Following a rant by Moon Studios director Thomas Mahler on NeoGAF about Nintendo being overtly secretive about the hardware specifications of its upcoming NX platform, former Sony Strategic Content division head Shahid Ahmad voiced his opinion on the same.
Ahmad stated on Twitter that the comments by Mahler were, “Quite an uninformed and immature rant, lacking any real understanding or professionalism.”
When told that such blow-outs are the reason why secrecy exists in the first place, Ahmad responded that there’s still a lot up in the air with such products. “The secrecy is because it’s a commercial product in development and will undergo rapid changes in concert with devs.”
He also stated that there have been cases where dev kits were handed out before launch with the PlayStation 4. “At PS, we loaned out a lot of kits pre-launch to a lot of devs. Obviously coming out with such nonsense won’t help with trust.”
As for the NDAs that usually crop up, thus promoting secrecy, Ahmad said, “As they should. It’s an unlaunched product. Commercial realities etc.”
When told that this kind of behaviour would be understandable if the developer had no route to shipping for the NX when it released, Ahmad said, “It’s a big world with a lot of devices. They can launch on those and Nintendo would then have to deal with market forces.
He further reiterated that dev kits were handed out before launch without much requirement from the developers. “PlayStation loaned out *tons* of prototype PS4 kits to devs without requiring much at all, not even playable in some cases.”
Business development manager at Microsoft Studios Phil Waymouth said he was envious that Ahmad was in a position to comment on this issue, to which the latter responded, “Former PlayStation guy supporting Nintendo against unprofessional rant gets tacit support from Microsoft guy.”
It may sound like Ahmad is being harsh but he denies as much. “No I’m not harsh at all and you don’t have the full picture,” he said to another user. Which is pretty much a good point when no one really has any information on what the NX is, Nintendo’s dealings with developers for the platform, launch plans, etc.
What are your thoughts on the whole rigmarole? Let us know in the comments below.
