negativity surrounding it: the Sega Saturn. What happened?

Jack Tretton: The problem we have... It's society in general. We've been the undisputed winner for over a decade now, and people keep waiting for us to slip up, and we haven't, so people try to create stories that aren't there. The reality is, by ever measurement-and I would challenge you to come up with some negative ones-the PlayStation 3 was the most successful launch we've ever had.

EGM: How are you measuring this success?

JT: We got a lot of press at (videogame trade show) E3 two years before PS3 launched. People said, "Wow, great presentation...really loved the press conference." That's the press' opinion. The pres declares that our press event was positive.
   As we moved towards launch, as consumers started to get their hands on the device and read about what could do, they got very, very excited about it, and that culminated on November 17. When you could bet people across North America at 20,000 retail locations camping out trying to get their hands on a PS3, then you obviously have something that's got a tremendous amout of consumer interest, and that happened.

EGM: Well, let's talk about that for as econd, because, from our unscientific studies, it seemed that about 50 percent of those people in line were there to make a quick buck on eBay. And now we're seeing a lot more units on store shelves.

JT: Really?

EGM: Yeah.

JT: If you can find a PS3 anywhere in North America that's been on shelves for more than five minutes, I'll give you 1,200 bucks for it. I can get any retail buyer on teh phone with you and get them to verify that there's not a single retail location in America where there's a PlayStation 3 on the shelf for sale. They've all been sold in a matter of minutes. (Editor's note: This interview took place in early January 2007.)

EGM: 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. So you can buy them now if you wanted.

JT: We've shipped more than 1 million PS3 units to North American customer sin the first 43 days since launch. I am not sitting in the store to know when they got put on shelves or if a salesperson is giving you accurate information, but if only nine of the 18 stores you contacted had supplies, that seems to be a clear indications that sales continue to be outstanding.
   And if people are (camping) out to buy our machinesto sell them on eBay, and successfully sold them at an extremely large profit, I don't think you'd find a company in the world that'd say, "Yeah that is pretty depressing. Not only did people (camp) out for them, they resold them at a $2,500 profit overnight-yeah, I'm pretty disappointed with our launch." It's hard for me to see the glass half-empty in that.

6icks_tea_4hoar

OWNED.

:lol: What happened to teh "entitlements".............Um, I'm not familiar with that discussion :lol:Tulak_Hord