Following the Sony E3 08 press conference Jack Tretton sat down for a one hour round table with a bunch of reporters. The final question of the session was “Do you ever get nervous when you say something and you see all the keyboards light up at the same time?” Here’s what he had to say:
I get nervous every time that I open my mouth. I’d love to tell you that I don’t read everything that gets written, and you know, I do, let them all eat cake. I bleed with every word that’s written. You can’t make everybody happy, not everyone is going to agree with you. I care about some unknown guy that responds to one of your blogs and trashes something I said. It’s tough to make everyone in your family love you let alone everyone in the world. It’s the price of admission but yeah it freaks me out.
(Source: Full audio recording of session obtained from destructoid)
It’s OK Jack Tretton, Andrew loves you.
I really like Jack. He seems like he actually cares about what he’s doing. Nice to see someone be human as well as trying to sell a product.
Not too many people show that side of being nervous in front of the world at E3, let alone that what people say about him bothers him.
I thought Jack Tretton was a weak and somewhat idiotic guy in an executive position, but after this year’s E3 presentation I hold a much better opinion of him. He held his ground much better and had a greater presence than ever, it’s good to know that he reads this stuff
I’m the biggest douche in the Industry
he did pretty well this year. last year i was ready to laugh him off stage with the things he said and did, including his cheesy dialog with chewbacca.
There are plenty of idiots in the video game industry but Jack Tretton is definitely not one of them. Other than seeming like a genuinely nice guy he doesn’t take potshots at competitors and doesn’t hesitate to give them credit where it’s due. It’s remarkably confounding to think that in an industry with Cliffy B, Itagaki and Gabe Newell anybody could really dislike Jack Tretton.
I thought it was a good quote. He’s constantly in the firing line and gets abuse etc online. Makes you stop and think that it’s actually a human being your insulting, not some faceless organisation. Ok they have to put on this big I am thing when representing the company at these things, but in reality peoples personal insults may actually be taken to heart, even if they don’t show it in public.
Tretton is one of my fav ppl in the industry. He always seemed like the reasoned exec in Sony (though he has said some wonky things I’ll admit).
Regardless, when I think of all the execs from the big three console makers, I’d take Tretton any day.
He must keep up the good work!
And kudos must go to Jeff from the PS Blog, he takes a lot of flak too, but he seems like a genuinely nice guy in SCEA.
I’m just wondering, seeing that all the abuse she’s got, if that Woman from the Nintendo press conference ever stops smiling…