GearWERKZ TechBlog

Where is the gaming console controversy in 2009? The executives have stopped throwing barbs at each other. Is it because of the changing of the guard (Peter Moore of MS went to EA; Phil Harrison left Sony to go to a game developer/publisher) or is it because the industry really learned something from the mud-slinging campaigns of 2006/7 – mainly that non-engineering executives should not shoot off at the mouth on what their technology can do until their product actually delivers; or to maybe not claim that features are so great until there is proof from your user-base that what you think is important is what they actually care about.

Follow up:

It is now 3 years removed from the marketing campaigns of 2006 when Sony and Nintendo I guess felt that they had to come out of the gates hard to counter the one year head start that Microsoft had with the XBox 360. I have lived through, been a apart of, observed and tracked every major console release cycle since the inception of the industry in the mid-70's. This last one was the most onerous.

It became so difficult to separate technical truisms from the obfuscation of the marketing pundits that I basically bailed and stopped trying to write about it. If I had tried to write a post ever time some yokel claimed something incredulous, I would have not slept until sometime in 2008. It was horrible. And I do not feel it did a lot of good for the industry.

The two most culpable parties of these debacles were Sony and Microsoft. Everyone acknowledged pretty early on that Nintendo was competing in an almost completely different marketplace. Peter Moore, at the time Corporate Vice President, Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft, even took the tact of slamming Sony's price point for the PS3, offering that for the price of a PS3, consumers could by a 360 and a Wii. The other primary battlegrounds that these two behemoths waged their PR war over were HD Content and optical disc format, backwards compatibility, online services, and exclusive content.

Sony of course took the approach that Blu-Ray and HDMI support were absolutely necessary for next-gen consoles. They also took many opportunities to point out that the XBox 360 supported neither. Of course, MS's standpoint was that very few TV sets supported HDMI, and that 720p was good enough, which could be rendered over component cables and did not rely on an HDMI connection. Phil Harrison (Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President at the time) tried to turn around Moore's comments by taking the high road and seemingly agreeing with Moore, with one caveat:

"I think Peter Moore is exactly right. I think Nintendo will be the second system consumers purchase after PlayStation 3."

from Exclusive GamePro interview, May 2006

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