SCEA president Jack Tretton has said that one of the major advantages the PlayStation brand holds over its rivals is its ability to appeal to the masses on a worldwide basis.

The executive spent a chunk of a recent Forbes video interview contrasting his own company with Microsoft and Nintendo. He said that Sony is more profit driven than Microsoft in the short-term, suggesting that the Xbox maker “can afford to be more patient” when it comes to generating a return on investment.

He then argued that “Nintendo is almost the polar opposite”. For the Japanese firm, “features are nice” but “profitability is king and I think that is enviable”, he said, adding that Nintendo’s successful delivery of a “casual, youth-oriented entertainment experience” for 20 years now enables the company to “print money”.

"I think we like to see ourselves somewhere in the middle,” he said of Sony. “We don't have unlimited money, we cater to a more mass market audience. I think we’re willing to take a little bit more risk than a competitor like Nintendo is and ultimately we deliver to the masses on a worldwide basis and that’s what we’ve done for the last 15 years.

“In an industry that’s certainly had its challenges this year, we like to say that the environment where PlayStation wins is best for this industry, because we have a brand that can play on a worldwide basis, young and old, male and female, where our competition tends to be relegated to either select regions or to select consumer audiences."

Elsewhere in the interview Tretton said that the PS3 had enjoyed “skyrocketing sales” since the introduction of a price cut on September 1.