Departing Sony Europe Head: PS3 is '3-5 Years' From Dominating

[Earnest Cavalli]

Departing Sony Europe Head: PS3 is '3-5 Years' From Dominating

"I don't think it will be next year, but in three to five years it will become dominant on the market," said SCEE president David Reeves, on the subject of the PlayStation 3.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ps3-to-be-dominant-in-3-5-years-says-reeves], Reeves likened the eventual success of his current company's monolithic console to a classic children's fable.

"The legacy will be that people will see a tortoise and hare situation," Reeves said. "In a way, in the end it will be a dead heat. People will say PS3 took a while to get going but it really caught up very quickly and confounded many of the critics from the first year."

Reeves officially retires from Sony's European division as of tomorrow, but based on the console's upcoming lineup, he says he is "very, very optimistic for what I see for PlayStation's future in the PAL territories."

Of course, Sony's execs are notorious for their hyper-positive public statements, regardless of the company's actual success.

Reeves' latest pro-PS3 comments are quite cleverly phrased given the time frame. Even if his prognostication does not come true, people will have completely forgot he said anything like this within 3 years.

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[Eagle Est1986]

Reeves' latest pro-PS3 comments are quite cleverly phrased given the time frame. Even if his prognostication does not come true, people will have completely forgot he said anything like this within 3 years.

Hell yeah, always predict the underdog to win, if you're wrong then no one remembers but if you're right, well then everyone thinks you're a genius.

 

[Abedeus]

Really? You know that in those 3-5 years DirectX 11 will be long out with effects that would melt any console? And since price of the PS3 has barely moved since the release... Well, I doubt many people would choose it over a much better, faster and prettier graphics of PC.

 

[nova18]

I think he's kind of right, Sony is taking its sweet time getting out exclusives and good IP's but they are being released.
It's up to developers to make these games good enough to entice more console sales but thats not something that Sony can control 100%.

At least Sony isn't doing as badly as it was in the first year though, if you look around at statistics, Sony has outsold other consoles in certain parts of the world, even if it is only for a week or month at a time.

 

[whyarecarrots]

edit: ahh sod it: ignore this post.

 

[Brotherofwill]

Really? You know that in those 3-5 years DirectX 11 will be long out with effects that would melt any console? And since price of the PS3 has barely moved since the release... Well, I doubt many people would choose it over a much better, faster and prettier graphics of PC.

PC and console gaming have very little in common, and usually they don't compete in the same category of gamers. PC graphics are already better than anything consoles can turn out, but that doesn't stop people from playing them anyway, right? People are still playing the PS2, so the long term quality of consoles is not to be underestimated.

I think the guy could be right, even though I have my doubts because the Xbox's main selling point is the community of gamers and live, making it extremely hard to get more market share for Sony. Exclusive game-wise he is definetly right, they are turning out incredible games that will just continue driving people toward the console.

 

[KDR_11k]

In 3-5 years... the PS3 will still be far behind the Wii. Someone did the math and figured out that at the current sales rates the PS3 wouldn't catch up with the Wii until 2028 and currently the Wii is in a low while the PS3 is in a high, that'll get much harder once the next wave of games comes to bear on the Wii (at very least Wii Sports Resort will do something). Sony execs love to pretend their 10 year claims somehow guarantee them an automatic victory but that's nonsense, the system won't be kept up for 10 years unless it becomes a significant force in the market beforehand (the PS1 and 2 stayed that long because they were the #1). If we do see a next generation before the end of those ten years then that will drain away all the PS3's third party support (the only reasons for developing for the previous gen are the bigger install base and lower dev costs, both of which the Wii will do better at that point) and if we don't the PS3 will have to compete regularly with the Wii and it doesn't seem to do that well.

Besides, AFAIK no console has ever pulled up from behind that late into its life, userbases are self-reinforcing, the more users you have the more games you get and once you've stayed behind for long enough you don't get the games you need to grab more, either.

 

[sneakypenguin]

And in 3-5 years we will (hopefully) have the next generation of consoles....

 

[Zersy]

This Console Generation Life span is about 15 years

so eventually we will reach the law of the universe (Equilebrum)

 

[Nazrel]

And in 3-5 years we will (hopefully) have the next generation of consoles....

Hopefully!? Seriously we've plateaued, and I don't want to have buy another system just so we can get more unused processor power and graphics that would require a mutate with 40/20 vision to tell the difference.

Most of the games I want are still being released for the PS2.

 

[mark0217]

Really? You know that in those 3-5 years DirectX 11 will be long out with effects that would melt any console? And since price of the PS3 has barely moved since the release... Well, I doubt many people would choose it over a much better, faster and prettier graphics of PC.

Plus, there's probably gonna be a next-gen of consoles by then. :|
EDIT: oops sneakypenguin beat me to it

 

[Anachronism]

This wouldn't surprise me at all, if the current console generation lasts that long, at least. The Xbox 360 started out much stronger, but the PS3's been gradually but consistently improving over the last few years, whereas the 360's pretty much stayed where it was when it was first released.

 

[dochmbi]

I would like the console generation to last as long as possible, because as long as hardware develops at the usual double performance every 1.5 years rate and games get made for consoles and pcs and/or ported to pc, it means I won't have to buy a new pc in quite some time and when I do buy it I will get more for my money.
To put it another way, I prefer big steps infrequently to small steps frequently.

 

[super_smash_jesus]

Won't the next console generation be like right around the corner in 3-5 years? So Sony's big goal for the PS3 is to make it the PS2 of this generation for the next generation? Lordy, I'm so glad I'm still primarily a PC gamer.

exactly what I was thinking. I doubt the PS3 will be able to handle the "oooohh, new console" mentality of the masses. I think they just need to understand that they will never dominate sales with the PS3 and just work on making it a good console for those that have bought it.

 

[Yog Sothoth]

Too late for Sony in this round of the console wars, methinks.... I wonder how the PS3 would've fared if it had only a standard DVD player instead of Blueray and cost $150 less.....

 

[MarxonSR1]

I agree that the Wii's running out of steam, sort of like it developed a nuclear reactor before it suddenly realised it had forgotten to use radiation protection and most of the drivers have died out, left to run the insane and unpredictable thing that will occasionally spew out a section of the cure to all deadly diseases, about once every thousand years.
Now the other engines are catching up but the good train Wii has picked up so much momentum they're finding it hard going.

A large number of my friends even the die hard Nintendo fans are telling me that their Wii is starting to gather dust as the novelty wares off.

But what disturbs me about this announcement of that Sony are going to have no innovations for the next 305 years. By then Microsoft will have hit high gear having installed, Nitros Oxide and a heavy duty afterburner and reached rates that would rival the land speed record.

They'll have produced around 15 new consoles before Sony realise "What The Hell". I'll admit that I'm going to assume that Sony will generate something new. I would also assume Nintendo would have produced something else too. But really I'm struggling to imagine where Nintendo can go from here I mean apart from improvements to graphics and the motion equipment what else can they do? I can't see the PS3 dominating like they did with the PS2. They did then because they were above and beyond the competition and when Xbox came along with slight improvements no-one cared.

I really can't see PS3 outstripping the other consoles at the current rate, to any significant lead as I can't imagine the mind-blowing revolutionary strategy that Sony would come up with to put them ahead. Clearly it would be too awesome for understanding and will blow our minds if we try to comprehend this.

But after all that, the PC is far better, with infinitely more uses and greater adaptability and opportunity to upgrade.

 

[MarxonSR1]

Reeves' latest pro-PS3 comments are quite cleverly phrased given the time frame. Even if his prognostication does not come true, people will have completely forgot he said anything like this within 3 years.

Hell yeah, always predict the underdog to win, if you're wrong then no one remembers but if you're right, well then everyone thinks you're a genius.

Yeah, Sony are playing a pretty good PR card.

 

[electric_warrior]

not only do sony lie to their customers, they lie to themselves... interesting.