PlayStation 4 - Page 4

Originally Posted by Jdurg 

With the vagueness on the used game capabilities, another thing we have to keep in mind is that there may be some technology that would be used for the transfer of ownership of digitally purchased games which they are unable to discuss at this time. Therefore, they can't really come out and say straight out what the plans are without leaking other secrets they want to keep at the moment.

For example, right now there is a mixture of download only games and disc-based games in the marketplace. If they flat out said "used games can be used on the PS4", does that mean all used games, or only disc-based, or digital games? With the presentation focusing heavily on "instantaneous boot-up", perhaps disc based games will be installed onto the HDD in a manner that also includes a digital download of the game for quick access. Therefore, they may not know how that would be implemented yet.

They could also be working on a system allowing you to sell your digitally downloaded game, which would then inactivate it for you on your system once it is sold. There are a bunch of things that might not be set in stone yet, so Sony can't just come out and discuss it at this point in time. Therefore, their wording has been intentionally vague so as not to leak anything too soon.

David Ewalt: I’ll start with the question everybody’s asking: When do we actually get to see the console?

Jack Tretton: You know, that’s really interesting. I’ve heard that from multiple reporters and shame on me that I didn’t see that as a big issue. They’ll see it soon enough. I’m real proud of the fact that we’re talking about [launching in] holiday 2013 and we’ve already got a lot of detail out there, and a lot of game play, in February. But I was so focused on the content that when I think of the console I think of what comes through the screen, not the device that it emanates from. I just think there’s a lot of natural curiosity: What’s the controller gonna look like? What’s the box gonna look like? We made a conscious decision that wasn’t going to be a part of the first reveal, but I would look for E3 as a time when you’ll get a good look at it. Or sooner.

Your focus tonight was less on the product itself and more on the developers, the games, and the experience.

You know, it’s easy to say we’re all about the games… but to get the development community up there, and more importantly to get their content on the screen and to see it played… It’s very exciting to me. You’re gonna see more content steadily between now and the holidays. I think you’ll get a lot of good content showing in E3 and then you’ll see it evolving even more as we move into Gamescon, and then you’ll see even more as we move into the Tokyo Game Show.

Are you confident that when the PS4 comes out there’ll be a enough new games available at launch, and enough platform exclusives? Is your launch window all lined up?

I think that’s one of the key advantages that we have. We had great representation [at the launch event] from third parties like Ubisoft and Activision… that alone would have been something to be proud of. But the distinct advantage that we have is that one out of two Sony Computer and Entertainment employees are in development. We’ve got over 2000 employees. We’ve got 18 studios around the world, and I think we could have done the event without any third parties, still showed a lot of content. But the combination of third party support and first party support… I mean, nine months out from launch we showed a lot of live game code and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’re gonna see more and more as we get close. I have more confidence about game content in this generation, not only at launch but a steady flow, than I ever have.

I really can’t think of any point in my career when I’ve ever had more confidence that there’s gonna be a lot of great content. And not narrow genre content. All the big genres are gonna be represented… but there’s gonna be a lot that just pushes the envelope on stuff we never even thought about before.

Tonight’s event was almost exclusively about games. Why not spend more time talking about the larger entertainment picture, about the PS4 as a family media device?

If you wanna have an event to talk about multimedia capabilities, we’ll proudly stand up and list all the media partners that we have, and the fact that we’re the number one most used Netflix device around the world. But the 3.1 million people that streamed [Wednesday's event] and that stayed up at all hours depending on what country they were in, they were there to see games. People that want to hear about multimedia applications don’t stay up until 4:00 in the morning to see presentations. We know that the people who were watching were gamers. We know that the people that are the primary purchasers of our boxes are gamers, and that is the audience that we cater to first and foremost.

But I will stack up our non-game services with any competitor out there. I think we’re gonna have more than our fair share of great content outside of the gaming world. And I think the other really unique opportunity with this is there’s always been limitations. You know, game development costs so much, which means that games have to retail for sixty dollars, which means people have to cater to the masses and the number of genres that can be introduced needs to be fairly narrow. Now with machines like PlayStation 4 you can have free to play games, you can have 99 cent games, you can have indie developers selling $9.99 digital games. So it’s no longer the case that if you don’t have a 150 person team and you don’t have a $50 million budget, don’t bother making a game. I think the opportunity in the living room on the console is greater than it’s ever been. It’s a real renaissance in gaming.

The event also talked a lot about the PlayStation 4′s cloud services –downloading back catalog games, playing them from the cloud, sharing games between devices, even having friends log in and watch you play, or take over the controller. Is that out of the box? And will all those services be tucked behind PlayStation Plus, where users have to pay for them?

I think it’s aspirational on the device, as opposed to us standing up there, pounding the floor and saying the day this thing ships all this stuff will be there. I think it’ll absolutely be there for the device, but I don’t know whether it will be there for day one on the device. I think a lot of these are things that we’re gonna do over time. And with that said, I think there will be a tangible example of all the things that we showed. It’s just a question of how deep it will go, how many games it will involve.

It’s got to be a huge challenge to make these changes to your network — you’ve already built up a big infrastructure to stream out video, but now you’re saying players will be streaming video back, and watching each other play. It’s telling that you had executives from Gaikai come up on stage for a presentation.

I’ve been with the company for 17 years and I have the ultimate respect for our engineers and our R&D and our ability to create experiences that most consumers can’t even imagine. But I think there was a real recognition of the fact that a company like Gaikai had cloud technology that was greater than what we had available, and that by buying them we could leapfrog where we were, and really where we saw anybody else. The acquisition of Gaikai gives us a company that really has creative ideas and combine it with all our resources and all our different divisions and I think the relationship has been real strong.

So now that there’s this whole media infrastructure built around PlayStation, at what point do those services start to spill into the rest of Sony’s business? Microsoft’s built Xbox Music into Windows 8, it’s on PCs, it’s on tablets and phones…

I don’t think you’ll see PlayStation branded stuff on other Sony devices –you will see and you currently see the Sony Entertainment Network. Whether it’s your smart phone or your tablet or your TV you can take advantage of Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited… most of the deals that we’re doing with app providers we’re making available across the Sony Entertainment Network. So it’s not just Hulu Plus for your PlayStation 3. It’s Hulu Plus for your Sony device, if you’re a member of the Sony Entertainment Network.

I think you’re already seeing a proliferation like that, but it’ll be done under the Sony banner as opposed to the PlayStation brand. Because when we think PlayStation we think gaming. So if it’s somewhere that gaming lives, the PlayStation brand will probably come with it. If it’s pure entertainment then that’s really more of the Sony brand.

How much are you worried about the rise of mobile gaming taking away from your business? If someone does all their gaming on a phone now, doesn’t that mean they’re out of the market for a PlayStation 4?

As I’ve said, I’ve been around this industry for a long time. I’ve been in it since March of 1986, and when I got in it I was told that I was entering a business that was a toy for boys 12 to 17 years old, and was going away, and was gonna evolve into something else. So I’ve at least been in it long enough to see gaming be recognized as mainstream entertainment, gaming be recognized as not something that’s just for 12 to 17 year old boys, that’s now got an average age of 35, and has got a female audience that’s almost as large as the male audience. It is 2 billion people worldwide, mainstream entertainment. So I think the opportunity for dedicated game devices is better than it’s ever been before.

I use a Blackberry it’s because it’s got a good keyboard for sending and receiving emails, and I can make phone calls on it. But it’s really not that great of a phone in my opinion. I bought the Blackberry for email. And if I buy a PC, in some instances people buy it for gaming but I think in most instances they have it in a home office and they’re using it for multiple purposes, and gaming isn’t first and foremost. When somebody buys a PlayStation or one of our dedicated devices, they’re buying it first and foremost for gaming. And I will stack our gaming capabilities against anybody else’s.

So if you’re a true gamer you may kill some time on a smart phone and you may enjoy games –and I’m not belittling games on a smart phone– but you’re not gonna confuse Uncharted on the PlayStation 3 with an experience that you get on the smart phone. It’s a way to get people away from the intimidation factor of gaming, and making people realize that you can have a lot of fun with interactive entertainment. And if you get hooked I think you’re potentially a new PlayStation consumer.

So I think the gamer is alive and well and healthier than they’ve ever been. And I really don’t see smart phones and tablets as a threat, I see them as being additive. I think more people are gonna migrate to console from smart phone and tablet than the other direction.

How much of a threat is PC gaming to the PlayStation 4?

Well, when I started in the industry I was working for Activision, and they were created to create entertainment software for the PC. And when the Atari 2600 came along, they said ‘oh, here’s a diversion, let’s do this dedicated box, but ultimately we’re about PC software.’ So PC gaming has been around since Pong and I think it will continue to be around, but I just think there’s a fundamental difference between the experience you have in front of a big screen TV in the living room on a dedicated console, and the experience that the average consumer has.

The threat, if you will, of PC gaming has always been there. And I think for the amount of money that you’ve gotta pay, $250.00 for PlayStation 3, and the entertainment experience that you get, it’s hard to say ‘I’m a gamer but I just can’t justify spending $250.00 on that console, everything I need is on my PC.’

But part of your argument for the value of the console is that you have it on the TV screen. But now Valve’s got “big picture mode” in Steam, and soon they’ll have the Steam Box. Do you see that encroachment as a threat?

Again, if you look back in time, Sega was a very formidable competitor and a fine hardware manufacturer, state of the art in the 80’s and 90’s. And they’re no longer in the hardware business. Microsoft is doing a wonderful job and Nintendo’s done a wonderful job since the 80’s. But I think new players are gonna come in and old players may leave. There’s always gonna be competition. There’s always gonna be people taking bites of the apples. But I’ve always said a rising tide lifts all boats. And if people are driven to gaming then that creates more opportunity for PlayStation. If people are all of the sudden drifting away from gaming in any way shape or form, that’s a bigger threat than a dedicated system coming from another manufacturer.

When the PS3 came out, one of the things that really helped it sell was the built-in Blu-ray player –even if a consumer wasn’t going to game much, they could justify the purchase because it would also allow them to watch HD movies. What’s the Blu-ray player for the PS4? What will make people say, “this isn’t just for games, I need this?”

Well, it’s all there. It’s the ability to stream your Netflix and your Hulu and your MLB.TV and your NHL and your NFL Sunday Ticket. It’s the ability to get Video Unlimited and Music Unlimited and the ability to have a Blu Ray Player built into it, and to stream any form of digital or disc based entertainment. I still think that’s a very big part of the equation. But I don’t think the future of PlayStation 4 and our success is gonna be determined by selling it as a non-game device.

But all that stuff you’re talking about, like streaming movies and playing Blu Ray discs, I can do that on the PS3. Is there some entertainment feature I can only get on the PS4 that gives me a reason to upgrade?

You know, something that we have subscribed to since PlayStation 1 is that consumers come into the market at different price points, at different times, for different reasons. PlayStation 3 is gonna live on, and we don’t expect everybody to drop their PlayStation 3 and immediately buy a PlayStation 4 this Christmas. We know that there are gonna be people buying and playing PlayStation 3 for years to come, just as they did with PlayStation 2, just as they did with PlayStation 1.

There may be a consumer that doesn’t become a PlayStation 4 consumer for five years. That’s okay. I mean, we’re selling PlayStation 3’s to people today, we sold them to people in 2006, and we hope to be selling them to people in 2015. That’s okay.

I think the great thing is that there are no absolutes. It’s not all about disc space, it’s not all about internet connected, it’s not all streaming, it’s not all large form games… there’s a lot of choice there for consumers, and I would argue more choice than any of our competitors.

Does the PlayStation 4 always need to be connected to the internet, I asked?

"You can play offline, but you may want to keep it connected," he suggested. "The system has the low-power mode - I don't know the official term - that the main system is shut down but the subsystem is awake. Downloading or updating or you can wake it up using either the tablet, smartphone or PS Vita."

Are all of those things optional, though? For people who have broadband data limits, for example? They can customise everything?

"Oh yes, yes, you can go offline totally. Social is big for us, but we understand there are some people who are anti-social! So if you don't want to connect to anyone else, you can do that."

Sony clearly isn't afraid of technical nuance. This is a company that announced its next-generation console by declaring it has an x86 architecture, advanced PC GPU, 8GB of GDDR5 memory and a massive hard disk. You may like some of its networking ideas. You may not like some of them. I got the impression speaking to Yoshida that Sony has other priorities.

Speaking from experience, it's always been good at allowing people to change what they want up to a logical point - far beyond any of its competitors - and I see no reason to suspect any change this generation.