Okay, here's your feel-good story for the week.
Many Sony followers have always appreciated the company's apparent desire to put the gamer first. And that's what a disabled gamer is praising after attending the EBGames Expo in the city of Sydney, Australia.
According to the story posted at Gameranx , a Reddit user by the name of RandomHypnotica spoke about his experience at the event. He and three friends, all of whom were in wheelchairs, wanted to go hands-on with the PlayStation 4. However, due to an oversight, all the units were upstairs and as such, were not wheelchair accessible. A Sony representative apologized, and said they always support the disabled player base.
Then, he took the contact information of each of the disappointed gamers and promised that each of them would receive a shiny new PS4 on launch day. Then they headed over to the Microsoft area, but were flatly told that the Xbox One displays were upstairs and there was nothing they could do. …okay, this story sounds like it has some spin to it, but if it doesn't, I won't be surprised in the slightest. In my estimation, Microsoft cares as much about gamers as I care about hockey, which is to say, very little.
Quick, how much is a used wheelchair and what's the next event for Sony?
More than a PS4
bummer jaja
Cost to make MS look like shite : priceless
Hell, I've got two. Lets hit up the next event!
Sony sounds a bit fake to just give them out for free. I wouldve liked it better if,they got them upstairs rather than give a free one.
My day job is to support people with a disability in finding employment. Based on most of the people I've met with accessibility issues, if they can't access it themselves, they probably don't want to access it at all. That is to say, they really don't want to be carried. Know what I mean?
Damn MS, you could have offered some of your beefy security folks to hoist their chairs up the steps.
wow! way to shi* on the disabled M$,
after reading this article,
my rrod xbox 360 will be going in the trash rather than getting it replaced.
How can you not like hockey? Yanks. lol
I'm surprised that a console couldn't be moved for an hour. Seems odd. But giving away a new console to compensate for mobility issues is a class act. I'll hope it's true, the whole thing, even if I'm highly skeptical.
I'm a Yank and hockey is the only sport I watch.
I love hockey, too. I'm from the US.
The queues for those PS4 units were horrendous. Moving one, even for a few moments would have been trouble.
To be fair, i'm pretty sure there has been plenty of situations where the role has been reversed or Sony has been an ass to someone.
Sounds fishy.
Did somebody say something about hockey? I'm just here for the hockey. Hockey.
It would definitely hit the feels if this story is true.
Hockey is the greatest sport on earth.
I hope they had every intention of going to MS, and not hoping to get another free system. Cynical, I know. But seriously, when has MS ever shown they cared about the user (short of user complaints)? MS cares about the our money. Just look at the original X1 specs. They changed only because gamers complained. Had nobody complained, they'd still require an internet connection. Still not allow used game sales and what not.
Though in MS's defense, they might not have wanted to be carried upstairs, feeling humilated.
Bit surprised no elevator access.
when have they ever shown they care about the user?
you mean besides the countless times they have changed things because the consumer did not like it right?
they dident throw away months of hard work and money down the drain because they thought it would be fun!
not to mention the xbox rewards program, i dont see $ony offering credits back depending on what events and activities you have participated throughout the month.
so f*cking sick of this BS that $ony cares about their customers more than anyone else does, it truly is BS!
fact of the matter is no one cares about their customers, they do just enough to make it look like they do.
if they really cared about their customers they would make sure the products they release are 100% reliable, and actually provide a half decent support line!
Out of all the people in the world who believe MS' PR spin and Saint persona they are trying to preach…. I did not expect you to be one of them.
Incase you didn't know, MS changed those features because their pre order numbers were very low compared to the PS4.
They weren't sitting there with a box of tissues saying to each other "Why did we do this to them, I am so sorry to all the gamers we offended, please, take us back".
Both Major Nelson and Don 'Douchebag' Mattrick proved how much MS cared about their consumers.
typical.
$ony changes something oh $ony cares soooooooo much about their fans there the best!
M$ changes something its some devil dark ulterior motive.
really starting to get sick of this desperate BS!
eh, whatever, have fun with your coathooks and tin foil hats.
While that is very generous of Sony I can't help but frown up the organisers of the event rather than Microsoft. How could they hold an expo like that and not offer such access. When I was at Eurogamer there were plenty people were in wheelchairs and their was no problem for them accessing all the events as the spaces were accessible and very open. While the is a very kind gesture from Sony, the organisers of the event should really be looked down on not Microsoft.
^
This.
Are you serious? This is Australia.
We don't generally consider anyone else unless there is some benefit to ourselves.
(General Aussie attitude, not shared by myself)
Not so sure about this… There were XB1 units on the ground floor demoing Forza, Killer Instinct, Ryse and Kinect Sports Rivals. Not sure where Titanfall and Dead Rising 3 were, didn't trial either of them.
So, there's definitely some falsehoods being told here. If Sony gave away the PS4 units, though, that is an amazingly generous move for something that they must have seen as being a non-issue going into the event.
I dunno about this……
I mean if it was true, I'm sure Sony's PR team would have been all over it.
Neh, this is just one very kind good guy that did something nice. Sony is a large company. I am sure they got employees all over the world doing small little kind gestures every week.
I don't know if this particular story is true or not but good deeds are done in the field all the time, by good hearted people.
Luckily that too is part of human nature.
Yeah but, then MS would be all like "OH Sony, so you don't have enough units available to fill pre orders, but you can hand them out for free to handicaps"
Or Xbot's would be like "The PS4 is so crap they are literally giving them away for free!"
hmmmmmm…….. ill believe it when i see it!
at least M$ had their booth laid out properly!
ps4 had 1 line for everything, so no matter what you wanted to play you had to wait with everyone else.
and like 60% of people lining up were under 18 so that meant 40% of the people were lining up wasting their time waiting to play shadow fall.
and all the other games, knack, driveclub, had no time limits so people were sitting on them for a hour or more.
SF had 3 5 minute rounds then you were kicked off.
so those people who wanted to play SF were waiting over a hour per group session, where if there was a SF line they would of only been waiting quarter that.
i ended up lining up for 3 hours on friday just to get in to play shadowfall, and once i finally got up there there was not enough people to start a match so i had to wait even longer for people old enough to come up.
and instead of them sending someone down and going down the line asking whos 18 they just waited for said people to get in front of the line because it would be unfair to let them jump the que.
hows it unfair, there waiting for a different game.
what, having separate queues is too expensive is it $ony?
$onys tight assedness will never cease to amaze me!!!!!!!!
then when there was finally enough 18+ people and we had our round the guy comes over and says you can have another round theres still no more 18+ guys, then another round after that.
i ended up sitting there for over a hour till they had enough 18+ people and had to kick us off so others could get on.
at least M$ had separate lines for each game, and they even had all their non 18+ stuff on the show floor instead of upstairs so everyone can access it.
but of course those things never get mentioned, big bad devil M$ can never do any good otherwise the world will implode!
its getting PATHETIC!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't think you should be around other people.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Love Ben's response.
Nor animals.
how insightful and mature ben thanks for adding such a thought provoking comment!
so, straight back at ya bud.
yea i'd say sony did a graet thing and they proabaly thought of it as a bit of gud PR and/or Marketing certainly shows who gives a stuff about us and who's in it for the money(not to say that sony's not want to ake money but you got to have ur priorities rtye aye and sony seems to)
happy gaming =)
This is a nice move on Sony's part, and a bad one on Microsoft's part.
o, forgot to mention at least M$ was actually giving away things at their booth too.
they were giving out one passes which every time you played a game you scanned the card and that would enter you into a competition to win some prizes.
there were hidden spots to earn you more entries into the comps.
and they were giving away specially branded dog tags.
what competitions did $ony offer?
which dog tags did $ony offer?
oh yes of course thats never mentioned.
Holding competitions, and giving away free stuff to disabled people.
I can see how the two can be compared…..?
But hey, since you are now a glorified Xbot, you have probably lost all your rational thought processes when it comes to the games industry.
the whole story is how $ony gives a sh*t about their fans and M$ does not, so of course there related you dillweed!
if $ony cares so much about their fans why werent they giving anything away at their booth?
hell there the ONLY exhibitor who wasent!
EA were giving away swag bags for those who played any of their games, activision held a competition where they were giving 100 units of the prestige edition for each session, ie 100 for friday morning, 100 for friday night, 100 for saturday morning, 100 for saturday night, and 100 for sunday.
hell even ubisoft were giving away posters and Tshirts.
hell even bugthesda gave out Tshirst for those who lined up to watch their live demo of wolfenstein and elder scrolls online.
so were WB with dying light.
so if $ony cares so much about their fans why were they the only ones who were not giving away any free swag?
oh, sorry, forgot no one can speak ill of thy holy $ony!
looks like one of their monkey drones has kidnaped their next victim………
When I first came across this story on another site, I thought that the Sony rep was going to come back and say that they would bring a PS4 demo unit to the guys house so that him and his friends could spend a whole afternoon trying out the system.
I am not sure about the regulations and codes in Australia, but I am pretty sure that ADA compliance would have been enforced here in the US!
SURE Sony "cares" about gamers….as long as they have $$$$ to put in Sony's I.V.