Shuhei Yoshida is the Sony Worldwide Studios boss and he has been talking to Games Industry about the PlayStation 4,…
Shuhei Yoshida is the Sony Worldwide Studios boss and he has been talking to Games Industry about the PlayStation 4, indies and the Xbox One. At one point in particular he was talking about the competition that Sony have faced from Microsoft as we head into the next-gen of consoles in just over a months time.
One of the questions that Yoshida was asked was how can people tell the consoles apart now that Microsoft have “stopped doing unpopular things,” he responded by saying that Microsoft are “very smart people.”
We know they’re very smart people. It’s great that they were able to quickly realise that some of the things they were doing were not popular, and were able to make really quick decisions to change some of those things – even things that their engineering group must have spent a lot of time preparing before the launch. It must have been a very tough time for them. That shows how smart they are, and it shows their dedication to making Xbox One successful.
Yoshida said that they never took Microsoft “lightly,” especially in the states where Microsoft are based.
We never took them lightly. Especially in the States, we are the challenger – we’re trying to compete with them. Some of the messaging that they stumbled on just gave us more chances to compete with them in the States. Other markets are very different – in Europe, we have a larger market share and in Japan, we have a much longer history of being here.
He continued by saying that “being consistent and persistent helps; the legacy and people’s associations with the brand, their memories of having a great time before.”
He also said that he thinks that the “weakness” of Sony is the PlayStation management team, but it can be a “very strong asset” for them. This is eluding to the fact that certain key members have been around since the release of the PlayStation, all the way back in 1995.
Many of us in key positions have gone through all the transitions from the launch of PS1. Andrew House, Jack Tretton, myself and many of the executives were all there at the beginning. We’ve gone through great times and pretty difficult times together.
It is very obvious that Sony can still see a big threat from Microsoft, despite the fact that they haven’t had the best of launches for their next-gen console. Like Yoshida said, they are smart people and they will work things out and get things sorted, even if it is after the consoles release. Despite all of this though, it is still looking very good for Sony to pull off a great next-gen console launch.
The interview with Yoshida is a very big one, and you can read part one, and part two, on the Games Industry website.