“It’s not if but when the PS3 overtakes the 360.” – Sony Exec
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Speaking to IGN, Sony VP and the man in charge of the PSN, Peter Dille, has offered his opinion on why the PS3 failed initially to ignite in the sales department and how, eventually, Sony’s console will surpass its main HD rival, the Xbox 360.
It’s an interesting interview, if anything for a look at how Sony sees itself in the current next-generation race. But might they be a little blinkered when it comes to the facts in relation to why Sony, though making ground on the leaders, are still behind?
Peter states:
“I mean, we’ve got 31 million worldwide right now – they’ve got 39 million. I don’t even need to go out 10 years. I’m not going to make any predictions for your interview today other than we’ll pass them, but you look at where we are today and where they are today, and they had an opportunity to sprint as far ahead of us as possible when they had the head start. Well, we’re breathing down their necks and they can see us in the rear-view mirror and it’s not going to take too long to pass them.”
Referring to the slow sales of the console, Peter blames a lack of supply:
“The shortcoming was getting a lot of people whipped up and having them wait in-line and then only having a very, very limited amount of hardware supply globally, which meant that we had a kind of start and stop effect with our launch, which is hard to recover from. It was a speed bump that we had to overcome and we overcame it.”
As much as we love our PS3s (after all, we are a PS3 focused site), we’re going to have to disagree with Mr. Dille on his final point. The main blocker as to why the PS3 didn’t race from its traps sales wise was not down to limited stock but an extremely high pricing point. That and a lack of quality titles in its first few months. With the Slim now hitting that pricing sweet-spot, and the PS3’s exclusives widely renown as some of the best (if not the best) in the industry, Sony are rapidly gaining on its nearest competitor.
But blaming a lack of stock is probably the company line.
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Right on Brodiesian – I mean, we can’t expect any of the Sony Execs to talk plainly about the PS3 until well into the PS4 or PS5’s life. I take these interviews as a good way of working out the core ‘message’ coming from Sony as to what to expect going forward (as they’ll treat it as an advertising opportunity amongst other things), but as for a retrospective view on the past, it’s likely to be as reliable as a Political media release/speech
.
You’re right on about the launch as well – I think what Dille highlights wouldn’t have helped, but $600 US for a console that at that time didn’t really have the games to justify that kind of expenditure was easily the biggest factor. Touch wood, though, Sony’ll learn from the experience, and the next PS launch will be much stronger (although hopefully still a few years off yet!)