Rumour: Looming PS4 cycle was real reason for Harrison’s departure from Sony

Sony should study the PS3 before they move on to a next console. I mean, what if you lose more money, do you really think you could survive another generation? Anyway,…it’s like talking to myself here…lol If this is true, I’d have left Sony too.

They’ve got an awfully long way to go in this generation yet. Long, long way. I think PS3 will be very successful in the mid-term, even. There’s bound to be another one.

Yep. They do need to learn a few key lessons though. Designing the machine to be easier to develop for being nice and high on the list. They got away with it for the PS2 as they were the market leader with not much serious competition for a long time. They don’t have such a cushy situation with the PS3.

Yeah, you’re probably right. In a way, though, it does mean people get more out of the machine over time, but if you’re a developer that’s no comfort. Good for gamers though, as games get more technically advanced over the cycle.

I just wanted to congratulate you guys here at VG247 for all the great work you guys do. Not only are you speedy at reporting the day to day news, but you get official comments from developers and grounded sources. Keep up the good work!

-Justin
PSU.com

Many thanks

@Patlike
Wouldn’t it be better for both developer and consumer if they started more technically advanced? Currently you have the PS3 trailing the 360 in ports and it’s going to stay that way for a little while until we get to a stage where both machines are churning out similar stuff from all developers.

I can’t blame the dude for moving on in that case. The PS3 has hardly been a groundbreaking success sales-wise because Sony made the same old mistakes they did when the PS2 first broke cover, and that took a good couple of years to turn around.

Merely throwing another new console into the mix would be a hideous mistake. I can understand them wanting to be first out of the traps before Microsoft inevitably put out another console, but the PS3 would die a death virtually overnight if they opted to produce another console.

Hi, I just joined up because your guys points interested me and I wanted to comment also.

I visit the site regularly, so it seemed to make sense.

The complicated architecture of the PS3, that I know nothing technically about, I think will stay for the PS4. Although it’s complicated, what it does is create a competitive game development market on the technical side. This wouldn’t work without a first party, because third party support would be lost, but first party could keep Sony in the race single handedly if needs be.

I just think it will stay because not only is it great for gamers when they see something they thought would never come out of their machine, but it’s also great for developers, because they have streamlined their engine to make these superb graphics a selling point, above other games.

Heck, Killzone 2 looks decidedly CoD4 like, but I am buying it pretty much on the visual basis I have seen so far.

@DrDamn: PS3 isn’t really trailing anymore in ports. In fact EA and Ubisoft have switched internal development over to PS3 lead, to avoid these bad ports. It shan’t damage the 360 version, obviously.

Whatever the hardware specs are for the new machine, rest assured that what you get in the final revision that’s available to consumers will in no way A) be anything like the specs Sony would have you believe and B) be anywhere near as powerful as that generation’s current flavour of PC tech. For the PS4 to seriously be a powerhouse uber-machine it needs to be fucktastically powerful, have more RAM than a randy minotaur on viagra and at least feature an optical drive that has more than enough throughput to stream more or less seamlessly to RAM/GPU/CPU without overheads.

Can’t see it ever happening and even if they did somehow miraculously grow a game-machine-design brain and stopped arsing about with all that set-top media bollocks, the machine would be so prohibitively expensive that no one would buy it anyway.

Hey, No_PUDding. Nice to have you here

“Highly placed sources told VG247 today”

Right. Are these the sort of carefully anonymous highly placed sources that frequent NeoGAF and Eurogamer forums??

I can’t understand why anyone should expect me to believe what someone with no identity and, by default, no credibility might have to say with regards to movements of high profile industry individuals. Or unreleased videogames for that matter.

It may well be true. But then again, I’m sure I can rattle off an email that sounds convincing but turns out to be 100% bullshit. Just mention some high-profile interests, make no specific claims, substantiate it with speculatory and completely impossible-to-prove claims and BLAM! front page news.

Who is this highly placed source? What makes them highly placed? Where do they work? How do they come by their information?

Why should I trust THEM (or the people that trust them) when they aren’t willing to substantiate themselves??

All these ‘anonymous’ but ‘highly placed’ sources seem to crawl out of the woodwork to make some impossible claims, allowing for some eye-catching headlines to be written and then disappear. Or maybe “highly placed source” is just a useful macguffin for “slow news day, let’s make something up”.

Who knows? Whilst we’re so busy protecting the identity of credibility-free tattle-tales it’s rather difficult to care about the words they utter.

Really, this is about the third time in as many weeks I’ve been expected to believe some baseless waffle from some carefully anonymised internet nobody who, according to the opening line, is well placed.

Trust me, if you’re that well placed you don’t need to go jeopardising your position by blabbing inside information to the games media. Those who have the credibility don’t need to advertise it. Those that need to advertise it don’t have it.

Give me news, not this sort of baseless bullshit. It reeks as though someone ‘anonymous’ deliberately manufactured it so they could make some eye-catching, link-catching, ad-revenue earning headline.

Please stop insulting the intelligence of your readers.

Hi Shatner!

/waves

If they’re just starting the dev cycle, the PS4 is a long way off. Sony likes to design their own chips, it’ll be years until the CPU/GPU is ready, much less the rest of the console that goes around it.

Hirai has acknowledged some of the problems Sony has had with the PS3 being difficult to program for. Hopefully, this means they’ll make more of an effort to make it easy to develop for the next time around.

Shatner – That’s your best post yet

Not only did he insult your intelligence, but he insulted your mum, too! I heard him.

Down with sauces.

Down with shit journlism. Pat, this site started good but it’s ‘news’ like this that’s diluting the quality with vapourware, baseless shit.

You invited me to let you know when the quality of the journalism in your content drops – well this is a prime example. Not one piece of ‘highly sourced’ ‘information’ is substantiated or verifiable. Nor does there appear to have been any effort on the part of VG247 to verify or substantiate this ‘information’ before merrily posting it. Do you think puttin the word “rumour” is your get out of jail free card for writing shitty articles? How about not writing shitty, baseless articles in the first place? Oh. Sorry. I forgot. Having expectations of the games media to immitate something resembling journalism is my fault! Let’s all have a giggle with our Eurogamer chums and just write more bullshit until the ad revenue stops coming in!

And people claim to wonder why I hold the games media in low regard? This article and the attitude of the people responsible for it speak volumes. It seems expecting a degree of professionalism in your chosen field is something to be regarded as a laughing matter.

Oh well.

Why do you actually bother reading sites like this Shatner? It’s clear that they wind you up considerably.

Do you ever read newspapers, Phil?

Do you ever read newspapers, Phil?

Hang on…Shatner is Harrison? It all makes sense!

Good response pat. Why bother to look at improving your own standards when you can wriggle away from criticism and try to claim that it’s ok because you’re just as bad as the others?

Excellent attitude towards accountability. Really impressive.

Shatner, it seems you have trust issues. If you choose not to believe Pat’s ‘highly placed’ sources, then don’t. That’s your prerogative. But it’s not fair to say that it’s not true simply because the source isn’t revealed. In many cases, sources can’t be named because they’d be in trouble if they were, sometimes to job-losing extent.

If you’re not happy with the standard of journalism, then why keep coming back just to snipe? Just find another site which suits you better.

No, HoC, I have “expecting to believe unsubstantiated bullshit” issues. Tell me, where in that article is there *anything* I can find to dispell the notion thats it’s bullshit? Any facts, figures, verifiable details, substantiated claims. Any *proper* sources of information? No. None. It’s not common practice, unless there is a dispute, to publicise why a person chooses to leave a company. Certainly from such a high-profile and senior position. But hey, some anonymous schmuck reckons they know why this person left such a role and is happy to blab about it. Sorry, I just don’t find any aspect of that chain of events likely. Especially given the risk of blabbing for the non-existent returns of having such a ‘story’ go public. It reeks of bullshit and, so far, anyone remotely connected to publishing this story is doing exactly the opposite of making it any more believable.

Still, that’s another great way of dealing with criticism HoC. Don’t make any effort to improve standards, just suggest your critics go somewhere else.

I wouldn’t say I have trust issues. But knowing the general accuracy of the games media and the effort they (don’t) go into to verify details before posting ‘news’ I find it out of sorts to protect a source of some completely unsubstantiated bullshit.

By contrast, if the source had a name and background it would go some way to making their claims remotely believable.

That the only person that seems to give a damn about accuracy of information over a nice sexy DIGGable headline is effectively told to go elsewhere further demonstrate just why I choose not to give the games media any benefit of the doubt.

It seems you guys have no problems criticising anything under the sun when it suits you but the moment your own activities and professionalism gets put under the spotlight you seem to get rather put out and tell people to go away.

If you’re not even going to be accountable for the stuff that gets written then it only damages the credibility of the writers and the site willing to publish such stories even further.

If I were here to snipe then I’d just be making one line snipes. Don’t try and dismiss genuine criticism as some petty argument. Oh certainly, there’s pettiness here, but it’s not come from me.

Shatner – Sorry. You’re just boring me now. I’ve tried to be polite but I don’t have time to read epic tirades every time you see something you don’t like.

Let’s put a scenario forward shall we? Yes, lets.

Shatner gets a job as a journalist. As he’s worked in the industry for some time he has made many friends, not only as his previous job but throughout the industry, many people trust him and he trusts them. He chats with them semi-regularly and they always try and meet up at events.

Now, one of these friends works for Microsoft, pretty high up, not director level, but they certainly don’t make the tea either. They then tell Shatner that they’ve heard that the “word on the Microsoft street” is that a new XBox is coming next year. They also tell him that he’s free to print it but the source obviously doesn’t want his or her name mentioned.

So what does Shatner do? Print what a friend whom he holds in high regard has told him or simply sit on the story because the friend has said he won’t go on record as he likes his career and doesn’t won’t a team of Microsoft lawyers so far up his arse he won’t be able work ever again?

Using unnamed sources etc. is always going to take a bit of a leap of faith on the readers part.

It’s a chain of trust, does Pat trust his source, and does the reader trust VG24/7. If in a subsequent interview, Harrison admits to this story being accurate, then hey, VG24/7 got the scoop, and their rep increases as a reliable source that’s first to the story. If it becomes apparent that the story is BS, then the site’s going to take a hit both in credibility and hits.

I don’t for a second believe Pat’s sat behind his computer, twiddling his moustache whilst thinking up what story to invent today, but unsubstantive news like this will always be treated with the odd raised eyebrow, and to be fair, that’s why it is filed under rumour, and not “OMG, have we got an exclusive for you”.

So really, I’d say to Shatner, do you trust what you’ve seen of VG24/7 thus far? If you do, then lend them the benefit of the doubt, but if you feel they’ve let you down before, or reported one too many ‘rumours’ which turned out to be untrue, then wash your hands of them.

At the end of the day, journalism is nothing if you don’t trust the people behind the words, so it’s not something any site such as this will gamble away on what is after all, a fairly low key (I mean it’s no big news that work on PS4 will have begun) story, so keep the faith, they haven’t let us down yet

Moriss: He likely wouldn’t post it. It would conflict with his overbearing, self deluded ego.

No offense Shatner, but your obsessive need to try and undermine everything everyone says got old after its second attempt, never mind it fourth, fifth, sixth and twentieth.

The fact that you seem determined to constantly whine about everyone’s opinion, as if doing so will create some seismic shift in the balance of the universe once we finally “get” you, also reeks of paranoia, and a slightly unnerving sense of desperation.

But hey, if you feel to need to “educate” all us professionals, the ones getting paid for what we do whilst providing a useful, substantial service to people, feel free. You might just want to start realising who the laughter is being directed at.

Oh, BTW, lots of words don’t make your argument any more valid or any less petty.

It was explained as a rumour, and it was detailed as a rumour. It’s not meant to be taken as substantial, only a possibility.

Still, that’s another great way of dealing with criticism HoC. Don’t make any effort to improve standards, just suggest your critics go somewhere else.

Well, I’m not the one being criticised, as I have no affiliation with this site. I just happen to believe that Pat’s claim is genuine.

Woodward and Bernstein are obvious hacks because they won’t reveal the identity of Deep Throat too.

I’ve no idea if this is true or not but people wanting to protect their anonymity happens in all areas of journalism and usually for very good reasons.

Having read all of the comments on this page – interesting read too – I can see both sides of the arguement.

However, the one thing that strikes me as being odd is that surely if what was wrote in the article was the real reason for Phil leaving Sony, then only he would know about it? I just can’t see him using that as the official line. And I certainly don’t think Phil would bad-mouth Sony to any of his colleagues – at least not ones he didn’t trust explicitly enough not to anonymously reveal this titbit.

HairyArse: (Nice name, by the way!) To be honest, the way I read it didn’t seem like he was bad-mouthing Sony – he was simply just jaded with the same-old same-old routine and wanted to try something different.

Guess the only way we’ll ever know the truth is if he up and admits it.

Shatner – Sorry. You’re just boring me now. I’ve tried to be polite but I don’t have time to read epic tirades every time you see something you don’t like.

Then stop publishing bullshit. Take some accountability for what your site publishes instead of suggesting that if someone questions what you do that they are wrong to do so.

I’ve seen absolutely no effort to respond to my concerns about this article (one of many originating from “highly placed” anonymous sources that get published here) and many efforts to dismiss or discredit the person that doesn’t blindly accept every unsubstantiated and questionable claim you choose to publish. I can’t say I’m very impressed with your handling of third-party anonymity either. It seems you’re more than willing to compromise it when you feel it’ll score you a point with your mates.

I comment on very few articles on this site. I’ve never seen the point of making some comment that simply amounts to “I agree”. Many of the dozens of daily articles you publish are of a more than acceptable standard. So your suggestion that I’m here only to give the poor ickle games media a hard time is victim-playing at it’s finest and another example of avoiding the issue and shifting the blame rather than making any attempt to be accountable for your work.

As the amusingly name HairyArse demonstrates, if you spend a few seconds thinking this article’s supposed chain of events through (rather than blindly accepting everything that is written and never using your brain) it really doesn’t add up to something very likely. It certainly begs many questions. Sprinkle some anonymity into the mix and it only becomes increasingly questionable. Add lack of accountability and evasiveness into the mix and matters become increasingly worse.

Whizzo’s comparisons are hilariously over-the-top and out of context. Pure pantomime drama. Much like comparing luxury goods to house purchases. It’s all very dramatic and clever sounding but quite pathetically misplaced on closer inspection.

Either stop posting bullshit or be accountable for the bullshit you publish.

Why are Whizzo’s comparisons over-the-top?

You don’t know who the source is, and we’re not going to tell you.

The End.

He actually did do a fair bit of badmouthing of Sony when he left. There were plenty of comments about Sony not listening to his advice about where console gaming was going and that they didn’t focus on the local multiplayer stuff that he suggested.

You’re missing my point, your assertion that anonymously quoted sources are worthless because we don’t know who is making them is bollocks.

In your own post you say “trust me”, exactly how can we trust you as we don’t know who you are?

Minor individual snipes aside, I’m fairly impressed that you guys are managing to have a half-decent adult discussion on this. I guess that means the Eurogamer ‘massive’ hasn’t invaded yet?

Shatner, out of interest, how on earth can you possibly know whether it’s bullshit or not, unless you are in fact Phil Harrison?

@HairyArse. I tried having a debate on Destructoid last week and it degenerated into insults, not only against me but against memebers of my family.

The pseudonominity of the Internet generates a forum of discontent – at least this debate has reamined about ideas rather than descending into a personal vendetta.

By the way, personally I would rather the site printed what it has, even with riders, than leave it aside.

For me, this is (currently) the best videogames site on the web. That may change as it becomes inflamed with fanboys, but I reckon it does a pretty good job at the moment.

Even if the site gets a fanboy overload, the content will remain the same.

Based on the reliability of “highly placed but anonymous” source and “rumours” in the past it’s not unreasonable to have a healthy skepticism towards these kind of stories.

When you look at the details in this story, everything is speculative, unsubstantiated and impossible to prove. This doesn’t do anything to dispell the initial skepticism.

Furthermore, anyone professional doesn’t go about talking about how they left their last, very high profile, very senior, job to the sorts of people that might blab to the easily excitable games media. As ex Head of Worldwide Game Studios it’s not unreasonable to assume that Phil Harrison is a fairly responsible person, fairly professional, good at his job and, in particular, very good at handling the flow of information.

Given the factors involved it seems ludicrous that someone other than Phil Harrison is in any sort of authoritative position to speak on his behalf as to why he left one role for another. Especially as Phil Harrison has had ample time to divulge such information to any interested parties should he feel like it.

I don’t particularly care who this anonymously ‘highly placed’ source is. I do care for something to substantiated their completely baseless and unproven claims. If that can be achieved by identifying who they are, who they work for or what they do for a living then, hey, I’m interested. I’m not looking to know a name simply for the sake of knowing a name. I’m not petty.

Even so, if that name turns out to be anyone other than Phil Harrison, I’d still have serious doubts as to the accuracy of the information. He’s the best person to know why he does things, it’s quite staggeringly dense to assume someone other than him is a better authority on such a topic.

Tie all this in with this site’s other examples of using anonymous sources, forum posters and other questionable sources and the continued evasiveness and reluctance to show any accountability for their work (cushy number, wish I had a job where I could get away with such a practice) it only serves to reinforce my earlier skepticism even more.

Digging your heels in, telling your audience to go elsewhere, making wisecracks at others expense, being dismissive of criticism and generally trying to discredit someone who questions all the baseless ‘information’ in this article is very counterproductive to your cause.

And Whizzo, my assertion wasn’t that anonymous quoted sources are worthless. But anonymously quoted, totally baseless, flies-in-the-face-of-simple-logic, completely unsubstantiated are certainly worthless. All the evasiveness of those responsible for reporting it do not add any worth to it either. Quite the opposite.

If you think this information is, somehow, on par with the proper journalism that preceded Watergate then I’d question your levels of perception. I’d say you’re giving someone ridiculously too much credit just for the sake of making what you think is a counterpoint.

I’m not sure I get what all the fuss is about anyway… it’s not like the article says “He left because he fucking hates Sony and he thought the PS4 was going to be a dud”.

It says he left because he wanted something new and didn’t want to go through another release cycle.

Is that really so controversial? I’ve certainly left jobs for the same reasons and it didn’t feel like what I was doing was particularly out there.

But when Woodward and Bernstein first published their claims, it could have easily been construed as “anonymously quoted, totally baseless, flies-in-the-face-of-simple-logic and completely unsubstantiated” by the readers of the newspaper.

It’s only knowing what we know now and after more digging by the journalists themselves and subsequent publication of their findings do we know that it wasn’t indeed bullshit at all.

Wouldn’t surprise me if they are talking about PS4 internally, but I’d be very sceptical indeed about any actual dev work starting for years yet. There’s no point.

But when Woodward and Bernstein first published their claims, it could have easily been construed as “anonymously quoted, totally baseless, flies-in-the-face-of-simple-logic and completely unsubstantiated” by the readers of the newspaper.

Hmm. Again, I’m left with a feeling that people are being far too keen to flatter themselves by way of comparison. I wonder if the editor of this article conducted as much due diligence as the editor of The Washington Post before the respective articles were published. Based on the sorts of stories posted in the past, I rather doubt it – it boils down to accountability, doesn’t it? That’s where the gulf of difference appears to lie.

But seriously guys, slapping yourselves on the back with this ‘story’ and buying into comparisons with The Washington Post is now beyond a joke. You’re far too keen to take credit you haven’t earned and FAR too evasive of criticism to temper it with substance or genuine facts. A rather ungracious and convenient one-sided approach to accountability and professionalism.

But yet again, you are talking about the Washington Post with the added bonus of hindsight. Also, I’m sure the Post has got it wrong plenty of times too. Do you know how the Washington Post was seen by the public before that major story? I’m sure there were/are certain sections of the US public that derided their stories just as much as you are doing here.

In fact, all news outlets get things wrong, although it doesn’t stop them trusting their sources and running with a story. It’s part and path of the course.

I’m sure you know all this know and don’t need the basics of journalism spoon-fed to you. Although I must admit, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that you have the faintest idea as to how media outlets operate. And when I say “media outlets” I really do mean every single one on the face of the planet.

Strange you haven’t noticed what everyone has taken for granted for the past 100 years or so and are hell bent on raising issues that are both naive and archaic in both their reasoning and execution.

Still, it’s your forum, mate. You do what you like with it.

Just on a general note, I don’t like these “Rumour” stories either, especially not when they get updated 40min later to clarify the rumour is not true.

On-topic, the explanation for Harrison leaving is quite the obvious one, since there was no “immediate need” to do so. And I think he might have easily mentioned such a thing as “Oh no, not again, I’m outta here!” to colleagues et al.

Shatner, if anyone’s digging their heels in on their corner, it’s you. People have responded to those points and you’ve dismissed them out of hand.

Well, ah etc.

Besides, to my ears it sounds plausible that he wouldn’t want to go through the whole platform development process again, knowing how long things like that take. Wasn’t he at Sony since before the launch of the original PS? That sort of commitment is bound to take a lot out of a person.

That’s if this is true, of course we may never know unless Phil says so publically in the future. But I’d be amazed if the reasons for him leaving such a position in Sony haven’t been mentioned to colleagues in private.

Morriss, I’ll go looking around other media outlets to see if they take accountability for what they publish or favour telling people to go elsewhere when, for a change, the endless criticism and questioning gets turned back on the media instead of the other way around.

Refusal towards accountability and evasiveness still appear to be your favoured responses in every instance. Just because they’re easy or because someone else uses the same tactics doesn’t mean this story or the way this site has handled its reception to be anything less than a joke.

I guess it’s far easier taking other people to task for whatever you feel like then ever having to do it yourself.

And if your suggestion that one isn’t qualified to criticise the subject unless you’re familiar with its workings was to be given any credence then I’d say the games media (in fact, all media) would disappear overnight.

That’s cute. We can now add double standards into the wonderful array of responses towards the defense of this worthless piece of baseless gossip.