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GamePro Q&A: 5 Questions for Phil Harrison
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DamonDash
Suspended permanently
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25. September 2006 @ 00:26 |
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GamePro editor Vicious Sid got an opportunity to speak with Sony executive Phil Harrison during Sony Computer Entertainment's Tokyo Game Show first-party PlayStation 3 preview.
GamePro: The PlayStation 3 games on display at TGS look great. There's been quite an improvement over the last few months.
Phil Harrison: We knew it was a risk going 'radio silent' after E3, which is always part of our strategy. E3 was great, obviously, but saying nothing until today put a great deal of pressure on the titles here to really sing. I think they've more than done that.
But, we've got a long way to go. I don't want anyone to walk out of here thinking that these games are "it." We're still tuning, improving, tweaking performance.
GP: We were intrigued to see how many games have 1080p support, and to hear focus so much on talking about 1080p. Is that a real commitment from Sony to 1080p for the future?
PH: The PlayStation 3 is the only format that can do full HD, true HD. So it's obviously to our advantage to take advantage of that...where appropriate. And it doesn't require that every game be 1080p, because I think that some games actually look better at 720p depending on the style of the game, depending on the pixel rendering or pixel shading that's been adopted.
But I was being a little bit cheeky [discussing 1080p so much during the event] because one of our friendly competitors made a very bold statement, saying that that there's no way that we will be able to do [1080p] at launch. So we thought it was appropriate to, rather than get all emotional about it, just give it [1080p] a nudge.
GP: What does Sony have, as a company, that Microsoft doesn't?
[short pause]
PH: You know, we have had....I'm going to answer your question! But we've had a couple of accusations of sounding arrogant. So I've been very careful about answering that question.
One of the things that we do have, and we would never rely upon it, but we do have 200 million plus PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 sales worldwide. And that gives us a very loyal fan base, who we could never upset and never take advantage of, but it gives us some fans who love what we do, and push us really hard to do the best that we can do. And they have been pushing us. I read the forums, and the newsgroups -- possibly some of the same ones that you read. And we've had some justifiable criticisms, and I won't try to defend that.
But what we do have is that ultimate fan base of people who want us to do a good job. So that's actually quite important. We've also got industry support, we've got worldwide studios as you've seen today, who are doing some incredible stuff and really leading the charge in making the PlayStation 3 shine as much as it can. And that makes a difference.
There was an interesting report issued a couple of days ago by Merryll Lynch which observed that Sony Computer Entertainment's internal development resources are as large as Microsoft's and Nintendo's combined. Obviously I know what our numbers are, but I didn't know where the [competitors] were at. So that's a tremendous power that we have. We have 14 studios worldwide and about 2200 people at last count, and all of those studios share common technology, common tools, and that really helps.
From a product point of view, I think you saw earlier on when I did a quick whiz across the "cross media bar," that we've got some really consumer-friendly functionality built into the console, before you even buy a game. "Do I want PlayStation 3 to be my digital...life center?" You know what I mean. And I think that there are more things in PlayStation 3 that give people who buy it more reason to use it more often. Not very eloquent, but you understand.
What else do we have? Ken Kutaragi! We have somebody who is visionary and equally brutal in his demands that we achieve that vision. Which is...sometimes a challenge, but never a dull moment, you know?
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Senior Member
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25. September 2006 @ 05:39 |
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Quote:
What else do we have? Ken Kutaragi! We have somebody who is visionary and equally brutal in his demands that we achieve that vision. Which is...sometimes a challenge, but never a dull moment, you know?
a very true statement. i think the interview is decent. there wasn't really anything said that was way out in left field.
Quote:
But, we've got a long way to go. I don't want anyone to walk out of here thinking that these games are "it." We're still tuning, improving, tweaking performance.
between these two quotes, as long as they continually show a commitment to be successful and strive towards w/e vision or goal they have, i just don't see how any company is going to steal their light.
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