Sony’s Kaz Hirai: we’re the official leader, Ninty in a different world, MS lacks longevity
From the Kaz man: “It’s difficult to talk about Nintendo, because we don’t look at their console as being a competitor. They’re a different world, and we operate in our world – that’s the kind of way I look at things. And with the Xbox – again, I can’t come up with one word to fit. You need a word that describes something that lacks longevity.”
As if following up with another blow to the jaw after the “MS and Ninty are add-on peddlers” comment, Sony‘s very own Kazuo Hirai has spoken about what he thinks of how the current console industry stands.
Dismissing both Microsoft and Nintendo as competitors, Hirai believes that Sony stands alone as the official leader in the industry. He explains further:
This is not meant in terms of numbers, or who’s got the biggest install base, or who’s selling most in any particular week or month, but I’d like to think that we continue official leadership in this industry.
It’s difficult to talk about Nintendo, because we don’t look at their console as being a competitor. They’re a different world, and we operate in our world – that’s the kind of way I look at things. And with the Xbox – again, I can’t come up with one word to fit. You need a word that describes something that lacks longevity.
Hirai talked about lifespans, saying that the PlayStation brand will definitely stay, and that their current console won’t “fall by the way side in five years.” Appending his earlier statement, he followed up by pointing out that this simple five year milestone has yet to be breached by Microsoft.
Yeah, Hirai’s pretty confident about the PlayStation’s lifespan. He added that “unless things go really bad, there’s no way that at the end of a life cycle our competition is going have a higher install base.”
He also responded to the many claims of developers finding difficulty in creating software for the PS3.
We don’t provide the ‘easy to program for’ console that [developers] want, because ‘easy to program for’ means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?
So it’s a kind of – I wouldn’t say a double-edged sword – but it’s hard to program for, and a lot of people see the negatives of it, but if you flip that around, it means the hardware has a lot more to offer.
Related articles:
- Sony says bring it on: calls Microsoft and Nintendo add-on peddlers
- Hirai: PS3 will hold its own against lower-priced consoles
- Kaz Hirai: Our competition is not Microsoft or Nintendo
Via Eurogamer
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