PS4 TRADE GUIDE: PLAYSTATION UK INTERVIEW
means. It’s way to early to judge that. I think we can start to really form a view once the next-gen consoles have landed.
It’s logical to say the recent titles are rather gamer focused. These are the people we want and expect to come into PS4 very early. So it’s more interesting to wait until Christmas or early into the New Year and see how these games have performed across the generations. We might be about to see a more aggressive switch and therefore different balance of sales for those franchises.
What are your plans for PS4 at retail?
Alex Coultate, sales director: We’re trying to work closer with our retail partners, so there’s definitely something with education and engagement. It’s making sure the buyers are close to the product. Showing and telling them how we think as a business. We’ve done more retail conferences this year than ever. More hands-on and more head office talks than we’ve ever done versus previous console launches. There’s definitely been a big engagement piece.
From an execution perspective, there’s two phases. There’s a launch plan, pre-awareness in-store now, and we go into rounding off our volume and maximising the opportunity to Christmas. The world doesn’t end on December 24th, so making sure we’re set up for 2014. There are more places to play PS4 in-store than we did with PS3.
When are all retailers going to start selling digital PSN cards? Coultate: GAME has had what we called ESD for two and a half years. You’ve probably seen we launched with some independents. We’re working that through our partnership with CentreSoft. We’re working
with third-party publishers and there’s a dedicated bay for ESD with selected indie retailers. You’ve got individual and chain independents signed up as well.
Gara: We’ve been saying all year that we want retail support for our digital business. We want them to play a part in it and take a slice of it. We’ve got the independent move which takes us into the rest of the specialist sectors, which is nice, but our ambitions are broader. There are tools for every retailer to take part in that digital business. It’s a discussion we have regularly to bring more retailers with us. It’s a work in progress.
How active have you been with supporting the indies? Coultate: They’re really important to us. As Fergal says, we view the specialist sector as GAME and the independents. There’s a huge amount of focus on them.
How is the PS4 stock situation? Gara: We’ve got some. In keeping to delivering to the plan, the stock is arriving on time with no wobbles. I won’t give you a number, but versus the forecast we had earlier in the year, we’ve been raising those expectations and the business is helping us meet demand. Would we like more? Yes. But have we got a healthy volume for a big launch? Yes.
There’s been a lot of talk in the media about PS4 titles having an improved resolution over Xbox One games. Does it have an impact? Gara: We said we want to be the best place to play, and to be very developer friendly. We hope that's true. Some of that evidence suggests we are at delivering that. Are we ahead of the competition? You’ve got to ask the publishers or independent reviewers for their
“
We’d have loved to have Watch Dogs and DriveClub at launch. But the launch units are effectively sold, so it’s a nice second wind of the campaign. Fergal Gara, PlayStation UK
THE VITA CONNECTION
views on that. One thing for sure is we are coming out well in the noise and that means we are delivering.
Are you confident that PSN is robust enough? A lot of people were having issues with GTA V when that first came out. Gara: I don’t know the specifics of that issue, but have we invested in and recognised the importance of PSN? Yes. Our network will be crucial in the future of what we do. That has been recognised and acted upon so we're all just putting that in action.
OVER the summer, Sony has proactively promoted PlayStation Vita as a great product for kids. But this Christmas the focus switches back to the core gamer as Sony sells it as the ultimate PS4 accessory. “We’ve had our opportunity to get people hands on with Remote Play recently and there’s been a lot of news breaking on Remote Play demos,“ says UK MD Fergal Gara. “It feels very compelling, very relevant to the core gamer. Vita’s role in a PS4 world is one of the things we’re very excited about.” As a result, the team at
PlayStation UK is advertising Vita connectivity, both in-store and with above-the-line TV Advertising. It is
also putting together an ‘Ultimate’ console bundle, which includes the Vita and a PS4.
Sales director Alex Coultate adds: “One of the things we get asked most is: ‘Are you going to do a PS4 and Vita bundle.’ We have been working on one and we’re now talking to retail about promotions pre-Christmas that includes PS4 and Vita.
“We believe they work brilliantly together, so why not proactively put that together for the gamer? Marketing boss Murray Pannel says: “That is one of the questions that keeps coming up on the forums, so it’s another case of listening to our customers on what they want.”
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November 22nd 2013
www.mcvuk.com
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