NIS America CEO Apologises For "Negative" PS4 Comments During Chat About SNK Heroines On Switch

You should have seen the PS comments. Oh lawd.

"Its exclusive to Switch or something. Is anyone going to buy this game?

Thisnis news to us, Sony is apparently great eith everyone. Must be some personal beef or a PR stunt for brownie points from Nintendo fanboys"

Meh, all water under an almost burned bridge I guess

'Oh the times, they are a-changin'...'

Did this happen for the PS4 during the WiiU era? Like, a lot?

Ah well. I'm interested in this title, physical or digital, haven't decided yet, but definitely getting it on Switch.

Saying so publicly is going to rile up people on the internet, yes. Although there's few things that don't rile them up.
Is the PS4 playerbase as focused on physical releases as Nintendo apparently is? If this game came to PC virtually no one would even notice if there was a physical version, unless it came with some plastic tat or artbook.

As we know, no one is allowed to be critical of the PS4 AT ALL. I own one and for the past 2 years its been my favorite Netflix player/paperweight EVER.

As an avid ps4 gamer nothing in his comments is rude or offensive from my point of view. He was just being very honest and direct nothing wrong with that

"It's true, but he shouldn't say it"
Don't badmouth publicly the people you're dependent of. It's bad business.

@readyletsgo It sure did, and the other way around with big titles too. Can't count the number of times I read publishers saying "mature games don't sell on Nintendo systems". I'm sure there's a fair number of people saying there's no XBO version of a given game because it wouldn't sell as well as on PS4 too.

@YummyHappyPills the more surprising thing is the tone in which the PS article was written. There’s a fine line between journalism catering to fans and being a fanzine and I think the author was on the wrong side of that line.

Talking about the executive of a mid size in a derogatory way as a ‘suit’ because he didn’t say the right things? Fine for an amateur fan but you’d expect a high more even handed analysis from a professional journalist.

I didn’t think the comment was that negative. Nintendo gave them an awesome deal, because they need to buy support right now. Sony doesn’t need to buy support. Compared to Nintendo’s deal, Sony DOESN’T care as much. They shouldn’t, because they don’t need to.

@MarcelRguez @QwertyQwerty oh, how people forget dark times.

@StuTwo Thats normal for them Im afraid. Dismissive and derogatory to many things they hold no interest in.

@StuTwo That's because PS is a boys club first, news source second. Their attitude put me off the site because it got in the way of communicating the actual news.

@QwertyQwerty Its gone down.

Lets list some examples.

Bans for mentioning Switch.
Dismissing portable gaming as dead due to the 3DS market share being below the "failure" PSP
Furry shaming. Really.
Derogatory statements about japanese anime games

The list goes on. Not worth it tbh.

@QwertyQwerty And if you've seen their admins on Twitter its worse, slagging off indies for putting their logos on key art, revelling in winding up fanbases.

It's abhorrently unprofessional and frankly if any employee I had in a business like this, they'd be gone regardless of position for that kind of behaviour.

Worse still their article styles and use of language fans flame wars, and then they get to complain and dish out bans and warnins when the comments bring up other consoles.

I think when you're operating in an industry (and in technology as a whole) where things can get petty and messy real fast, it's probably best to err on the side of caution in these circumstances. Even if there is air of truth to the sentiment.

@MarcelRguez I rarely look there because I don’t have a PS4. The tone was just jarring to me with it being the sister site of NL. Whilst not perfect the writing and reporting here is usually pretty ok.

Calling a CEO of a mid sized publisher a suit is about the same level as calling a grown man ‘boy’. Real fanzine standard (and not high end fanzine at that).

The more interesting analysis would be to point out that we’ll probably see a lot more of this from mid level Japanese companies in the next year or two and to explain why.

Sony losing something exclusive to Nintendo. What timeline is this?

Another reason why I don't like console war fanboys. They blow anything out of proportion.

@StuTwo Yeah, that's one useful conversation that could happen on another site. And I agree, we'll only see more situations like these in the future due to the Switch's popularity and lower barrier of entry dev-wise.

@Gauchorino Hey, Bayo 2 didn't happen that long ago

It's official, the butthurt has gotten to executive levels lol

I found nothing negative about what Mr. Yamashita said when it comes to Sony, several indie devs have said the same thing about PSN leaving smaller games in the dust while they insert splash ads everywhere for Horizon, God of War, and the Fortnite cash-cow. Their store was not implemented well at all, just like during the PS3 era.

Anyway, he was told to apologize because a vocal Sony fanbase was so angry that they all started saying "I won't pick up those games anymore then".....which is about the lamest thing they can do and why it's very easy to give them the "Sony Pony" moniker.

Enjoy the ride :]

I dont get it. During Wii U time lots of developers talk like that about nintendo and the wii u, some devs even got to the point of saying that would release a game on dreamcast but not on Wii U and I didnt seem all that fuzz or even the sony fans thinking that as something bad. But now that it happens with the PS4 it suddenly is outrageous. Well but even with all that i guess its not smart to made this kind of comments to the press, but what he said its not completely wrong, games of small publishers are selling twice on switch compared to ps4, sometimes in only 1 week on switch the game sells more then all other platforms together, so there is a reason for then to be more towards to the switch.

@MarcelRguez I think the thing is that the Switch installbase (especially in Japan) and the higher attach rate for handhelds means that going forwards Sony will need to do something special to keep games like Ni No Kuni 2 as exclusives on PS4. In some cases they’ll need to do something special just to get those games launching on PS4 alongside the Switch.

Of course there is then the question of whether those games really add enough to be worth chasing in that way. They don’t sell millions of consoles. So long as EA, Ubisoft, 2K and Activision prioritise the PS4 and create games that strain to work on Switch (if they do at all) PlayStation is in a very strong, basically insurmountable, position in the West.

Writing Japan off as a niche market for PlayStation wouldnt necessarily be a terrible decision for Sony - even if they may not be at that point just yet.

Everything people have said about the PS community is true, with this particular game/statement it suddenly became a "niche" title when before everyone was okay with it.

This is mildly confusing because you can get a PS4 physical copy if you buy the special edition from the SNK/NIS store. That's the version I went with because I don't see myself needing this game portable and it will probably perform better on PS4.

So where's the Xbox One on this?

Basically, the Switch version is getting a physical copy? YAY!

Everyone has the right to speak his or her mind. But in terms of professionalism, most especially when working with partners (i.e., Sony), he shouldn't have said those things (at least not publicly) even if he personally thinks they're true.

@StuTwo Can't disagree with any of that except with Sony writing Japan off as a niche market not being a terrible idea. If they downscale their efforts in Japan, they would end up losing a lot of (console) exclusives like Street Fighter, NieR or Persona. While these games aren't generally thought of as system sellers, they still end up selling millions of units (at least I think all three of those are over 2m now), and I bet there's a not insignificant portion of the PS userbase that is more interested in those games than anything else. Might be my personal bias though, but it's hard to not think that when you see Sony pushing niche games like The Last Guardian or Shenmue III.

More importantly, it's a differentiating element with Xbox. If you remember, the Xbox 360 managed to get quite a few exclusive games from Japan (i.e. Capcom titles) early on. Coming off from the 6th gen, when Japan was still the dominant territory in terms of developing critically acclaimed games, those was a major get. Microsoft eventually lost that over the years, and it's important for Sony to double down on that facet to differentiate its products from its more direct competitor, I believe, especially now that Japanese games are making something of a comeback into the mainstream.

Since Sony remains entitled to deciding which third parties to support and how, third parties are entitled to voicing impressions on it as long as they're voiced respectfully. But this being Japanese culture of politeness, the guy might have just as easily reconsidered his words and decided to polish the tact himself. At least I hope it's just that, and not feeling awkwardly late with that in the face of flame wars started among more fanbrained folks online.

Heh.

So an exclusive just became a multiplat, still not interested though even if there was physical release.

Devs & Game companies have been blatantly trash talking Nintendo for years with no public apology in sight, now someone disses sony & they calling for Damage Control lol

As I said on PushSquare (which, amusingly enough, seems to be the primary focus of discussion in this comments section), burning bridges isn't good business sense, especially when you're standing on the bridge. I know this might be anathema to people in the social media age, but sometimes it's just better to keep one's mouth shut.

While I don't doubt that this has provoked a lot of petty reactions in the PS fanbase, let's not forget that Nintendo fans react in no less petty a manner when someone insults their pet multi-national corporation either.

You were bound to anger some people with these comments, not just the fanbase but sometimes even higher ups from the companies involved.

Also believe it or not, these type of public comments could even affect shareholders (no, i'm not kidding). You usually keep these negotiations details private, otherwise it's just bad PR.

@MarcelRguez being a niche in Japan could still mean a console selling 5 million units and should still mean a console that gets notable support from Japanese publishers - especially the biggest ones who have a more global reach like Capcom and Square.

The way things are today though I just don’t think that Sony can whip around companies like Factor 5 or Atlus without spending big to do so and I don’t think it’s necessarily worth it. Had Vita been more successful or Switch take up been slower maybe the story would be a little different

I don't think he should have apologized. He is the CEO not a marketing intern and knows what should or should not be said. His apology wasn't even that good because he threw NIS America under the bus.

I am now more confident than ever, that we don't get/getting games far later on Switch, because publishers are [removed] there pants because of Sony.
There was absolutly NO reason to apologize!

From a business perspective, it was very unprofessional. As a Switch and Nintendo fanboy, I cannot help but laugh and root for Switch over PS4. I have a PS4 too and I don't dislike Sony honestly. But I have hardly touched my PS4 since I got my Switch at launch.

No idea why. He was right - This nonsense won't sell against the titles that are coming on PS4 at retail.

On Switch they up against Indies that rarely sell 200k copies on Switch and remasters. Nintendo basically got it by a guarantee to "buy a lot of units" - so now it doesn't even matter what the sell through to consumers is - they get payed.

This was a no brainier deal for SNK/NISA. He just should not had told everyone.

Well, there it is. Knew that was comin’. I didn’t take his comments negatively. Just the nature of doing business in the industry. But smart move to put this fire out, how ever small it is.

PlayStation fanboys are so annoying, in my opinion.

I'm not sure why this was so controversial other than that it tied a partner in a conversation the partner didn't want to be tied into. It's not a secret that in Sony's current dominant state they're not the friendliest of parties for small studios to work with. That's been one area Microsoft has been showing them up a little. And it's no secret that in Japan Switch is king. This is a case where he was "too honest" possibly for the PR value, and the internet pounced.

Some days, I rue the invention of the internet. Instead of a communications tool it's become a system of embedded "gotcha's" where people wait to pounce on anyone they can.

He really shouldn't have said what he did. There were more neutral ways to say sony wasn't the best. Still you cant burn a partner and source of revenue...especially when you are small and you need them but they don't need you. Business is often swimming in crap. Put on a teflon suit and hold your breath but if you think you can clean it up...yeah not happening.

@G-Boy fan boys in general are annoying

Oh how the tables have turned

@MrBlacky Mind your language!

I think the main issue is that he was suggesting that SNK also partnered with Nintendo, which is not the case. This was all down to NIS. Of course, burning bridges with Sony after working with them for years isn't a smart thing to do either. Since who knows what will happen next generation, or the generation after that. He didn't say anything outrageous*, but an apology was in place. At least, it makes them seem a little more professional.

_{The only weird bit from all of this is that when he said that the Switch version outsells the PS4 version 2 to 1, he was talking about Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle, since that's the only game that launched on both systems (simultaneously). Though I'm not sure that's a great measure at all...}

@readyletsgo Not really, but the PS4 had a lot of good press for interactions with devs, large and small, during the early years of the PS4.

This said, after they reached dominance of the market, it's starting to sound that a lot of this "positivity" and support of everybody interested in their console has waned quite rapidly as indies alone mention how Playstation was outright courting them in the early years and lately increasingly seem to not care the least for them anymore, which is described as quite a contrast to the radical change of culture at Nintendo that went from "Wii-era utmost arrogance" to one of the most warm console developers they got to interact with.

This recent slip-up give me the feeling it's not just indies who're increasingly getting snubbed though.

It makes me wonder if the PS4's dominance hasn't got to their own heads(a bit in the same way the PS2's success had led to a lot of arrogance directly responsible for the rocky start of the PS3 before things stabilized to turn it into a success). Since it's a lot of comments lately that increasingly make them sound, almost ironically, like the "Wii-era Nintendo" of the current day now... or at least heading that way when it comes to relation with devs who increasingly sound like they should be grateful for the "honor" of releasing games to the console rather than the other way around.

I don't care much for NIS America or SNK stuff, but it's increasingly starting to feel like a trend due to comments from lots of indies who praised the Switch while also bringing sales figures in the picture.... and the "incredible" support they got from today's Nintendo, sometimes worded in ways that seemed to imply contrast with support they would "not get" from other console makers.

It's kind of really weird and just that deal between NIS and Nintendo vis a vis distribution and localization makes me wonder if they'll be the only Japanese--related developer/published to do so or strike such deals with Nintendo.

If that proves true, it could be a sneaky way for Nintendo, especially in their startling recent shifts to almost radical open-ness to developers on their platforms(compared to the rougher previous eras tinted by perceived arrogance from Nintendo), to undercut the Playstation by getting more such not-really-exclusive-but-still-kinda-such deals.

It might fit with Gamestop's CEO's claims of the Switch destined to have another "very strong year" in 2018 especially due to "yet unannounced titles".

Arrogance from Sony about the PS2's successes hindered a lot the start of the PS3 era and it took them a lot of efforts to reverse the slowness of the PS3's growth to make it successful and set the ground for the PS4.

Similarly, arrogance acquired during the crazy success of the Wii era can directly/indirectly be blame for a lot of the failure of the Wii U as a console and generation to the point many points that "learning from the Wii U's failures as both a console and company making it" is part of a lot of the Switch's tremendous success so far.

It makes me wonder if success of the PS4 might be about to bite Sony in a similar way in the coming years.

It might have been a slip-up from the NIS guy, and a massive one, but such slip-ups normally don't happen without the level of frustrations building up enough to lead to such a slip up.

@Octane I could be wrong, but I think I recall the sales figure thing was actually related to Disgaea 5 selling twice as much copies(physical and digital) on Nintendo Switch than on PS4.

@NEStalgia Nonetheless I'm starting to wonder if PS4's dominance is starting to get to their head a bit. Slip-ups like that rarely happen without a notable amount of frustration leading up to it.
And with indies alone(a group that was apparently courted hard in the first two years of the PS4), there's already reports of not just the difference in sales figures of their games on Switch vs other consoles, but also specifically the level of support they get from Nintendo(with the level of stated surprise implying that other consoles offer them nowhere such amount of help and support).

Some have also directly mentioned a shift of attitude at Sony versus how they were courted during the PS4's early years versus current and almost cultivated ignorance/disdain from them these days.

Right now Sony still dominate, and culture shift could happen at Nintendo from their own successes getting to their head, but... I'm starting to wonder if the coming years might not lead to a re-enactment of the transition from the PS2 to PS3 where successes of the PS2 had initially led Sony to over-estimate people's willingness to support the PS3 despite it's high cost as a console and difficulties of development.

When, despite the continued successes of FFXV, even people like Square Enix note the less "demanding" hardware of the Switch as a positive point that all but flat out mention that their interest in the console is "not having to spend a crazy fortune for every new games being made" versus PS4/Xbox where increasingly people talk of the "hardware taxe" in term of development costs to make games whose graphics/etc are "worthy" of the hardware... there's perhaps a point to be made considering that while not the largest.... Square Enix is not the smallest publisher either.

I switched from Playstation to Nintendo,no regrets,Good times,Good times now,with Free Online atm so yeah.

Well, for once I'm glad that someone is speaking out with truth. The apologies were necessary business-wise, and nothing else.

One interesting thing that I haven't seen anyone point out here is in his follow-up statements:
"In discussing matters with MCV, I thought that some insider information would make them interested in the overall conversation, and such lip service did not stand on the side of truth."

By saying that his comments did not "stand on the side of truth", is he implying that he completely lied about some of that?

@FiveDigitLP All so very true. I've sensed that "Late PS2 into early PS3" vibe from Sony for the past year or so. It's one reason I keep an eye on XBox still. Some of it is just the audience for the powerful box with all the big titles is going to skew to commercial blockbusters overall while people buy Nintendo because they wanted something different. And heck, if PS4 has a hardware tax, how are they tackling PC?! But, yeah, that's the kind of thinking I expected from especially Japanese pubs (lets face it, the home market is all in on Nintendo...) And Squeenix is one of the big 5, even with Western titles...so that's no small comment!

@Ludovsky I chalk that up to a slightly funky translation that may be correct in both literal and contextual translation, but may be an ever so slightly skewed. Japanese to English translation is always a "best guess at best" proposition depending on the exact context. And doubly so if it's a written statement. We'd have to see the original untranslated copy. Depending on the character(s) used, "truth" may have been translated (correctly) for a variety of more accurate words such as [proper, correct, trust, sincerity, reality, fidelity, substance, circumstances]. Sometimes with JP->EN, even a perfect translation still gets the actual connotations incorrect as so much depends on what was in the speakers head. And "side of truth" is a colloquialism in English so there's some context hurdles being jumped just to form something else into that statement by mood and tone. Sometimes I think official business statements like these shouldn't be translated at all...it makes messes worse more times than not.

@Octane
I am so sorry! ☹️ Making poo poo in their pants. Now better? Or maybe they made "Lulu in die Hose?👶

This guy obviously got a new book for his birthday.´Dummie's Guide on how to win friends and influence people´.

@FiveDigitLP Well, he lied about SNK and NIS signing a deal with Nintendo. SNK had nothing to do with that, that was NIS. So he's definitely apologising to SNK for that. So when he said: ''Then after their meeting, influential people from SNK came to our booth and said: ‘Hey, Mr. Yamashita, is it possible to cancel our contract on PlayStation 4? Nintendo wants to work on this title on an exclusive basis!'' There probably wasn't much truth in that. It was probably the other way around.

And remember, this is coming from the same guy who said this about Atlus:

"Atlus became very picky about selecting the European publishing partner after it was bought by Sega," Yamashita said. "It always cherry-picked its [European] publishing partner based on who offered the highest minimum guarantee on a title by title basis. I noticed that it was very difficult for NIS America to establish an equal partnership with Atlus."

Yes, NIS lost the rights to publish Atlus' games about two years ago. He's a PR disaster lol. Whether it's true or not, you don't talk about confidential information like that. That being said, Yamashita is no stranger to making stuff up or exaggerating things either.

@Ralizah I hardly comment on here but you took the words straight off my mouth. I originally saw this on PushSquare and god were the comments salty. Then I remembered one other place that reacts the same when it comes to Nintendo flamebaits, none other than sister site NL.

Even some of the comments around here are ok with this just because Sony is at the receiving end this time. Doesn't matter which company is involved, you don't bite the hand that feeds you, no matter how many other hands there are.

At the same time, I am enjoying following this predicament NISA is in. They're digging themselves a PR hole so deep, it would actually be fun to see how they crawl out of it.

@MartyFlanMJFan is that a bob dylan song

But will it be released for UK or will it be axed on the day of release? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if their main HQ is full of discarded pizza boxes on the floor and smeared faeces all over the walls.

NISA are incompetent.

@arcanine-is-here it is indeed!

@Ludovsky sorry, only seeing your reply now!

Yeah, I hear ya, I sense that PS4 could be like PS2 for Sony again, but I don't think they'd be that stupid to repeat PS3 launch again. I'd say they'll do the same as PS4, basic but strong ps5 for a year or two, then a slim or pro after. Keeping it full of Sony exclusives which I like myself.

Nintendo definitely had a touch of PS2 power with the Wii, and since we all knew what happened with ps3, with Sony, it was clear as day that Wii had gone to their heads with WiiU. Sure it was a great idea, but man was it a few years short in the oven. I wonder if they held off for a couple of years and released the Switch in 2015 would it be the success it is atm, or would the 3ds be in the way? Maybe Nintendo had to learn a lesson (again (N64)), I loved the GameCube, so underrated at the time, not so much now though, which is great, GameCube VC please.

I think maybe Xbox will get a massive jump back into the market with their next gen system, the X is pretty much next gen but, a new system.

Only thing that stops me turning on my one s now is that [removed] OS, I hate it so much, can't find anything. They need to streamline it like switch and PS4. I know it's meant to be an all-in-one type system, but to me it's just a mess, and takes way to long to turn a game on, or even buy an OG Xbox or 360 game, so I don't go near it.

I'm rambling now, sorry. But yes you make very valid and clear points.

@readyletsgo I dunno what the Microsoft strategy. But looking at things, especially this one, I think they're about to take leaves from Minecraft to literally outright becoming a more openly multi-platform company: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/04/playing_minecraft_on_nintendo_switch_will_soon_net_you_xbox_live_achievements

If Minecraft, on Switch, can get Xbox Live achievement... one can wonder what that means for the Xbox. Or Xbox Live as a brand.
I can imagine seeing them continuing to make the Xbox but gradually start to make it as just "a" platform among many others and much less of an exclusive platforms as they might take leaves from the multiplatform success of a property like Minecraft and.... well, start making more multiplatform games.

Edit: After all, why worry about the exclusive "you" didn't get when you personally decide to ditch the concept of exclusive titles yourself and begin to release titles on more platforms at once where they can still continue to make "you" money? After all, so much of the money Minecraft is making IS going to Microsoft.
No matter the console it's on.