Manufacturers and their Customers

enigma_b17

You know over the last 6 months i've been watching as my PS3 becomes more and more useless, and that I feel less enticed to use it, and trying to figure out why.

With Sony just announcing a warning (what are they warning us of exactly, sounds like a threat lol), that they are expecting to post their 4th successive quarterly loss

krudler

useless in what way?

RedXIV

Maybe buy a new game for it?

NotorietyH

enigma_b17 wrote: »

You know over the last 6 months i've been watching as my PS3 becomes more and more useless, and that I feel less enticed to use it, and trying to figure out why.

With Sony just announcing a warning (what are they warning us of exactly, sounds like a threat lol), that they are expecting to post their 4th successive quarterly loss

It's a profit warning for investors, not the public. It's mainly their TV division that's a drain on the profits and the strong Yen in terms of currency exchange. Nintendo are posting their first loss since 1981 too, the yen is affecting every Japanese company.

enigma_b17

Whoops, that wasn't finished lol
stupid chrome decided to post it anyway it would appear oh well!

enigma_b17

let me clarify

What i was trying to get at was to just see what people's opinions of how Sony are treating their customers. By this I mean, that I personally feel like I am now renting my console from Sony for a flat once off fee which I pay when I get it.

Not even talking about just games but anything you want to do on it, and how locked down it is. I was thinking that if DELL started locking down their pc's/laptops etc so that for example people couldn't play homebrew games, or watch a digital version of a movie or something along those lines, their would be outrage, so trying to figure out why it seems to be ok for them to do it on a console?

enigma_b17

And this actually doesn't simply relate only to Sony but also to Game Manufacturers...UBISOFT being the main example.

p.s. just add I don't pirate games, never have, never will. Have always bought them, always will (I also like the boxes, seems to be some sort of ocd comlpex i've developed ), and while I appreciate companies efforts to protect their investments, I have to wonder if its having an overly negative impact.

E.G. About a month ago my PS3 decided to stop doing anything other than load up the OS. So wanted to backup my Assassins Creed 2 Brotherhood save game so that I could transfer it to a new one that Game were going to give me....low and behold copying to a USB disk (or any external media) has been disabled for this game...but it will allow me to upload to PS+ (which requires a monthly fee). So bought a month for the craic, only to find out that I have to wait for 24hours before downloading after uploading?!
Eventually got it all copied over anyway...but it just amazes me why companies are wondering why they are loosing income when they are basically treating every customer like a criminal

Helix

none of what you specify above is the reason companies are losing money though

enigma_b17

just wanted to get an honest discussion going as it seems to be coming into play more and more with new games, new consoles being locked and bolted up the whazoo.

Personally I applaud Valve / Steam. As bad as their customer service is (tbh pretty much every manufacturer/developer has crappy customer service), their stance on piracy is amazing. I am sure everyone has read the article (its around on the web) on how valve deals with piracy, that is to say they don't really. And personally I would easily hand over €30-50 for a valve game as opposed to get it via other means.

enigma_b17

Helix wrote: »

none of what you specify above is the reason companies are losing money though

Ah I had it all typed out and it made perfect sense before the page submitted too early, now its just a jumbled mess. Just ignore the first post it doesn't make sense without the rest of it lol

P.S. one of the reasons that Sony is advising its costs are down are due to decreased demand for consoles in EU and US, which I will need to go find the source for. While i'm sure it's not the only reason I can only imagine it had some effect.

NotorietyH

Consoles are always locked down though. You can't compare them to PCs in that regard. Out of the three consoles, Sony's is the most open too. You can use any bluetooth or usb keyboard, and bluetooth headset etc. with it. Even allowing Steamworks on it for Portal 2, is an example of Sony being more open that Microsoft. Nintendo are far more restrictive too. Games are region free. How exactly have Sony mistreated you?

enigma_b17

Well I wasn't exactly comparing them to pc's, just saying that if the same was to be done to a PC there would be outrage so trying to figure out why Companies believe it to be ok to do it to consoles.

Also not suggesting that i have necessarily been "mis-treated" by Sony, more a general discussion on how they treat customers by this whole "everyones a criminal" approach they seem to be adopting if you know what I mean

krudler

I dont get it? what you basically want is consoles to be as open platform as a pc? never going to happen

NotorietyH

enigma_b17 wrote: »

Well I wasn't exactly comparing them to pc's, just saying that if the same was to be done to a PC there would be outrage so trying to figure out why Companies believe it to be ok to do it to consoles.

Also not suggesting that i have necessarily been "mis-treated" by Sony, more a general discussion on how they treat customers by this whole "everyones a criminal" approach they seem to be adopting if you know what I mean

I really don't know what you mean, I haven't noticed that approach from them myself.

Consoles have always been closed, it's kind of the point, they were designed that way from the start to provide a level playing field and all that. It's this generation though that consoles have become more open, and Sony were bitten on the arse a bit because of it, so there's an argument for consoles being closed right there.

Varik

Where are you getting that console sales are down, US alone sales are up 200,000 year over year and 360 numbers are good too.

The reason that some games have protected saves in to prevent save cheating that was not properly done in the actual game.

Steam are ****ing awesome and when i've had problems with it they did help, i bought half life 2 years ago and when i installed the orange box i was given a code for half life 2 to give to someone as my account had 2 copies of it now. Most of the time steam never cuases a problem to need help with.

NotorietyH

Exactly, it's mentioned in some of the reporting about it that games and consoles sales are actually up for Sony, so if anything, the console business is keeping them going.