Albert Penello said:
“The problem is that Sony decided to go out and publish a bunch of numbers, which are in some ways meaningless,” he said. “Because this isn’t like 1990, when it was 16-bit versus 32-bit.
No, of course they're meaningless in no ways, unless you're trying to arbitrarily apply them to things which don't work (such as: how does GDDR5 help with mowing the lawn?). They published a bunch of numbers to illustrate the potential of the system and what devs have to work with, which you cleverly attempted to avoid doing in a forthright manner because you'd be crushed in the comparison.
As an aside, it also matters as a consumer. The less informed you keep consumers, the more it's certain you're trying to hide things that
do matter in a whole lot of ways. It's also inherently anti-consumer to try to hide essential components of a system people are on the market for because you know you'd lose the fight. Just put the cards on the table and let consumers be abreast of
all facts.
Albert Penello said:
“As a matter of fact, they actually go out and they talk about how proud they are about their off-the-shelf parts. Our guys’ll say, we touched every single component in the box and everything there is tweaked for optimum performance. For me, I’d rather not even have the conversation, because it’s not going to matter.
Ridiculous. Cerny and the rest of the hardware team at Sony have said there's virtually nothing they didn't touch in at least some way, since the whole point of the system is to have it be as simple for developers as possible. They made sure it worked for everything from the greatest potential power and efficiency for consoles, and they did it in a smaller package and for $100 less. The idea that they just sort of threw random junk in a shopping cart and lol'd their way to the bank, which is certainly partially the implication of this dude's comment, is just not even close to reality.
If Xbox One hardware power was superior to the PS4 in any quantifiable way they'd be parading that shit from here to kingdom come, as any company would. ESPECIALLY if they managed to get the system in cheaper than your competition. It's about keeping consumers completely informed, not to try to pimp something that doesn't matter since it clearly does. As it always has, in every gen, even before we even consider power. And by the way, power does matter, or at least it has always been a consideration in the mind of consumers.
Y2Kev illustrated this the most potently:
Y2Kev said:
I'm so frustrated by this power thing. The PS2 came out more than 18 months before the Xbox. The console gen was decided before the Xbox was released; it could have been weaker than the PS2 and
it would not have mattered. The whole conversation is meaningless; it does not reveal anything about consumer choices or consumer tastes.
However, if you examine the PS2 in the context in which it was released, you would surely realize that power was a key component of how the system was marketed to consumers. You would know:
- That the hardware components were given humanizing marketing names like "Emotion Engine" and "Graphics Synthesizer"
- That the PS2 was reported on in the media as being a supercomputer ("Sadaam Hussein is importing them TO LAUNCH MISSILES!")
- That the famous "PS9" ad linked the PS2 to a chain of consoles so powerful it became part of your mind
- That Kutaragi spoke about the PS2 as having "Toy Story like graphics" and that players would "jack into the matrix"
Stop being so intellectually dishonest. The PS2 was a monster when it came out. That power mattered.
Yes, it's true that, "The most powerful console has never won the generation!!!!111" But such an observation is facile and meaningless. The SNES and Genesis went head to head on power. The early days of the PS1 vs. Saturn was nothing but a 3d pissing match. The N64 was all about power and it debuted with a paradigm-shifting 3D title. The Dreamcast was a powerful machine ("it's thinking") and the PS2 came out and blew it away.
Am I saying the most powerful machine wins? No. Am I saying power is very important? Absolutely. Even this generation more consumers chose HD gaming machines than non-HD gaming machines and there is the possibility that the PS3 will close out the gen in first place.
So stahp.
It's just deflection Microsoft has been using since its reveal, non-stop.
Albert Penello said:
“The box is going to be awesome. The games are going to be awesome. I heard this exact same argument last generation and it’s a pointless argument, because people are debating things which they don’t know about. They’re not [head silicon engineer] Nick Baker or [corporate vice president of IEB hardware Todd Holmdahl], and I’m not [lead PS4 architect] Mark Cerny, so why are we having this discussion?”
Why are we having this discussion? Is this guy for real or just being sarcastic? It's being discussed because both systems come out in under 6 months and consumers are now actively searching for comparisons so they can determine where to best place their money. It's not rocket science. The box may be "awesome", the games are likely to be "awesome", but most consumers are going to end up with one or the other, and so it's important they stay informed about the technology they're going to be playing most of their games on for the generation. And these comparisons - which include the differences like the Kinect/haptic feedback triggers for XBO and the touch pad/light indicators for PS4 as well as hardware power - are essential to understanding what you're getting over the long haul.
And it
all matters, if you're a game hobbyist. And sometimes it matters even if you're not.
Albert Penello said:
Penello feels consumers will pick a console for the games it offers, rather than for its capabilities on paper. "Here's what you care about," he said. "You bought a system to play great games and have great experiences. I feel like our games and experiences are going to be every bit as good, if not better, technically - on top of all the magic we're going to add with the instant switching, and the power of the cloud.
Well yes, this is obviously true. But the games system offer and the relative superiority of a particular version of a game are all considerations one can potentially make when making a purchase or an investment of $400 or more, and trying to shrug it off like it doesn't just insults a huge portion of potential consumers. Which you guys have been doing a whole lot this year, for some reason.
And of course, supposedly "none of this matters," but at the end he made sure to suggest XBO games might be BETTER technically... an assertion nobody worth their salt would make, if it didn't matter to many. Of course he did this with CLOWD, which is the punchline of every joke at this point. Sony could match Cloud if they want as well, it's not some Helm's Deep. The switching and investments in Cloud and the OS are all part of the appeal of the system, and should absolutely be considered in the list of things one overviews before making a purchase. To try to say "Cloud" matters but not the broader hardware power immediately kills his point as well. Really, it's just a super silly bit of responses altogether from this guy.
More MS PR failures.