Before Sony's PlayStation 4 launch event last week, Forbes caught up with Sony Computer Entertainment of America executive, Jack Tretton, on the buildup to the eventual successful launch of their next-generation system.
All three systems will be in battle this holiday season. Microsoft will try to win over gamers that use their consoles more for multimedia and Nintendo hopes that their classic mascot franchises of Mario and Zelda will get people to buy the Wii U.
Tretton gave his thoughts on the PS4 launch that turned out to be Sony's best in history for their PlayStation consoles and on the multimedia front of the system.
On the buildup to the PS4 launch:
We’ve never been in better shape. I mean, everything’s really lined up for us; the development community, the excitement from the gamers, the launch lineup that we have, the technology’s great, the manufacturing yields have been great.
On how different the launch is from PS3 to PS4:
There’s never gonna be a bigger spotlight on the gaming industry, so if somebody wants a PlayStation 4 and is willing to go and buy one, it kills me if you don’t have one to give to them. And we may run into that, but it won’t be for lack of effort.
On Microsoft's multimedia angle to move units:
We’re already the number-one streaming device for Netflix, so I think people expect and know that we have a lot of great entertainment apps on our platform. That story’s been told and I think it’s established. But the gamers really want to know why they should buy a PlayStation 4, and what the games are gonna look like, so that’s what we’ve been really spending all our time focused on.
On Nintendo's angle of relying on their franchise characters to move units:
We’ve got over 2,000 employees all over the world working to build great games for PlayStation, and games that are not only critically acclaimed, but do great volume. I mentioned The Last Of Us and games like GT6, and we have great games at launch like Knack, and we have games like Infamous: Second Son coming. So I think there are a lot of great franchises that we’ve introduced historically, but there’s new IP you know coming out all the time.
[Image credit: Flickr]
