Why Releasing The Interview On Xbox First Explains Everything Wrong with Sony

Well I guess if everyone from the President to Jimmy Kimmel are going to shame you for not releasing a controversial movie, Sony eventually gets the message. This morning reports came out, and companies like Google announced, that The Interview, the movie that all the fuss was about, will finally be released online.

On Xbox, Google Play and Youtube first, but not Playstation.

I’ve wrote before about what might be holding back Sony’s decision, and why I thought it was wrong to not seek out partners to provide a digital distribution alternative. The chorus calling for Sony to find some way to get the movie out to the public, even in a small way, clearly grew too loud for the studio heads in Culver City to ignore. That’s a great and exciting step for Sony in turning around from this crisis.

However it’s important to note the absence of the Playstation Network in the announced digital distributors. Internally Sony is (or was when I worked there) structured as a serious of semi-autonomous companies. You don’t work for a business unit or a division, you work for a “company”. “Hi, I’m Steve I’m with the electronics company” or Sony Pictures, Sony Computer Entertainment (Playstation), etc. Depending on the group you might have to sign an NDA to get a briefing from another “company” since your goals and their might not be in alignment.

That kind of structure means that each group often doesn’t see any value in working together for the good of Sony. At one point when I was there Sony had seven different digital video services under development (Grouper/Crackle, Sony Connect, Bravia (TVs), VAIO (PCs), Playstation, Sonynet Japan, and at least one other). All of them were being built independently, on different technology infrastructures, with different digital rights schemes, unique content licenses and no plan to ever make them work together.

This was especially true of the relationship between Playstation and the rest of Sony. On more than one occassion at Playstation’s HQ in Tokyo (which was not in the same area as Sony’s main HQ) we would be referred to as “Sony guys”. In other words we worked for some part of Sony while our hosts worked for Playstation.

That Sony can’t rally the Playstation team to execute on posting The Interview at the same time as Google and Microsoft says a lot. That Kaz Hirai the current CEO of Sony who used to run the Playstation group either has not stepped in to engage them on being part of the Sony Pictures solution, or has been unable to get them to move fast enough speaks to the disconnects that still hobble Sony.

I’m excited to see The Interview be released for what it means about standing up to threats. Most likely I’ll rent the movie on Google Play and stream it to my Motorola phone, and Chromecast it to my Samsung TV. That all those things interoperate but don’t come from Sony speaks to how Sony disorganization has hurt them. That Google was willing to move fast and distribute the movie when Sony seems to have been unable to do so is just another example of what’s wrong.