Sony aims for comeback win with PS3

The PS2 is still selling extremely well, as are, of course, the Wii and the DS — and those are much graphically weaker systems than the PS3 or the Xbox 360. Do you think you and Microsoft jumped the gun with these machines? Are consumers ready for broadband and high-def yet?

I think in the case of Microsoft, they’d taken the Xbox as far as it could go, and so if they wanted to remain in the business, they had to go back to the drawing board. As for us, we had the luxury of dipping a lot more into the future than maybe our competitors could because of the strength of the PlayStation 2.

We realized that not every consumer is going to be ready for what the PlayStation 3 offers in the first year and I don’t know that we expect or need them to be ready for it. We need them to be ready for it over the next decade. And if you look at the PlayStation 2, as you just pointed out, we sold 120 million machines so far — but we certainly didn’t sell them all in the first year.

We really feel like we have the luxury of being a little more forward-thinking with our technology and not coming up with something that’s a little more of a casual game experience. If price is an issue for consumers, and they want a diverse library and they want a more casual gaming experience, the PlayStation 2 is a great machine that addresses all of the above.

How long will you support that system?

I really don’t think there’s any reason to back away from it, unless the consumer tells us they’re not enjoying the experience and they’re not looking for more software. But the reality is that we’ll sell more PlayStation 2s this year than we sold last year. Our seventh year is bigger than our sixth.

More importantly, you’ve got a tremendous software library for it. You’ve got 160 games that are coming out for it this holiday season, we’re going to do 250 million pieces of software between our three platforms — and a lot of that is coming from PlayStation 2. So I don’t see any reason why PlayStation 2 has to end anytime in the near future.

Getting back to last year and the PlayStation 3 launch: What do you think worked for [Sony] in the past year?

I think we have a tremendous amount of PlayStation fans that who have seen innovation from us and seen creativity and seen risk ... I think they get bored with the tried and true. I think there’s a real temptation if you’ve had success in the past to just take the same page out of the book. But I think consumers saw an experience in PS3 that was unlike anything they’d seen before.

Another thing that I think really strikes a chord with PS3 consumers is that we’re giving them everything they need, in the box, day one. Our competition talked about the fact that they want to offer consumers a choice, but then they make it clearly apparent that if you really want to have the full gaming experience, you need to go out and invest a lot more money than you originally thought you were.

Have you learned any lessons from the PS3 launch?

Lessons in that when you’re making claims about when a unit is going to be available, you’d better be crystal-clear on what your manufacturing capacity is.

I think we knew there would be pricing sensitivities and I think we’ve certainly seen that. But I think the challenge of educating consumers on the technology is something that — I don’t know that we underestimated, but it remains a formidable goal. The days of just “Here it is, here’s what it cost, plug it in … and start playing” are over. There’s a learning curve a consumer needs to go through before they make a decision on which platform to buy, and I think it’s a lot more complicated than it was five, 10, 15 years ago.

Sony was charged with being arrogant toward its fans. Would you say that “here it is, plug it in” could be construed as such?

I don’t know that we were ever considered arrogant by consumers. … I think the arrogant claims came from the press and bloggers more than true consumers. … I think the arrogance claim comes with a leadership position and being unwilling to admit that you’re failing. And anybody who’s been through media training or been with the press isn’t going to get on a soapbox and talk about their failures. If that gets construed as arrogance, then I guess that’s a risk you have to take.

So, if next-gen was Internet-connected consoles and high-def, how long do you see this generation lasting?

I think it should last for 10 years. I think we’ve got more technology under the hood and more growth potential in terms of what developers can do with the software than we’ve had in previous generations.

If you summed up the mission statement for PS3, it’s short-term sacrifices for long-term gains. There was clearly an easier route to go, but we think the route we’re taking is the one that’s going to pay dividends for years to come.

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