To a certain extent, yes. And admittedly they've got a massive customer base up their sleeve and a lot of brand loyalty to play with. They have a lot of scope to do whatever they like for the long term good of the brand without seeing any particularly negative financial impact.
But it's fairly dependent on some actual improvement coming along eventually. People will only wait so long. I agree that it's not *that* bad on this generation, sub-standard but little more. But if they're still feeding us more of the same minor upgrades GT7? GT8? They can play the "we're still working on it" card until Armageddon, and it'll still be just as true as when they said it a week ago.
We're at least two years from anything resembling GT7, and probably more than that given the development times for GT4, 5 and 6. They're going to have to actually produce a significant improvement by then, because if they don't it's going to be fairly ridiculous. In addition to the fact that the competition will then be another 2+ years down the road with their systems.
Is it going to have been worth the damage to the brand to get an amazing sound system? If it's not the absolute best thing on the market, I can see it taking until GT8 or 9 to lose the tag of "that game with the vacuum cleaners", however not true that might be.
That's all entirely hypothetical, though. Maybe we should just wait and see what the sounds are like before damning PD through sheer pessimism. It's unusual for Kaz to be so candid about the development, and for him to talk in such absolutes as he has recently. Improvements are coming; "eventually" is better than not at all, and it only really means "on PS4 at the latest" in this case. I think I'll take Kaz's word for it for now, since nobody is in a better place to offer any alternative.
If I was alive in 1950 I might have agreed with your "long game" assertion. But this is 2013 and we are accustomed to a much, much faster pace of technological change. I've been saying for some time, the GT series is ripe for the picking and with the advent of PS4 and the potential of the PCars series, and the explosion of PC sims, we now know what is possible and more importantly, what is possible on a budget that is just a sliver of PD's development budget. Even given the obvious momentum fan loyalty generates with the GT series, I have no doubt those loyalties can and would change in a heartbeat on a new console if something is done better and with more attention to customer feedback.
One can see for example, what PCars has done with a fraction of PD's budget. Should they happen to sell say 4-5 Million units on PS4 within a year, they'll have a huge jump on PD on the new console, and will also then have the development budget to do much more than what's already been done. This competition will spur on both series and PD will have no choice but to rush out a version of GT7, lest PCars go at this full force and release PCars2 in 2014 before GT even gets out of the block. Time this all wrong and PD could lose a huge chunk of market share in the next couple of years.
The one and only reason PD gets away with stuff like terrible sounds, standard cars, poor online gameplay, lack of tuning options, no livery editor is simply because they have no competition on the PS3 platform. Hopefully that all changes with PS4, for all our sakes.
If pCARS is truly a "better" game (it'll depend on whom you ask, naturally), they deserve the success - there's room for them in the "market". Gamers don't just buy one game at one time; unless you want to factor in that interesting aspect of going to see a movie whilst it's on at the cinema, so as to partake in the "social side" of the "experience" with others who have seen it.
Personally, I feel sick when people start talking about "market share" and other such nonsense in respect of something like computer games (or movies, or books etc.). It implies that you're providing the exact same product as someone else, and when you're making games, that's as sure a sign that you've failed in your job as any. Gamers want a good game, not a sure bet.
If you like a game, buy it; if not, don't. Let the publishers (/ developers) worry about the economics of it all, enjoy the games for what they are, and don't defenestrate them for not being something they were never meant to be. Don't be afraid to admit a game just isn't for you, either, rather than try to claim it's failed in some way (unless it really was for you).
I honestly never would have considered pCARS to be competing on the same ground as GT; some overlap, sure, but it's not Forza. Although it was initially a self-proclaimed GT copy, it soon started doing things differently; so that, combined with the fact that it isn't even on the same console, means even Forza's not really for the same "market" as GT either (unless you want to tie in the whole MS vs. SONY thing, which surely the marketers probably want you to.) That's made plain by the number of people who own both games, including myself - they're sufficiently different to attract a different demographic, in spite of the console gap. Unless you just mean it's a car game, but there are hundreds of those. SMS already have my money, anyway, just for the curiosity of it all.
Ugh. The games industry needs to learn that it won't "survive" (in a way that is beneficial to us gamers, at least) if every game is trying to corner
all of the "market", because practically every game will be sub-optimal to practically everyone. The trouble is, it won't continue to attract as much money if they're not continuing to try to make as much money in return (although a good chunk of that investment is spent on marketing). However, Greenlight, Kickstarter etc., whilst not really "the" answer, do offer an interesting insight to a possible, more "craftsman"-oriented industry for the future (more independent developers; games funded by gamers directly) alongside more traditional models. But now I'm waffling.
Anyway, I really think we should be glad that PD continues to do its own thing, especially with sound. I have substantiated that at great length in the past, but it will be plainly obvious to everyone "eventually".
