Newsmaker: PlayStation 3 playmaker

On Monday afternoon, Sony Computer Entertainment of America kicks off E3 week in Los Angeles.

At its press conference, the first major event of the video game industry's annual blowout convention, the company is expected to unveil the controller for its forthcoming PlayStation 3.

But many are hoping that SCEA will use the press conference for much more, including pricing and game availability information, though the company has been mum about its plans.

One architect of whatever the company announces at E3, and of its PlayStation 3 marketing plan, will be Jack Tretton, SCEA's executive vice president and co-chief operating officer.

Last week, CNET News.com spoke with Tretton about the company's goals for the next year, as well as how the video game industry and next-generation console environment has changed since E3 2005.

One thing that is lost on a lot of people is that we have never been first to market.

Last year at this time, clearly, things were different. At that point, Microsoft had only just announced its own next-gen console, the Xbox 360, and the device was still months away. Now the new Xbox is out and has already sold Wii next-gen console. All told, Sony will have to do a lot to impress an increasingly skeptical public, as well as video game watchers, who have seen the company delay the launch of the PS3 and grapple with production costs that could mean the device will either be far more expensive than the Xbox 360 or force Sony to subsidize it in order to keep the price down.

But Tretton believes that Sony is well-positioned for the fight and cites the company's dominance during the PlayStation 2 era, which, because Sony sees consoles as a 10-year play, still has years to go.

Q: Next-generation consoles have been big news for the last year. Comparing E3 2005 to E3 2006, what do you think were the biggest changes in the dynamics of the video game industry?
Jack Tretton: Well, I think we really have to go back 10 years to our introduction of PlayStation. We had one business model and one planned execution from day one: That was overdelivery to the consumer, have a state-of-the-art technology that blew people away and to distance ourself from any other competitor out there.

We've really been able to deliver that with PlayStation and PlayStation 2. We've had a 10-year product life cycle with the original PlayStation. We had PlayStation and PlayStation 2 living side by side, and now we'll have PlayStation 2 and 3 living side by side. We vastly expanded the marketplace from 12- to 17-year-old boys in a $3 billion industry to where it is today--to really a vast audience of mainstream entertainment with male and female, old and young alike.

The changes from the last E3 to this E3--we really felt that at E3 2005, we were in the catbird seat, enjoying 10 years of dominance. We felt with the announcement which we made on PlayStation 3 that we would deliver the true next-generation platform that would deliver that same quantum leap in technology that we've been able to deliver over the last 10 years. I think as we move forward to this year's E3, our dominance is the strongest ever on the two platforms.

As far as the rest of the industry between last year and this year, what do you see?
Tretton: One thing the rest of the industry has suffered from is that they are still in that run of a five-year product life cycle and never being able to break through to a diverse audience. I think you can't rush a product to market, and you can't come out with a partial solution.

If you're struggling and you're failing, you get a little bit desperate. I think if you're in a position of leadership, and you have a plan that you can execute...consistently, and you have confidence, then you have the luxury of waiting until you can do everything right. That's the difference between what you'll see in a debut of PlayStation 3 and what you may have seen from some of our competitors.

What's SCEA's strategy for this year's E3 and for the year ahead?
Tretton: Well, I think we really want to talk about the fact that we are now a three-platform company. The revenue dollars being generated by PlayStation 2 are significant enough; we've sold 100 million systems worldwide.

We're heading into the seventh year of what we believe is easily a 10-year product life cycle. While the launch of the PlayStation Portable last year was the most successful platform launch in the history of this industry, there's still a lot of work and a lot of education to be done there.

On PlayStation 3, we're delivering a quantum leap in technology, a very complex and exciting message for consumers. The message to the publishers is, if you deliver and you execute on the PlayStation platforms, you will be successful in this business. Anything you do beyond that will be gravy. We have the goods that we can deliver for anybody to invest in our platforms--whether it's the consumer or the publisher.

Looking specifically just at the PlayStation 3 and the so-called next-generation console war, you look at your consoles as a 10-year play. So what does PlayStation 3 have to do in order to win the next-generation console war?
Tretton: We have to do just what we've done in the past. You have to have the best system at the end of the day. You have to have the consumer's confidence, and you have to have a pureness of vision, in terms of the way you execute your strategy. One thing that is lost on a lot of people is that we have never been first to market.

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[techguy83]

better not be too high of a price

Or several people won't pick one up until it does drop in price.

[HalfEmptyGlass]

Gosh, talk about evasive!

I wish these kind of interviews never got published.

The guy didn't give any meaningful answer, what is all that supposed to mean? Hey Sony when you have a real answer for our questions let us know. Until then please keep quiet and don't waste our time!

[ajbright]

The price will matter

He keeps talking about long term, and in the long term if the price of the PS3 is over $500 they will hand their market share over to Nintendo and Microsoft.

Short term they could get away with selling a PS3 at $1000. They'd sell out on their launch day whether they had 1 million, 2 million or even 3 million.

But long term, parents in particular, are not going to care whether the PS3, XBox 360 or the Urinate is the better spec'd console (that's console, not consul - someone needs to learn to spell or spend less time txt messaging), they're going to care about providing their kid with a coolish Christmas present.

Ofcourse if the only console available next Christmas is the XBox 360, then the current lead of about 3 million is going to be peanuts compared to what Microsoft will have by summer '07.

The only saving grace here for Sony is that they have successfully marketed their box to the 25-35 yr old game player. Nintendo have yet to achieve this, and by naming their product Urinate, lowering the specs to achieve better value for money will not help them now that they've alienated their product from the only group of people that will bother to buy their console in English speaking countries - parents.

Parents still see Nintendo as kid-friendly, ie. no gore, violence or nudity. Although this is not particularly true, Nintendo's products are generally viewed as consoles for kidz.

So if the long term is as important to Sony as this guy claims, in the end the price will have to be competitive with the XBox 360. People buy consoles for games - not movies, not internet connectivity, not to view photos and definitely not to play music. Those things do increase the attractiveness of something that costs over $400, but in the end the game playing public are not going to overspend if they can get roughly the same game playing experience on something that costs hundreds of dollars less.

If the PS3 is within a hundred dollars of the XBox 360, I'll get one because the blu-ray player makes it worth the extra cost. But blu-ray or HD-DVD is not important enough to me to spend more than that, even if a standalone player costs between $1500-$2000. Anyone who spends that on a next gen dvd player is a complete moron. Your TV won't be able to display a better picture than the current HD movie channels deliver right now, which can be recorded commercial free to your dvr right now, and for a lot less money than some hokey piece of hardware that looks like it belongs in the a '70s retro electronics store.

[Sure Thing]

that was one useless rant

and calling a system Urinate doesn't make you sound like an adult either.

[bobby_brady]

I read the whole article, but nothing was said

why was this even published?

[scrumbus]

I agree, nothing said

I hate interviews like that, it provides no insight whatsoever. Also, he's mistaken if he thinks everyone is going to ante up just because they see value.

[Sure Thing]

That was one useless rant

and calling a system Urinate doesn't make you sound like an adult either.

[Sure Thing]

Oops my mistake

trying to reply to ajbright's comments but instead replies to the whole story.

[Tomcat Adam]

They were first.

I really can't believe they treat the Dreamcast as part of this generation. Or the not to be named vaporware.

They were first, and they established a nice base on top of that of the already massive PS1 player base. This was definitly a factor in the previous/current 'console war'. Not the biggest, but a damn important one.

The reason I believe that launching first doesn't matter this time is because they already have a player base. However, if they have a massive price tag (anything above the X360, for instance; 500$ CND---IMO) then the casual gamers will go flocking away.

That said, this article was just another big bowl of nothing. Time to wait out E3...

[nonicks]

This Sony guy sounds soooooooooooooo NERVOUS

Goodness... was he trying to hide everything and wasting the very basis of this interview or the only hope Sony has for it's SALVAGE with PSP3 is ----- it's glorious past.

I was sick of listening that 10yrs lifecycle and the heritage of 103 million units.

I think, the interview was about getting some news on PSP3 and SONY's plans with it.

The guy couldn't even name the Games on PSP3.... Simply Pathetic.

Looking at it from the strategic view point - if the guy was hiding everything for it to be unvieled at E3 .. still he did the worst job. Seems, as if he was soooooooooo UN PREPARED for the interview. or as if, the interview was kind of a liability.

Would have been much better, instead of that 10yr jargon, he had answered in some Technical terms.. throwing some text on cell processor.. the new experience with PSP3 and all that.

To Summarize - it was an excuse of an Interview. The worst I ever read at CNET.

IMPROVIZE guys...