Star Wars Galaxies

www.soepress.com/release.asp

Looks like the big boys at sony are taking an active interest at SOE now?

Thoughts,comments..

I've been saying for a while that Smed will be leaving sometime around the release of The Agency.

This looks to me like the first step in a re-organization that will open the door for Smed to go.

Sony Online Moves To SCEI Division
Sony has announced that after a structural reshuffle, its Sony Online Entertainment division (Everquest, The Agency) is being moved to the Sony Computer Entertainment wing to better integrate with "the PS3 experience," with CEO John Smedley now reporting directly to SCEI president Kaz Hirai.

Sony says the new structure "is designed to mutually benefit both companies by further accelerating the PlayStation business through SOE's strong online gaming expertise."

The San Diego based division -- formerly part of Sony Pictures Entertainment -- is expected to continue normal operations producing PC and PS3 titles, but Hirai says the move will help online games and services to become "a more integral part of the PS3 entertainment experience."

He added, "This new structure will allow us to take full advantage of the extensive breadth of expertise of the two companies and increase our range of exciting entertainment offerings to our consumers."

Said Smedley, "We are thrilled to become a part of the incredible team that has made PlayStation 3 the premier platform for next generation online gaming. This move is going to broaden our capabilities and expand the development of our products into new and exciting directions."

This is a very interesting development.

I have always been astonished at how John Smedley has managed to keep his job as head of SOE. After all, he has personally surpvised four huge MMO disasters:

1/. The NGE in SWG which saw subscriptions fall from @ 250,000 to, what?, maybe 50,000 now. In other words, a drop in subscription revenue from  $45m a year to $9m

2/. The absolute trashing of the Matrix Online game - potentially one of the most profitable IPs there has ever been, just thrown away.

3/. Over-investment in EQ2 which, while it is quite a good game, was designed specifically to compete on the same canon, dynamics and landscapes as WoW but which, by that comparison, has failed. WoW has around 9,000,000 subscribers while EQ2 has, at best, 250,000.

4/. The purchase of Vanguard. This was a nonsensical development. When this game was dumped by Microsoft, Mr. Smedley bought this game on the strenght of his former friendship with Brad McQuaid without, apparently, doing much due dililgence. So, for example, he didn't know that McQuaid had serious 'health' issues and that the fame was in far less ready state than he supposed. Nonetheless he pressed for an early and, as we all know, premature launch, and the game bombed. Worst of all, this is a game that competes directly with EQ2. Why Smedley would take on board a game that cannibalises his exisitng subscriber base is beyond me.

Four massive, expensive mistakes - together, by any form of accounting, they must have cost Sony over a hundred million dollars in revenues over the last five or so years. And yet Mr. Smedley has surviveed. Why?

I personally think he has managed to survive because of;

- Box sales - sales that provide good quarterly returns that disguise the falling off of subscriber levels over the same period

- Station Passes - I believe Mr. Smedley reports these 'all game' figures rather than 'figures per game'. This allows him to conceal how low subscriptions to some of his flagship games really are.

Together, these two factors provide revenue spikes that allowed Smedley over the last couple of years to report to his superiors that SOE is at least stable in terms of revenue and disguise the factr that the majpority of the game he has been supervising are haemorhaging subscribers. However, now that SOE, the Matrix and Vanguard have all, in subsacriber terms, failed catastrophically, even Smedley can no longer disguise the fact that SOEs revenues are holded below the waterline.

I think that the bigwigs in SOE have begun to wake up. I hope that Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, SCEI, will start demanding some proper accounting and proper reporting from Mr. Smedley. If he does then not only will Mr. Smedley's business incompetence be revealed but also, I genuinely suspect, accounting misprepresentations that, in pure legal terms, amount to fraud.

This will put SOE under a lot greater scrutiny.  Also clearly Smed is not long for the company now, two presidents in one divison?  One will go, and Smed will be the one to go.

While part of Sony Pictures, SOE was a minor piece of their balance sheet.  In their gaming division, they will get a lot more notice.  SOE's performance has been abysmally bad over the past 3 years, so clearly changes need to be made and will be made.  If they have any brains amongst them, Sony will get rid of ALL of SOE's senior managers.

Originally posted by Suvroc

I've been saying for a while that Smed will be leaving sometime around the release of The Agency.

This looks to me like the first step in a re-organization that will open the door for Smed to go.

I also would go as far as to say it possibly marks the start of the end of SOE..now sony japan is involved they'll want it run far better than its being run at the moment,not saying it'll go tomorrow but it'll go soon

Originally posted by fozzie22

www.soepress.com/release.asp

Looks like the big boys at sony are taking an active interest at SOE now?

Thoughts,comments..

It was suspected that the massive UI changes of the NGE were a prelude to moving the game to console.

I strongly suspect that the ultimate goal is to have every last SOE title ported to PS3, so Sony can first take your money for the hardware, then take your money for the ongoing subscription.

Originally posted by SioBabble

 

Originally posted by fozzie22

www.soepress.com/release.asp

Looks like the big boys at sony are taking an active interest at SOE now?

Thoughts,comments..

 

It was suspected that the massive UI changes of the NGE were a prelude to moving the game to console.

I strongly suspect that the ultimate goal is to have every last SOE title ported to PS3, so Sony can first take your money for the hardware, then take your money for the ongoing subscription.

I think this there is truth in this but it will be Sony's most colossal miscalculation yet.

Lets not forget Home in all of this..people nowadays are more savvy about how well things are run and given that NGE (yes its old news) and other PR    "mishaps" by SOE i'm sure sony japan dont want the PS3 flagship "title" (if i can call it that) sullied by SOE and its hamfisted management