INTERVIEW: ANDREW HOUSE, SCEE
they were so glad they banked on this early in the adoption curve because it has served them so well. So that is a really good sign.
Microsoft has been making a lot of noise on Kinect, while Sony went a little quieter with Move. Why is that? I don’t think it was necessarily quieter. For us, it was a natural development of our platform. We know that a marketing push is important around a launch window, but what will really drive adoption of new technology is going to be great content. That is a far better long- term bet. You can only sustain a certain amount of momentum by trying to ram product at people based on a strong marketing push. It will be content that defines it. Part of our insight came from the fact we pioneered camera-based gaming with EyeToy. We learnt from that experience that there are limitations around a camera-only solution. It does work well and lend itself to certain genres, but you do tend to hit a bit of a wall when trying to support it with the broadest range of content. That’s not the sort of problem we have encountered with PlayStation Move.
At the London Games Conference, speakers were saying the future of games will become less about the console and more about screens – be it mobile, TV or PCs. Is this something you subscribe to? I think there are two trends we are monitoring. Clearly, multi-screen is something that is here to stay. And I think we will see an increasing variety of screen sizes and devices that people want for different times of the day. Screen usage is driven
60m The number of registered PSN users
I think 3D will enjoy a faster adoption rate than the shift from standard to high definition.
“ Andrew House, Sega PLAYSTATION AROUND THE WORLD
SCEE president Andrew House gives us his insight into the emerging markets that PlayStation has targeted in 2010:
“I’ve travelled a lot this year and was recently in the Middle East. It was truly fascinating to be in Saudi Arabia, where it has just seen its first ever midnight launch for Call of Dutyat our only
38 December 17th 2010
PlayStation store we have in Riyadh. Around 1,000 Saudi consumers showed up for that launch, and they were so enthusiastic. We are still finding places that are still at that tipping point of accepting games overall. “Another market where we have tremendous strength is Poland, which traditionally has not been a big video games market. It has
on the ground that’s pioneering games.
“They are getting great
benefited from a very good economic performance, and was a great place to visit because there’s a small team
market share for PS3 and have adopted a smart strategy to demand strong localisation of content. I think we as a business need to think about that more. If we are to broaden games to their full potential, we have to deliver them fully localised into the language.
“And in Poland we’ve gone a step further than that. Rather than just text, we are using local, well-known voice talent. That in turn has become a marketing vehicle on which to sell the games. “It is really encouraging to me when you see markets that are just starting to truly embrace video games as a mainstream form of entertainment.”
www.mcvuk.com
by convenience, immediacy and with less emphasis on resolution and quality interface. But what we’ve also seen – and this sounds almost contradictory but then consumers often are – is this trend to own bigger and bigger televisions, with the increased proliferation of HD and adoption of Blu-ray. And at that point people want the very best experience. For this generation, and at least for the reasonably foreseeable future, this is going to come from a dedicated console that is designed with the right interfaces and experience in mind.
Sony has the benefit of having a console, but you can also deliver PlayStation through a Sony Bravia TV or, as the reports are saying, a Sony Ericsson phone. Does Sony have a broader view that some of your rivals don’t quite have? Yes, and in several areas. We have got the broadest view of any company in 3D for example.
Our chairman, Sir Howard
Stringer, made a commitment to have 90 per cent of our devices with full network functionality within a couple of years.
One of the reasons we created Sony Network Entertainment was to have a central, global organisation to look at network experiences because they have to be viewed now across a variety of devices. And PS3 is pioneering this with the largest base of registered users that is currently sitting at around 60 million worldwide.
Taking that into account, what’s next for PSP? We demonstrated with PS2 that with the right value proposition, the right long-term attention and the right global reach to emerging markets, that there is much more longevity for a platform than people had envisioned before.
I am not sure I can characterise the portable space as being exactly
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68