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[Confirmed] Sony confirms the exit of longtime head of internal production Connie Booth
Topher
Identifies as young
The only truthful thing that can be confirmed is that Connie is no longer with Sony. The why, what, and how are all things left up in the air with people creating narratives based on no additional information.
PaintTinJr
Member
It depends whether you buy into Decima being a PlayStation modified version of UE, or customized Sony PhyreEngine or think it is a standalone engine built from the ground up like Rebellion's engine
I believe it is the former purely because of how many staff Guerrilla games employees that would all need trained specifically, costing time and money, which from a turnover perspective doesn't sound realistic, and from a skill set perspective for Kojima Productions doesn't sound realistic. Given the CGI in MGS1 it was almost certainly a de-badged Konami version of UE1 game at the time..
Who was saying Connie is still with Sony?
Thirty7ven
Banned
Between the time they saved, the r&d costs and licensing, + the tech support they got.
And Kojima is probably using this tech for the Xbox game? Would love to know what the relationship between Sony and Kojima will be in the future.
Thirty7ven
Banned
His standing is worth about as much as the rest of neogaf. If you’re trying to imply he knows anything about what’s going on at Sony.
Thirty7ven
Banned
Not following you, Guerrilla never worked on Unreal.
MasterCornholio
Member
I wouldn't say that every he said was correct. I honestly thought it was going to be much worse especially since he mentioned the death of Playstation. I know he said it doesn't mean the death of Playstation but I don't see why anyone would think that with the news.
SEGAvangelist
Member
TBF, he was likely talking about the death of Playstation as he knew it. He did go on to say it won't be big news or matter much for most people.
MasterCornholio
Member
PlayStation has changed many times over the years. As long as they do well and give gamers a good product I don't see the issue with change.
SEGAvangelist
Member
She's been there through all of those changes. That's his point.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
He said Connie Booth is no longer at Sony. Sony confirms that she is not longer at Sony.
The folks who were saying he was lying.
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Absolutely nobody was saying Connie hasn't left Sony. They're questioning the drama he is creating around it. About something being frustrating, highly disrespectful or the death of Playstation as we know it.
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MasterCornholio
Member
Then you claim he's right that its huge news and some will associate it with the death of Playstation.
It's the exaggeration that's the issue.
Are you praying that playstation dies or something?
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MasterCornholio
Member
So what?
Doesn't mean playstation will die if she's not around. You have to be stupid to think that.
As for the one replacing her it's to early to say if playstation is doomed. It could even be better for them depending on what happens.
aclar00
Member
I believe the PS+ price hikes and GaaS pivot likely go hand in hand. The increase, while aiding in the overal financial health of Playstation, may have been to recoup some losses from GaaS development.
However (correct me if Im wrong) it may also be a chance for Sony to double dip or even triple dip into the pot? I dont play GaaS games, but they arent necessarily synonymous with Free to Play games right? Meaning that you may have to pay for the base GaaS game, pay for in-game weapons, perks, customizations, etc... and possibly pay to play them online (at least certain modes) like with Destiny?
So idk, but an average price per person of $40 base game, $80 PS+ and say $50 P2W perks per year seems likely. More people into GaaS, more PS+ subscriptions IMO if the requirements i mentioned are true. At the very least im confident Sony's GaaS games will be decently locked behind PS+ subscriptions.
However (correct me if Im wrong) it may also be a chance for Sony to double dip or even triple dip into the pot? I dont play GaaS games, but they arent necessarily synonymous with Free to Play games right? Meaning that you may have to pay for the base GaaS game, pay for in-game weapons, perks, customizations, etc... and possibly pay to play them online (at least certain modes) like with Destiny?
So idk, but an average price per person of $40 base game, $80 PS+ and say $50 P2W perks per year seems likely. More people into GaaS, more PS+ subscriptions IMO if the requirements i mentioned are true. At the very least im confident Sony's GaaS games will be decently locked behind PS+ subscriptions.
midnightAI
Member
I mean, thats a nice story and all but you (nor I) have any proof that this is the case.
Normally, in any workplace if you are fired you are shown the door, in the case of anyone in any kind of power escorted to the door asap. Someone who has been fired can very easily cause much disruption (and destruction) to a company.
The Last One
Member
I bet he is. Have you seen his threads?
MasterCornholio
Member
I may have missed some of them to be fair.
BootsLoader
Banned
Mr Moose
Member
I thought it was because he was being dramatic and when it was revealed what the big bad news was, nobody gave a fuck.
MasterCornholio
Member
For example I thought something crazy like Sucker Punch getting shut down was going to happen.
Topher
Identifies as young
Pretty much. He oversold the bad news and had everyone thinking something huge was about to go down. When it was revealed, most were like "that's it?"
Maybe someone said he was lying about it but I don't remember it.
MasterCornholio
Member
Maybe lying about how big of a deal it was going to be. That's the only way I can see this being a lie.
SEGAvangelist
Member
Agreed. He probably saw it as a big deal because he was emotionally attached to the person fired. She was there when he shipped the games that put him on the map, so there has to be some emotional investment there. Jaffe is also high a lot, so who knows what he was thinking when this blew up.
MasterCornholio
Member
Adding the line about PlayStations death seemed uncessarry to me. Sure he said that it wouldn't mean that but I can't see how anyone would see it that way. It elevated it to heights where it didn't need to be IMO.
SEGAvangelist
Member
"And IF true, I don't have the details as of why but I can imagine, then man, I tell ya: the Sony we all came up with is mostly dead. "
"I think I was clear in my posts but to be clear: if the news is verified tomorrow- and I think it should be- this is not DEATH TO PLAYSTATION. It's more of a sad state of affairs and a real fuck you to...well, let's wait. But it's not some earthquake like Sony selling Playstation to Hasbro or some such. If you love Sony games TODAY chances are, MAYBE (depends), not too much will change."
That's what he posted. He didn't say PlayStation was dying. He said that the Sony that he and his co-workers came up with is mostly dead. They're probably all gone by this point, and Connie's firing is likely the end of an era for him.
MasterCornholio
Member
See so playstation death is in there. That's what elevated the news to crazy heights. It really didn't need to be in there and there isn't a way to defend this.
Maybe he should have been more accurate instead of blowing it out of proportion.
SenkiDala
Member
Well I haven't seen many people saying he was lying, but most people laughed at him because he said something like the history of playstation was about to change, that it was HUGE and that it was such an important event, that everything was about to change, and finally it was just 1 person getting fired, sure it isn't nothing but it wasn't as groundbreaking as he said it would be.
SEGAvangelist
Member
He wrote, "this is not DEATH TO PLAYSTATION." Maybe he should have written, "this is NOT death to PlayStation," but if people can't read words in order, that's not his fault.
Topher
Identifies as young
He wrote that later. His initial tweet was much more foreboding about the status of PlayStation. The actua news was not as dire as he made it out to be.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
His mistake is treating work like family and the company is life. A lot of techie people seem to have the urge to intertwine work and their personal home life into one giant snowball. Instead, treat it as two separate snowballs.He wrote that later. His initial tweet was much more foreboding about the status of PlayStation. The actualy news was not as dire as he made it out to be.
Nothing wrong with having a good time at work and making good friends (I sure have), but when it comes to employment any person can get let go. Jaffe is no green college graduate. He should know better then whining about who keeps their job or not. Anything can happen. it's no different than a long time employee quitting for a competitor because it pays an extra $5000. Same thing, but shoe on the other foot.
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SEGAvangelist
Member
That's not much different than the stuff I posted. He never wrote that PlayStation was going to die. It was obviously something personal to him in the way he phrased that post.He wrote that later. His initial tweet was much more foreboding about the status of PlayStation. The actualy news was not as dire as he made it out to be.
Skifi28
Member
Adding that line actually increases the perceived importance of the news.
graywolf323
Member
and so has Jim Ryan but you don’t see people acting like this over him retiring
SEGAvangelist
Member
It's pretty obvious he oversold it. My point is that I think it was very personal to him. Did he do it for the clicks? Probably somewhat, yeah, but I think he felt justified.
SEGAvangelist
Member
That's a strange comparison. Just compare their video game credits on mobygames.com.and so has Jim Ryan but you don’t see people acting like this over him retiring
Also, Jim Ryan is a great businessman and I also think he doesn't get the credit he deserves, but he was never a games guy.
NonPhixion
Member
Oh no! No one else will be able to approve budgets like she did 
and the 0 amount of new IP’s she created will never be touched.
and the 0 amount of new IP’s she created will never be touched.
ReBurn
Gold Member
You're bring pedantic. "Nobody said this exact thing!" Please. People were, and still are in this thread, doing the ad hominem "it's Jaffe so it's not credible" thing.
Considering Jaffe was right it definitely wasn't him who created the drama, especially on this forum. It was the people circlejerking about him, posting their gotgwho.meme comments, and being absolute bellends to him when he made an appearance. Jaffe broke the news and the local damage control team went to Defcon 1 to try to make it not mean anything. Someone like this being exited from PlayStation after the head of the place is retired means change is happening.
kruis
Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
Nope. Nobody accused Jaffe of lying, but of being overdramatic. Folks were wondering if Sony was going to kill more games or ax unproductive studios based on Jaffe's veiled predictments. When the story came out, it was about one single Sony exec leaving the company (or being fired) that almost no one had ever heard of. For most people the story was an absolute nothing burger.
PaintTinJr
Member
IMO Decima is just a custom PlayStation Unreal (4) branch. Where Sony pay a truck tonne of money to get first level access to unreal for all their studios per generation and to de-badge it, and then rewrite anything that works less well on PlayStation compared to the generic UE solution, and then upload and maintain within the official PlayStation Unreal branch so all 3rd parties get these options too.
IMO Decima is just a custom version of the generic custom PlayStation UE, effectively an alter version to fit the genre the studios game is targeting leading to the best of both worlds. Custom engine for game, but close enough to UE to allow UE developers to be employed easily without much retraining, and with a clear tracking of differences to generic PlayStation UE so the custom Decima alterations still allows for an easy upgrade path for the next PlayStation UE revision to minimise work and make it easy to keep games multiplatform at their core, while bespoke when going gold.
Topher
Identifies as young
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but I think Jaffe was far too vague in what he tweeted and it led people to some wild speculation. Yeah....perhaps Connie Booth was close to him, but PlayStation is a hell of a lot bigger than Connie Booth and yet he said this was specifically about PlayStation in his first tweet. Probably should have said this was about personnel/leadership changes from the beginning.
SEGAvangelist
Member
Yeah, I agree the post was a bit too vague.
How am I being pedantic? Nobody was questioning his credibility saying Connie has left Sony so what does this news that she has left change? They were questioning why he was making a mountain out of a molehill saying the playstation we knew is dead, how it's highly disrespectful or frustrating. how much credibility he has there is under question and whether he is doing it for clicks. People like Andrew house, Adam Boyes, Jim Ryan, Shawn Layden have all left at some point and we didn't get this much drama. Although he did the same shit with Shawn a while back and PlayStation was still fine.
midnightAI
Member
Well in your opinion you'd be wrong
Thirty7ven
Banned
Sure but it just doesn’t sound like you have sources for this, but your speculation is fun and interesting.
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
That's very different though. Designing a game for 2 groups of players on different systems to play against each other is vastly different from designing a game for long term revenue generating engagement.