Sony’s Howard Stringer: “The Wii is a wonderful device…”

A report in technology site Smarthouse informs that in a yet-to-be-aired interview on the television show CEO Exchange, Sony Chairman CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, commented on all things Sony.

Included in the lengthy interview is his opinion on how Sony was not able to capitalize on the portable digital music world using the Walkman, even though they had an iPod and an iTunes equivalent years before Apple. He notes that it was due to their strategy being far from software-centric combined with their fear of digital distribution. He notes:

In 1997 we were working with IBM on electronic music distribution and could have put this out five years earlier [than iPod]. But we couldn’t get our people to understand software. And we are a music company. They saw digital media, panicked and didn’t like it.

As for the format war that is HD-DVD vs Blu-ray, he describes HD-DVD as a technology that has the backing of Universal, and he wishes it good luck. However, he notes that while hit titles came out for HD-DVD, more came out on Blu-ray. He said:

We are selling 3-to-1 vs. them. We have exclusives with Disney, Fox, Sony [and Lion’s Gate] and they have the top 15 of 20 movies at the moment. At some point Blu-ray will take over based on … this support.

And finally, here are the comments from Stringer that would probably matter the most to you folks – since you’re all about consoles and gaming. When asked about his view on Nintendo Wii vs. Sony Playstation battle, he said this:

Wii is a wonderful device, but has a different target audience. If we fail, it is because we positioned PS3 as the Mercedes of the video game field. PS3 is after a different audience and it can be whatever it wants — a home server, game device, even a computer.

Despite other folks having issues Stringer’s “If we fail” comments, we here at QJ are a bit surprised (and amused actually) by Stringer’s matter-of-fact and humble-while-being-confident answers. Is humble pie Sony’s new policy? Anyhow, if you’re hankering to read the full interview, feel free to click on our “read” link below.

Via Smarthouse

A report in technology site Smarthouse informs that in a yet-to-be-aired interview on the television show CEO Exchange, Sony Chairman CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, commented on all things Sony.

Included in the lengthy interview is his opinion on how Sony was not able to capitalize on the portable digital music world using the Walkman, even though they had an iPod and an iTunes equivalent years before Apple. He notes that it was due to their strategy being far from software-centric combined with their fear of digital distribution. He notes:

In 1997 we were working with IBM on electronic music distribution and could have put this out five years earlier [than iPod]. But we couldn’t get our people to understand software. And we are a music company. They saw digital media, panicked and didn’t like it.

As for the format war that is HD-DVD vs Blu-ray, he describes HD-DVD as a technology that has the backing of Universal, and he wishes it good luck. However, he notes that while hit titles came out for HD-DVD, more came out on Blu-ray. He said:

We are selling 3-to-1 vs. them. We have exclusives with Disney, Fox, Sony [and Lion’s Gate] and they have the top 15 of 20 movies at the moment. At some point Blu-ray will take over based on … this support.

And finally, here are the comments from Stringer that would probably matter the most to you folks – since you’re all about consoles and gaming. When asked about his view on Nintendo Wii vs. Sony Playstation battle, he said this:

Wii is a wonderful device, but has a different target audience. If we fail, it is because we positioned PS3 as the Mercedes of the video game field. PS3 is after a different audience and it can be whatever it wants — a home server, game device, even a computer.

Despite other folks having issues Stringer’s “If we fail” comments, we here at QJ are a bit surprised (and amused actually) by Stringer’s matter-of-fact and humble-while-being-confident answers. Is humble pie Sony’s new policy? Anyhow, if you’re hankering to read the full interview, feel free to click on our “read” link below.

Via Smarthouse