SCEE President Andrew House was in bullish mood at Gamescom – and to be fair, with the past year’s upturn in PS3 sales and an ever-closing gap with Microsoft, he had good reason to be. We caught up to chat about maintaining PS3’s momentum in the face of greater competition, selling consumers on the idea of 3D, the PSP’s changing role in Sony’s portfolio and Move.
PS3 had a difficult birth, but you've turned the corner - fair?
The last year was a turning point, and we'll look back and see it as the most significant turning point. There are a couple of factors, most obviously the Slim and the new price point. But I think there is another important factor that has been playing for some time which has gained prominence in conjunction with Slim in the course of the last year, and that's in essence that we've got a console to which we're adding value to the proposition over time in a number of different areas, and I think that awareness of that and the perceived value has grown during the same period. So those two trends together are what has forced that tipping point.
A few of examples of that, less tangible than the price point, but still very important. Blu-ray capability is perhaps of more value to consumer now, three years on, than it was in 2007 in the middle of the format war. We've just added 3D functionality for anyone who has a connected console free of charge. The PSN community is now in the tens of millions, which wasn't the case a few years ago.
When you're part of that community, you get access to a range of services, most of which didn't exist a year or two ago, and that range is growing over time. So it's my contention that the price point on its own created an immediate reason to buy, but let's not forget a growing library of games content. I hope that’s an overall process that will inexorably push momentum into our favour.
Over the past year you’ve been at an attractive pricepoint – but this Xmas Microsoft’s £250 Kinect bundle undercuts the £285 PS3 Move bundle. Are you happy with your current pricing?
I'd point again to the Blu-ray player, and to a significantly enhanced hard drive – and don't forget that access to our online community is free at the point of entry. So I think we more than offset that. I think the consumer's going to focus on a headline price of above £100 for the competition's motion offering, and a headline price of £34.99 for Move. And that's less than the price of a game, and quite deliberately.
It seems that Sony’s all-in with 3D. Is that what it feels like internally?
I think that's accurate. Our chairman Sir Howard Stringer made what I think will be a very prescient move - identifying 3D as a next potential major wave in entertainment and technology, and to very astutely point out that Sony is pretty much uniquely placed to take a leadership role. Given that we have touch-points in every aspect of the 3D value chain, from broadcast production, through movies, game content, 3D delivery devices - PS3 being the first - and of course televisions.
The one thing that I would say, in sense of managing expectations, is that it is a long-term strategic play. It's a major shift in technology that will take time to come into full play for consumers. Most major shifts in technology launch with significant price premiums. They also, if history dictates, come down very dramatically over a period of time. There are a couple of areas that I find very encouraging about 3D that validate that prediction.