SCEE do not have an easy task of serving their community. Actually, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is a bit of a misnomer as they are responsible for looking after PlayStation in 104 territories across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Oceania. Additionally, they themselves have acknowledged that of the three SCE regional groups, America, Japan and Europe, when it comes to the PSN they have the smallest team though they are working to grow it.
So serving such a diverse group of target countries and markets with all the differences across their region must be a headache at the best of times. When you consider how fractious just the European part of the community is and all the different languages SCEE must support it is somewhat of a marvel of modern multi-national business that SCEE can function at all.
It is possible to unite large parts of the community though. That is something that SCEE is discovering again today via the comments section of their post on this week’s PSN update. There are over 260 comments on the post already, most not particularly complimentary towards this weeks PSN update and SCEE in general.
Simply because this update is not as filled with content as those of the last few weeks have been many PSN users seem to feel it is okay to vent their spleen at SCEE and are digging up all the old complaints about Europe being left behind by the US Store.
Oh my what a terrible update lol
So America got Bomberman last week, where is ours? America is getting Metal Gear Solid today where is ours? Seriously SCEE are a joke.
The other old chestnut of asking where software we have been promised is when SCEE have not yet actually made an announcement about its release date is also proving popular.
What a load of crap!
Why do EU/AU/NZ ALWAYS miss out?
WHERE THE HELL IS METAL GEAR SOLID LIKE PROMISED!!!!!!
I am glad to see that there are some more reasonable commenters though they are in the minority.
Its been a week since burnout big surf island, kz2 maps, cod:waw maps and vidzone, and you guys expect more stuff already? Cut them some slack, last week’s update was awesome and I’m sure we’ll see more updates like that soon enough.
I have to give kudos to SCEE’s Mike Kebby who has been responding to all the flak the update has garnered. He has taken the time to reply that the team understand that it is a weaker store update this week but we have had a couple of good weeks since E3 and there is more good stuff to come over the coming weeks.
When pressed by commenters for details and release dates for the upcoming releases he says he does not want to give us release dates in case the community feels disappointed if any of them are missed. Given some of the comments being posted I cannot blame him for not risking the wrath of the community.
He is responding to some of the more often repeated complaints that have been aired in the comments such as where is the French language version of FFVII and what has happened the Blast Factor update. The French version of FFVII is going through final QA and they hope to release it next week. The Blast Factor update is coming but they do not have a specific release date yet.
I think it is a shame, though seemingly inevitable, that just because there are no games or demos on the store this week that SCEE are being given such a hard time. My wallet is certainly glad for a week off after the Burnout and Killzone DLC last week and I am looking forward to downloading the Assassin’s Creed gameplay video.
I believe that over the past few months SCEE have upped their game with regard to the PSN Store and providing information and feedback to the community via the EU PS Blog. I think we are a long way ahead of where we were 12 or 24 months ago. Only this morning we recapped the first ten games released on the PSN Store. Those ten games covered almost three months of PSN updates, five of them were on the store at launch and there were no releases during that May.
Is it really justified to complain to SCEE about this week’s less than stellar update when they obviously have been working to improve things? Let me know what you think in the comments.