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[CyberPanda]

A look at why Sony has so far taken an understated approach to heralding the arrival of the next generation

It's official. PlayStation 5 is coming. It will be here in just over a year. Sony revealed it just this week to the world's media, with leading game developers celebrating its many advantages.

Well, not quite. It announced PS5 via a blog post and a placed article in Wired, just a few months after it first talked about the new console in a standalone Wired article.

Sony's understated approach to PR in 2019 has been in direct contrast to Microsoft, which has done nothing but talk, talk, talk, talk all year long. Whether it's about new consoles, streaming platforms, subscription services, games... even family settings. Microsoft has been leading the conversation, it has attended all the big shows, and has been sharing its vision in a coherent way. Microsoft has a plan and is happy to tell us all about it.

In a year where you'd expect Sony to be setting out its strategy for widening the gaming audience, it has acted conservatively. It is behaving more like a business worried about protecting its lead rather than extending it.

Sony's PR strategy is perhaps understandable when you consider the criticism it has faced from certain media, particularly around cross-play. There are already commentators proclaiming the return of 'arrogant Sony,' yet the counter to accusations of over-confidence is humility, not avoiding the conversation.

"The industry is looking at Sony to see what's next for the console business. At the moment, Xbox is the one providing all the answers"

Of course, the ongoing company restructure at Sony isn't helping. PlayStation's old regional structure made it a complicated beast, but that made it popular in markets its competitors couldn't get near. The centralisation plan was to try and simplify things while maintaining the regional autonomy that has worked so well in the past. As of right now, it's not working.

There is no centralised clarity of vision, and regional teams have become frustrated by US oversight and sign-off procedures. It's perhaps no wonder senior names -- whether that's Shawn Layden or regional leads -- are using this opportunity to move on.

This uncertainty has reached the wider business. At the GamesIndustry.biz Investment Summit this year, one indie developer expressed fears that PlayStation "has stopped caring about indies." There's so much we don't know about what Sony is planning next. What are its third-party priorities? Is VR still a thing for it? Is PlayStation Now as significant to them as Game Pass is for Xbox?

It might be PlayStation doesn't quite have all the answers yet and isn't ready for the media scrutiny. Even so, it's not quite the confident showing you'd expect from the dominant platform holder.

I confess I was a bit reluctant to write this piece initially. None of this is especially new. From the moment Sony backed out of E3, it was clear the company was going into stealth mode ahead of PS5, and we're still over a year away from its launch. And restructures are almost always painful. The time to judge them is not in the middle of the transition, but at the end when the kinks have been worked out. Centralising PlayStation in a globalised games industry had to happen at some point.

Comparing PlayStation to Xbox is also a little unfair. For Xbox, this generation was all but lost long ago, so it's no surprise that its next-gen strategy is more developed. After all, Sony has been busy lining up games and developing services to satisfy its current enormous install base. Microsoft has dominated the conversation in 2019, but so what? If Sony has kept its powder dry for some major reveals next year, then it might find itself in control during 2020 when it actually matters.

PlayStation may have lost some charismatic names, but in Jim Ryan, Mark Cerny and Shuhei Yoshida, they've got some smart leaders more than capable of delivering something exceptional. But that's the thing... we don't know if Sony will do that next year. Is it going to invite the world's media back in? Is it going to face the tougher questions? Will it return to the big stages like E3?

There's some doubt around PlayStation now that wasn't there a few years ago. PS4 sales are slowing (in the UK, console sales are down almost 40% year-to-date) and the industry is looking at Sony to see what's next for the console business. At the moment, Xbox is the one providing all the answers.

What's going on with PlayStation? | Opinion

It's official. PlayStation 5 is coming. It will be here in just over a year. Sony revealed it just this week to the wor…

www.gamesindustry.biz

 

[Matt_Fox]

Sony want to keep selling PlayStation 4s (sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one).

 

[ethomaz]

Quote me surprised but Sony reveal more info from PS5 than MS from Scarlett.
That makes the articles claim weird.

 

[CaldaSnake]

It's kind of amazing to me that everything, even the tiniest bit of "info", nowadays is dissected and / or twisted to fit a narrative for clickbait purposes when actually there's just little or nothing else going on. It's all or nothing.

In this case, when you talk too much you're either showing confidence or the "arrogant Sony" is back. If you're keeping stuff close to the chest you're hiding... Give me a break.

In this day and age with the speed tech moves forward, when companies are releasing USD 1K phones every year, in a landscape with tons of rumors, insiders, leaks and huge amount of scrutiny, I'd say it's right to only talk about stuff once they're ready to be talked about than say tons of shit just to make headlines, eventually underdeliver and piss off your fanbase -- specially the gaming community, which is way more informed and aware than years ago.

 

[Portugeezer]

If it is coming out in OVER a year, there is no need to do much.

You better believe MS can't wait to see the back of this generation, which explains why they are so eager to talk about next gen. I thought this gen was fine with the big reveal in Feb then keeping the ball rolling until the Holidays.

If they reveal it earlier I am happy, but there is no need for Sony to do so.

 

[ethomaz]

If it is coming out in OVER a year, there is no need to do much.

You better believe MS can't wait to see the back of this generation, which explains why they are so eager to talk about next gen. I thought this gen was fine with the big reveal in Feb then keeping the ball rolling until the Holidays.

If they reveal it earlier I am happy, but there is no need for Sony to do so.

But MS said nothing except Sony too (they said everything Sony said in the first interview) about next-gen.

 

[diffusionx]

If I recall correctly, Sony held a big event in early 2013 where they showed off the PS4 and gave the specs - it was maybe February. The way Sony is doing it now, running it through Wired of all places, is kind of odd.

Maybe there was a bit more hunger for the next-gen six years ago which is why Sony unveiled it in that way, but in any case, this is not normally how new consoles are unveiled.

 

[DonF]

Quote me surprised but Sony reveal more info from PS5 than MS from Scarlett.
That makes the articles claim weird.

EXACTLY what I was thinking. Sony has revealed way more, but in more specialized venues, away from the common people and mainstream.

Microsoft has been yelling about the new console, cause the xbox one isnt doing as hot as the ps4, giving hope to faithful consumers, meanwhile Sony is quietly saying that something better is coming, so that people continue buying ps4s.

 

[FranXico]

Quote me surprised but Sony reveal more info from PS5 than MS from Scarlett.
That makes the articles claim weird.

gamesindustry.biz is a part of the GamerNetwork company, of which other illustrious sites such as RPS and EuroGamer are also part of.
I'm not surprised...

 

[Thief1987]

Hmmm, what is this smell? Oh, this is smell of quality journalism

 

[Dabaus]

Whenever Microsoft want to put FUD out there they always go to bloomberg or some techy website to put a hit piece out on Playstation, and of course promote cloud gaming. At this point we know alot more about PS5 than we do about scarlett, so much so that anything xbox announces about scarlett will be been there, done that.

 

[NickFire]

"I confess I was a bit reluctant to write this piece initially."

I certainly hope so, because with all due respect the article just doesn't seem to hold any value. As others have said, MS is hardly leading the way on the reveal. MS has been reacting. Yeah, they did trump up E3, but what did they really reveal? In my opinion all they did was get a lot of eyes watching them say the exact same thing Sony already said months earlier. And I've yet to hear about some feature MS has up its sleeve that Sony doesn't.

Another note - Sony's approach can only be a surprise if you weren't gaming before PS4 launched. They didn't release specs this early then, and I also feel pretty sure we know more about PS5 than we did about PS4 this far from their respective launches.

And with respect to certain unknowns, clock speeds and flops, neither company has or will show their hands any time soon. Everyone who follows this type of news know that, and knows why. It's simple. Both want to hold cards close to the chest to make it harder for the competition to 1UP them. And based on Sony's last minute switch on ram with PS4, it's also logical to conclude they have not finalized specs.

As for quoting one indie dev's belief that Sony stopped caring about indie's, that just seems absurd to me. How do we know that indie dev in particular speaks for the larger group, or isn't having information withheld because Sony is concerned they would violate an NDA? And how do we know Sony isn't intentionally keeping most indie devs in the dark simply because they know that the more people given specs, the more likely they become public knowledge?

IMO this article is nothing more than click bait, and the confessed reluctance to write it only reinforces my belief.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Man, GameIndustry Biz can be predicted like clockwork with FUD about Sony.

 

[ResilientBanana]

The answer is simple, both Sony and Microsoft do not do full reveals until 6 Months ahead of time. It's been consistent if you google "(Playstation/Xbox) (Number) Reveal" and then compare it to the "(Playstation/Xbox) (Number) Release Date"