Gabe Newell: "The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels. I think it's really clear that Sony lost track of what customers wanted, and what developers wanted. I say even at this late date, they should cancel it and do a do-over. Just say, 'this was a horrible disaster, and we're sorry, and we're going to stop selling this,' and stop trying to convince people to develop for it."
Phil Harrison, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios: "Well first and foremost I think Gabe's company has made 2 of the best games I've ever played. So I have deep respect for his output as a developer/publisher, but perhaps not so much for his comments in the press."
"By what measure is the launch of the Playstation 3 unsuccessful? We have people lined up in three continents to buy Playstation 3's. They were there for days at a time lining up, and we sold everything we shipped into the marketplace. We continued to supply the product to the marketplace on a weekly basis and we scheduled those supplies in great detail with our retail partners to meet their operational needs--and we met them. We have supplied into the marketplace more products in Japan, Asia, and the US than we did for the launches of Playstation 1 or Playstation 2, with more software than we did for Playstation 1 or Playstation 2, two formats that have combined to sell over 225 million units and over 2 billion units of software. What's wrong with this picture?
"However, we can always sell more. We can always have more software. The European launch is on track for the 23 of March. The boat with most of the supply....is on its way from China to various European ports as we speak. Hope the Suez Canal doesn't get closed, otherwise we're all screwed. The commitment to ship a million units into Europe on Day 1 has been made, and will be achieved. So, it's a phenomenal launch by any measure. Then add on top of that what's in the box. The fact that this is all inventive technology, that this is all new stuff, and it's leading edge stuff--I think it's a fantastic achievement." Source: GDC conference with Phil, Part 3 (watch on www.gametrailers.com)
Gabe...owned? Or did Phil fail at damage control?
jigglebilly1983
as much as i love Half life, i think this is funny comming from guy who can only make one game. Everything else he puts out, he has to hire the kids who made the mod (CS, Team Fortress, DoD etc...) so that he doesnt have to rip them off. Valve pretty much gave them their wildest dream on a platter, dude. That's like the ultimate for a mod author. Valve would probably have to be one of the toughest development studios to get a job in. The poor bastards working 90 hour weeks at EA probably dream of working for Newell and Lombardi.
Of course they hired those guys. They made the damn mods.
Harrison obviously wasn't. Standard PR boilerplate, in fact.
A great example of the seige mentality they must have going over at Sony PR. You've got devs dropping the 'crap' bomb, publishers pulling out of exclusivity deals and all your multiplats being developed first on your competition's hardware. I'd be trying to make a lot of noise about sales too.
Obviously, not a big noise, because they don't want to mention the abysmal attach rate.
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