Tretton Speaks Out On Leaks

All the leaks before E3? Not staged, after all.
Published 12/06/2009 at 15:00 by nofi
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Speaking to CNBC, Sony CEO Jack Tretton has publicly spoken for the first time about the recent E3-killing leaks that plagued the press conference. “People don’t respect confidentiality in this industry,” said Tretton, referring to the various items key to Sony’s show appearing on the internet before it started this year. “It’s tough enough to keep a secret within your own company, much less when you speak to third parties.” The PSPgo leak, the Trico leak, the Wand rumours: all ultimately damaging to Sony because these things need to be revealed in time, and in perspective.

“This is an industry that has trouble focusing on today,” he says. “We want to constantly talk about tomorrow.… You have to prepare for people to know things in advance. The frustrating thing is they only know a part of the story and that opens up a lot of conjecture and misinformation that ultimately waters down the reality when you roll it out.” He’s also concerned about the recent price cut rumours. “I can’t remember a day that people who have no stake in the profitability of our company have not called for a price cut, I think everybody but us would love to see it given away for free.”

Image: CNET

Comments

Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.


  1. I love Tretton. I don’t know what it is, I just think he is cool.

    As for the Wand rumours, I don’t think the fact that there were rumours really did anything for it, it turned up, blew us away, nuff sed!


    • I agree, the PSPGo leak damaged it a little, but E3 completely changed my opinion of it.


      • Y’know what, both the Trico and PSP Go rumours came from the same place. Some one needs to look into that.


    • bring on the magic carpet


  2. It was still a fantastic E3 and i cant wait for it all to come out :)


  3. The PSPgo senario was perfect as it was.
    They stole all the mainstream press headlines in the run up to E3, and it made sure Monday wasn’t all about Microsoft, and it’s smoke & mirrors presentation.

    The news that it wasn’t planned is disappointing because it was just so perfect, and I thought Sony had turned a marketing corner.

    The wand rumours weren’t damaging, they were just rumours and again it provided Sony with Pre-E3 headlines, I think people were surpsrised with how precise it was… and I look forward to the duality of the fun of the PS3Eye and the precision of the wand… a combination not on any other console.

    The Trico leak was damaging because that should have been a huge reveal.

    Shame on the leak and for those who chose to break the story, sometimes news falls into your hand that you should hold on to, rather than just simply chasing hits. It could have been possible to follow the E3 reveal with an article about how you got the early footage prior to E3, and done a comparison piece showing the ‘early vs presented’ footage.


    • +1 to all of that.

      the pspgo leak was huge and i think it worked in sonys favour…the main problem with it was that rather than a leak it was more akin to a dam-breaking torrent. too much info. a tiny clip of the vid or some screen grabs would have been complete perfection.

      trico – yep. if that’d been actually revealed at e3 i think the audio would have been obscured for all of the *gasps*, WHOOOPING and cheers \o/


  4. There is no confidentiality in this industry anymore.


  5. What do they expect? It’s not like any similar industries like Hollywood do much better?

    They need to shift away from secrecy to being more engaged with their customers. There’s no way you can keep secrets with so many staff being involved and the internet making gossip so easy.


  6. Surely nobody with a brain thought they were deliberate leaks.


  7. they should tell us if they are making the game, not whats in it. If only the getaway 3 would be made.
    also telling consumers if a game will be made could persuade them to buy the console.


    • I don’t think people realise quite how long games take to make. People don’t want to know about games that are just entering the planning stage, since nobody wants to be looking forward to something for 4 years.


  8. after reading this i realize how much the rumours are to them. its like spreading a roumer round work that your friends gonna announce he is gay when he isnt.


    • It’s not really like that, though, is it?


      • No, it’s not. TSA (Nofi) upholds certain levels of integrity, and doesn’t leak anything. As a result they (we) have a great relationship with the industry. Pay attention (Twitter) and you’ll hear about certain occurrences of Al hearing shi*t that he;s not supposed to spread. What happens? He doesn’t. As a result, we get great exclusives (for an indie site) and a lot of respect. That’s TSA.


  9. It is a shame about leaks but it will always happen no matter what.


    • That’s sadly still true. I wonder when all that will change..(if it even does).