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Bloomberg: Sony's Deal With Microsoft Blindsided Its Own PlayStation Team
- Thread starter vivftp
- Start date
That is just they way how things are .
Low level staff will never find out what the higher ups doing in places big like Sony and MS .
Is it really fanboyish to be panicking about years of work potentially all going down the drain?
The article is a bit misleading. It's talking about the rank and file employees. Which is why it mentions how the managers needed to calm them down - probably the people currently working on Sony's streaming stuff - as they probably feel they may be out of job soon if Sony don't need to work on their own tech. Why would they be told about boardroom level negotiations. It's wrong to say Playstation didn't know about this, or Sony went over Playstations head. The top people at PS almost certainly had a huge part in the negotiations, how else would Sony know what they would need from the deal?
Hopefully this doesn't cause to many issues when they switch from amazon to azure. Both services function quite differently if I remember correctly
Well, we don't prepare on forums for no reason. Lots of good opportunities for fanboy graduates to make a living.
First we've heard about Amazon's streaming service? Sony was not impressed it seems.
They had talks according to the article, seems Amazon didn't offer what Sony wanted so they had talks with another mega Cloud service provider and liked what they had to offer. Presumably MS really wants Sony's image sensors too and it's probably why it's become a full on partnership, instead of 1 just supplying the other with something they lack.
How?
wouldn't this mean MS will have access to psn network info, I thought the whole cross platform play debacle is because Sony is very protective about their psn accounts and don't want MS anywhere near them, which is why they're ok with pc cross play but not with xbox.
I'm positive that Xbox will have to pay for access to Azure. Regulators almost split up Microsoft over anti-competitive behavior, and since then, their internal training videos hammer in the threat of being regulated for monopolistic, anti-competitive actions. Internal communication between engineers is one thing, but I doubt Xbox will get very much preferential treatment.
Cloud providers have very strict rules about what information they can see in a hosted instance. They'd have a major lawsuit on their hands if any proprietary information got out.
This reminds me one side of Sony sold the God of War movie rights to Universal back in the day because they hated the other so much.
We don't actually know if PSN is moving over at this point, PSNow is a safe bet though.
Not really that uncommon till the ink is signed.
Most of this stuff would have been classified as commercial in confidence within house. Upper Mgnt of SIE would have known, but are bound by confidentiality notes.
There would be AWS contractors on site, also probably contractor Net Ops staff familiar with AWS whom you still require.
If they made it known last year when negotiations started (if I saw correctly) then they would have jumped ship by now leaving the Org exposed.
It happens a lot in Govt. Depts. where staff feel they get the news from <insert local paper>
Sony's lawyers would be rubbing their hands with the thought of that. MS wouldn't be so stupid. The bottom line for Sony is will MS offer a better service and at a better price?
It wouldn't just be Sony's lawyers. The .gov clients would jump ship in a heartbeat if a provider was accessing information like that.
It would be scandalous for MS.
LOL what? The article makes it sound like the division is run by a bunch of console warriors. The only thing that changes is who the server provider is.
This seems like a potentially hyperbolic article. Notice it says "PlayStation team". Not "PlayStation execs", it could very well be that this wasn't known to lower level people at PlayStation, but higher up PlayStation execs could have been directly involved.
Gven the timeframe of Kodera's positions, I think most of the leadership were likely well aware of the changes to come. Kodera became CEO in 2017, talks only started last year and Kodera stepped down only three months ago to prioritize networking acknowledging the importance going into next gen and having a huge structural change going from AWS to Azure, a deal happening under his leadership likely played a part in the decision. It also makes sense of the timing doing this well before next gen in a year and a half's time in preparation to ensure the quality of launch and streaming services. I would think the one's really blind sided are the staff who work on Networking and Streaming but again, that seems fairly normal for companies in which large deals like this happen.
OP
OP
I think it's important to keep in mind that Sony is partnering with Microsoft here and it goes a step beyond just being an Azure customer. With Sonys imaging sensors, their hefty cloud patent portfolio and their several years of experience in cloud gaming I'm sure they were able to negotiate a better deal with Microsoft for access to Azure than an average customer. Maybe those additional terms of the partnership were enough to sweeten the pot enough for Sony to choose Azure over Google or AWS, I don't think we'll ever know.
On another note, I was listening to this recent group podcast for FoxyGameUK (don't ask why, I just wanted something to play in the background as I ran around in Days Gone), and one of the people claimed he had info that Azure was 94% cheaper than AWS. I don't think I can believe that, but anyone know wtf they are talking about?
On another note, I was listening to this recent group podcast for FoxyGameUK (don't ask why, I just wanted something to play in the background as I ran around in Days Gone), and one of the people claimed he had info that Azure was 94% cheaper than AWS. I don't think I can believe that, but anyone know wtf they are talking about?
Read what I said.
I said it's worded in a way that makes it sound fanboyish. Not that it IS the case.
Reality: "Lower Level PlayStation employees part of the PSNow team were unaware of this deal and upset at all he sudden change withoutbhwir knowledge"
The way this is worded: "PlayStation didn't know about this deal and all the employees were crying"
So the way it was worded is not far off from the truth? The majority of employees aren't at positions that could possibly be knowledgeable of these discussions.
I'm sorry but this is nonsense. Competing companies partner for needs all of the time.
LG and Samsung supply Sony's OLED and LCD panels respectively. Many other companies do the same. It's completely normal for competing companies to cooperate or use each other's services to mutual benefit.
And on the other aspect. This is a Bloomberg article and we don't know the veracity of their sources and the article doesn't even specify WHO on the PlayStation team was blindsided. I almost guarantee the execs at PlayStation knew what was going on.
There are much bigger companies than Sony that have data much more sensitive on Azure. What would MS gain from PSN accounts? Xbox is a small part of their company. From a business standpoint, they gain nothing from accessing those accounts and more from Sony using their service.
Read what I said.
I never said that you said it was the case. I did however ask a question to give you an opportunity to further elaborate, and you did, so that's good.
This happens in business a lot, leadership making decisions without telling the rank and file, so it really isn't surprising.
I don't get why people see these deals as strange.
Vaios used Windows, Apple uses (used to use?) Samsung RAM, A few TV Makers were using Sharp panels.
It's all business.
Yeh not every one would know how these things work I guess.
I know a few people who work at PlayStation and one of em prefers playing Xbox and that makes his coworkers upset lol.
But yeah, there's no way no one knew.
From experience - maybe not for component suppliers, but software vendor changes are usually communicated well in advance, even to rank and file.
Because the changes are both structural and interface-level, which impacts a lot of customer-facing roles and back-end support roles, even simple things like changing the CRM software from say... SAP to Salesforce is something most companies tell their frontliners well-in-advance, so that they have ample time to prepare for training, timeline preparation of when the new system goes live/old systems gets decommisioned, and there are already project teams in place to accelerate the adoption of the new hardware/software.
In this case - even though it's likely to be a huge vendor change, the rank and file aren't informed. Granted, a big reason for that is that this MoU clearly states that there are aspects of the deal that are still at an exploratory stage, and that this collaboration is more than just 'Sony buys Azure rack space from MS', there are probably a lot of finer details that hasn't been ironed out.
If Playstation Now lags, it's Microsofts fault.
If it works flawlessly, it's Sonys cloud patents.
Smart.
If it works flawlessly, it's Sonys cloud patents.
Smart.
It's not good that PlayStation had no say.
It's like PlayStation is the child and Sony are the parent deciding which cloud service the child is allowed.
Very strange.
It's like PlayStation is the child and Sony are the parent deciding which cloud service the child is allowed.
Very strange.
Yea I know that lol, but it's not just semantics.
The article makes it seem like Xbox's cloud service will end up having better value over Playstation's service because MS owns Azure, with the ultimate result of more people moving to Xbox.
Of course, that would require Xbox getting preferential treatment from the Azure division, which doesn't seem likely.
PS Now is terrible so this is a great move by Sony to improve their networks. Microsoft gets money and Sony gets better network. Win win for all. Microsoft is going to rake in dough and hopefully increase Xbox budget for more acquisitions and 1st party development.
It already lags, here's hoping working with MS will improve things.