PS4, next gen rivalry and the Vita rescue plan

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...8/Jim-Ryan.jpgWe meet SCEE president and CEO Jim Ryan in ebullient mood the day after Sony’s Gamescom presentation, at which the platform holder seemed very confident in its next gen proposition. Microsoft is increasingly turning up the heat, though, and with a series of policy changes and the offer of a free copy of FIFA with every Xbox One, the choice between the two consoles isn’t as clear as it once was. Here, we discuss PlayStation’s Gamescom announcements, what they mean for PS4 and Vita and how the next gen race is shaping up.Your Gamescom showcase was very heavy on indie games, while Microsoft, with its Call Of Duty bundle and FIFA deal, feels like the blockbuster games console. Do you ever think you’re pushing this indie thing too hard?No I don’t think so. I can see how that vibe could kind of come out but it’s a fact that FIFA and Battlefield and Need For Speed – they’re all going to be on PS4. And you know, by the way, if you want to play Battlefield on a next gen console then the only one you can do it on is PS4.So they’re all going to be there, Call Of Duty’s going to be there, platform holders tie up with publishers for what is perceived to be mutual benefit. We’re doing it with Ubisoft and we’re doing it with Activision with Destiny. But at the end of the day these big games, they’re all multiformat and you’re talking about Windows of 60 or 30 days for one piece of DLC – it’s not the end of the world.And equally we gave prominence to the indie stuff yesterday and I think we were right to do that because I think there could be some very interesting things come out of that and it’d be nice if the sort of classical platform model with the big publishers getting ever bigger…if that was somehow broken and new stuff came from leftfield, it would reinvigorate something that’s at risk of possibly becoming a bit stale.But is it enough? Do you think the average guy on the street cares about indie games?That obviously is the job of marketing and I think you’re right, if you take any one of those games in isolation – nobody’s going to shell out 400 Euros just to buy that – it would be naïve of us to suppose that, but I think if you get a decent roster of that sort of stuff I think that enhances the platform. I’d point to the stuff that Thatgamecompany has brought – Flower, Flow and Journey – I would argue with anybody that that stuff has been platform enhancing.And I would argue that that stuff has been platform enhancing to the extent that a thirty day window on some DLC that’s quickly caught up by the competitor platform can’t be.

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