wraggster
September 22nd, 2006, 01:35
Sony executive VP Jack Tretton said this to Gamedaily:
"What I've read widely and what I've heard from MS is, 'Yeah, we got beat last generation but that's because we were late to market and came out a year after PS2 did and that's why we got defeated and that's not going to happen again.' Yes, the PS2 was beating the Xbox 5 or 6 years ago, but now the PS2 is beating the Xbox 360... Year-to-date we've sold more hardware than they have and this past month we've sold more hardware," Tretton boasted. "So we beat them in their last generation machine and we're beating them in their current generation machine. And if I were Microsoft, the big concern I'd have is... Xbox 360 is actually doing worse than the original Xbox did."
He continued, "I think obviously our competition, the handheld devices from Nintendo and specifically in the case of the DS, we really feel like they're appealing to the same audience that Game Boy has always appealed to. And if you look at the adoption rate of the DS over the first 17 months, not only does it trail the PSP but it also trails their other platforms... They're potentially losing some of their core audience and they're not really expanding beyond that and we think we're expanding into a completely new audience as we did with PlayStation. And we'll do just what we did on PlayStation; we'll dip down to the younger consumer eventually and we'll ultimately appeal to that vastly Earth wide audience we carved out with the original PlayStation."
We queried Tretton about Nintendo's approach to broaden the market and "touch" the so-called "grey gamers" in addition to appealing to the younger set, and while it's hard to imagine a PSP in the hands of a 60-year-old for instance, Tretton believes there are more middle aged and young people playing PlayStation systems than one might think. "I think it's a good premise, but I would tell you for a fact that there are much more people in their 50s and 60s playing PlayStation platforms in terms of console, than there are playing Nintendo platforms. So I think it's conceivable just as we did with the PS1 and PS2 that we could bring in that audience."
"What I've read widely and what I've heard from MS is, 'Yeah, we got beat last generation but that's because we were late to market and came out a year after PS2 did and that's why we got defeated and that's not going to happen again.' Yes, the PS2 was beating the Xbox 5 or 6 years ago, but now the PS2 is beating the Xbox 360... Year-to-date we've sold more hardware than they have and this past month we've sold more hardware," Tretton boasted. "So we beat them in their last generation machine and we're beating them in their current generation machine. And if I were Microsoft, the big concern I'd have is... Xbox 360 is actually doing worse than the original Xbox did."
He continued, "I think obviously our competition, the handheld devices from Nintendo and specifically in the case of the DS, we really feel like they're appealing to the same audience that Game Boy has always appealed to. And if you look at the adoption rate of the DS over the first 17 months, not only does it trail the PSP but it also trails their other platforms... They're potentially losing some of their core audience and they're not really expanding beyond that and we think we're expanding into a completely new audience as we did with PlayStation. And we'll do just what we did on PlayStation; we'll dip down to the younger consumer eventually and we'll ultimately appeal to that vastly Earth wide audience we carved out with the original PlayStation."
We queried Tretton about Nintendo's approach to broaden the market and "touch" the so-called "grey gamers" in addition to appealing to the younger set, and while it's hard to imagine a PSP in the hands of a 60-year-old for instance, Tretton believes there are more middle aged and young people playing PlayStation systems than one might think. "I think it's a good premise, but I would tell you for a fact that there are much more people in their 50s and 60s playing PlayStation platforms in terms of console, than there are playing Nintendo platforms. So I think it's conceivable just as we did with the PS1 and PS2 that we could bring in that audience."