Sony's Stringer 'obsessed' with 360

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal's 'D: All Things Digital' conference, Sony's CEO Howard Stringer let slip that he's more than a bit preoccupied with Microsoft's Xbox 360.

While talking about the success of Sony's Da Vinci Code movie, Stringer revealed, "It also beat Xbox 3 in Europe in its second weekend", of course meaning to say "X-men 3". Apparently, when his mistake was pointed out, Stringer laughingly replied, "There's an obsession!"

However, as the interview went on, Stringer elaborated on his respect for Microsoft's next-gen console and Bill Gates in particular: "God I walked into that, didn't I [...] Look, the skill of Bill Gates is he's so brilliant at his detail that when he slips in the salesmanship, most of us think: oh my God, he must be right. [...] He talked on the one hand, and I loved it, he talked about Vista [being] delayed as if the delay was normal, and then he started mocking me for delaying PS3."

On a more serious note, Stringer also found time to address the high price of Sony's next-gen console. "It's got more bells and whistles than a 747", Stringer explained. "That Cell processor is extraordinarily powerful and you have nine hours of high definition on the Blu-ray disks alone [...] The reason it's expensive, instead of concentrating on just the games player, which would have been done in the past, PlayStation 3 is designed to go somewhere else, where it's the center of the living room".

It's a slightly more direct response to the question that's been on gamer's lips everywhere. Rather than the usual glib "Well, it's cheap for a Blu-ray player"-type statements we've been hearing from Sony execs recently, Stringer laid his cards down, explaining Sony is keen to reach beyond the traditionally limiting games machine/gamer model. "It's part of the new digital strategy," Stringer continued, "to try and create a new software mentality in Tokyo because it's quite clear that we've been an analog company migrating to digital with some difficulty."

Via CVG