Sony’s Kaz Hirai: defends Japan-only titles, emphasizes PS3’s features
In an interview with Japanese website ITMedia, Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai reassures the market about their decisions in releasing first-party titles. Also, the Sony bigwig emphasizes that third-party developers should focus more on the PS3’s unique features when creating a multiplatform game.
A certain part of the interview has Kaz defending the purpose of their Japanese studio, stating that, just because a big chunk of the market thrives on Western regions, it doesn’t mean that they will automatically import them to the US. This is because some Japan-developed titles really are designed for the Japanese market to begin with.
The interview is in Japanese, but thankfully, the folks up at DevelopMag have posted a good translation of it. Hirai explains:
There are a number of games which are being developed with the viewpoint of making the game consciously for the Japanese market but also wanting it to sell well in the West.
Just because the foreign market is bigger than the domestic one, we donÂ’t intend to take strategy of just making what would have been considered previously as ‘Western games’ and saying ‘We’ve got no choice but to do this’ to our Japanese users. If we did that, there’d be no point in having the Japan Studio.
Reasonable enough, right? But on to other pressing matters. After being asked about the trend of third-party developers wanting to create mutliplatform releases, Kaz responds that the PS3-version of the multiplatform title should focus on being able to utilize the PS3’s unique functions. For him, this is what adds “a little bit of extra flavor” to their PS3-exclusive titles. Kaz continues:
For example, with the PS3, you’ve got the SIXAXIS controller, or you could utilize the extra capacity provided by Blu-ray to add more levels, put on interviews with the developers or have your videos able to play in 1080p. I think it’s really important that we talk with third party developers so that they can have these interesting extras in the PlayStation 3 version.
You may click the Read link below for the full interview, but be sure to have a good Japanese translator at hand.
In an interview with Japanese website ITMedia, Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai reassures the market about their decisions in releasing first-party titles. Also, the Sony bigwig emphasizes that third-party developers should focus more on the PS3’s unique features when creating a multiplatform game.
A certain part of the interview has Kaz defending the purpose of their Japanese studio, stating that, just because a big chunk of the market thrives on Western regions, it doesn’t mean that they will automatically import them to the US. This is because some Japan-developed titles really are designed for the Japanese market to begin with.
The interview is in Japanese, but thankfully, the folks up at DevelopMag have posted a good translation of it. Hirai explains:
There are a number of games which are being developed with the viewpoint of making the game consciously for the Japanese market but also wanting it to sell well in the West.
Just because the foreign market is bigger than the domestic one, we donÂ’t intend to take strategy of just making what would have been considered previously as ‘Western games’ and saying ‘We’ve got no choice but to do this’ to our Japanese users. If we did that, there’d be no point in having the Japan Studio.
Reasonable enough, right? But on to other pressing matters. After being asked about the trend of third-party developers wanting to create mutliplatform releases, Kaz responds that the PS3-version of the multiplatform title should focus on being able to utilize the PS3’s unique functions. For him, this is what adds “a little bit of extra flavor” to their PS3-exclusive titles. Kaz continues:
For example, with the PS3, you’ve got the SIXAXIS controller, or you could utilize the extra capacity provided by Blu-ray to add more levels, put on interviews with the developers or have your videos able to play in 1080p. I think it’s really important that we talk with third party developers so that they can have these interesting extras in the PlayStation 3 version.
You may click the Read link below for the full interview, but be sure to have a good Japanese translator at hand.