My friends moneys “uncle Owen” told him from a reliable source the chief whips at Sony itsself is looking into events at SOE While looking into the whole events of last year (yes the publicity screw ups) what came to there attention was that there online division (SOE) was failing to meet demands to be more “customer friendly” (seems blue-sky thinking while still cool is not so if your alienating yourself to implement it) seems recent and planed CU type upgrades are making waves on more than one game and overall subs reduction on more than one SOE game with bad publicity are asking questions that “some” people are not able to answer  with the PS3 out in the not too distant future Sony themselves are not wanting bad publicity on any Sony game product as the market will only really be a 2 horse race (xbox2 PS3) once that is released. (So the race is on to be no 1)

So Sony are said to be making moves to bring in a “trouble shooter” team to see what the problem is at SOE who knows what they will find or what will happen as a result but I know this SONY wants changes at SOE
I don’t know if the team has been to Austin yet but I know this it’s more likely to be a statement from Sony as to the next moves SOE make rather than SOE itself.

I’ll let you now more once I find out more

Half of that left me confuddled lol but i'm guessing that what you are basically saying is that in Sony's eyes, $OE are going down the dumps and they are worried with what has happend over the last year, will effect their "good name" and future credebility. Thanks to this, Smedley may be going bye bye...

Well good news but seriously, sony have a good name? Does anyone remember owning one of the earlier ps2s made and themselves, along with a lot of their friends, experiencing the dreaded disc read error? Which over time, meant you had to replace your ps2 or pay a hefty amount to get it fixed. This alone, has ruined any good rep sony ever had with me and it's a well documented fact, sony fit their stuff with cheap parts and seriously overprice their items. This was what happend with the ps2s, the lasers used were cheaply made and hence the reason why they didn't last long.

Good news though, sony got omgwtfpwnd in a lawsuite regarding this and resulted in them having to do the repairs for free instead of charging suich stupidly high amounts to fix :D.

Anyway, good news about $OE, may the door hit Smedley's ass HARD on his future depature from the company and the gaming world because frankly, nobody in their right mind would employ him anymore.

I got an e-mail directing me to a survey about 2 weeks ago. This was a very detailed survey that took me about 15 minutes to complete. It purported to be an opinion survey regarding ToOW. It started there, but actually spent more time looking into my felings about SWG and why I had left.

This came from some third party but clearly is being used by SOE or Sony to see why people are jumping from the sinking ship that is SWG.

I understood the survey was doine by LA and was to asscertain some information which they could use to their own advantage in planing the future for the game.

It would make sense though if it was from sony to see why people hate SWG so much.

---

Originally posted by viadi
is smed going bye-bye?

---

I believe every word of this. The SOE division hasn’t been living up to expectations and has been generating negative mainstream press… something Sony Corp doesn’t need…. so the idea that Sony Corp. would hire a special group of outside consultants to tell them why this is so is completely plausible.

This wont result in anyone getting fired (believe me though, I wish it did), once the team is done making its analysis they give their recommendations to Sony Corp and based on that Sony Corp makes some (or none) decisions.

I think the team will just say “need better customer service”….. to which SOE will translate as more CSR’s, which is the easiest and cheapest solution for them…. And then everyone’s back to square one.

Also, for anyone to think that the NGE wasn’t partially created to better implement SWG onto the PS3 is naïve. I mean it makes perfect sense to launch SWG onto consoles right at the launch of Sony’s new console. Thankfully, because the NGE sucked so badly those plans have been suspended.

I’d love to hear more about the internal power struggles at the SOE offices and how this whole thing is playing out there. Thanks for bringing this info here.

My thoughts?

"Sony's Online division sold to Blizzard for 20 million dollars. Blizzard said they were taking the money from the cushions of their couch."

Let's face it. NOTHING $OE has online right now is meeting expectations. EQ2 fell WAY short and won't gain a bit of ground to WoW. SWG is easily at 12-20% of their pre-nge numbers... They are down all the way around. Name ONE $OE product that is MAKING A DIME.

They can turn around and sell $OE and the licensing to another company, make a nice dent in their bottom line.

Oh, and Smed is so gone.

---

Originally posted by Senden

because frankly, nobody in their right mind would employ him anymore.

---

I disagree with this statement that no-one in thier right mind would employ Smedley. For example,

If you were Bill Gates it would be a very shrewd move to hire Smedley as a bodyguard. If I was coming to assasinate Bill Gates and saw Smedley by his side I'm afraid I'd be too tempted to fill Smedley full of lead!

This would work well for many other figures around the globe.

---

Originally posted by JestorRodo
 I love this rumor , the end of SOE as we all have come to know it could not make me happier. 

---

i love this rumor to... im going to post it on my disktop background! this is so great and read it every X-mas!!

bye bye smed it wasn't nice knowing you!!! dont hit your self on the way and ... and by the way john smed.... I TOLD YOU SO!!!!

---

If you were Bill Gates it would be a very shrewd move to hire Smedley as a bodyguard. If I was coming to assasinate Bill Gates and saw Smedley by his side I'm afraid I'd be too tempted to fill Smedley full of lead!

---

Smed's more or less just a messanger. I don't dislike him at all.

The attitude at SOE is what I hate.

The idea that all the players can just start over, it's no big deal.
The whole system people learn, learn to like can be completley revamped, not once, but over and over and people will take it. These need to change.

SOE needs to learn something from CCP.

EVE is likely the most complicated MMO to learn (highest learning curve for me anyway). With 3 year old Graphics and it's still growing.

SWG was a fine game. I played it, not ashamed to admit I liked it even. I had 2 accounts, and of the group of us at work, we had about 30 accounts total. As of now there are none here with active accounts. And currently there is no one at this MAJOR RETAILER reccomending SOE games. People are comming in looking at MMO's and no one here is event hinting at SOE games.

Acually I talked someone out of EQ2 and into Guild Wars reciently. It was an easy sell, and we as a company make more money on Guild Wars anyway.