Sony: Microsoft Has 'Got' The Hardcore Gamer

But "Every PlayStation 3 owner should have an 'elite' experience"

Posted by Staff
Sony: Microsoft Has 'Got' The Hardcore Gamer
Sony America's, Senior Director of Corporate Communications, David Karraker has been quoted as telling the world that, “They've (Microsoft) got the hardcore gamer - that's the 10-million figure", when countering the launch of the Xbox Elite.

Continuing his attack on the Elite, he commented "...the challenge is how do you grow the consumer outside of the hardcore demographic. We don't feel like splintering your market further is the way to do that." Plus, he notes, "From the developer side, they [the developers] still have to develop for the lowest common denominator - the Core SKU."

Peter Dille, SCEA’s Senior Vice President of marketing also commented on the Elite, "We think every PlayStation 3 owner should have an 'elite' experience, which is why we include an internal hard drive and HDMI output in every PS3 we sell, along with the 50GB of storage capacity on a high definition Blu-ray disc.”

Dille added, “Sony has been the strongest advocate of high definition as the future of next-generation gaming. This requires high-definition components, including HDMI output, and large storage devices to deliver and store all that rich and vivid HD content. Microsoft's announcement today not only legitimises Sony's PS3 strategy, it moves us closer to adopting universal standards in the area of high definition gaming that will benefit game developers and ultimately the end user."

Dave Karraker, waded further into the fray, claiming, "It doesn't increase their market share, by introducing this new SKU. They are graduating the existing Xbox 360 consumer up the scale - eventually eliminating the Core consumer - but this doesn't help them dip into the existing PlayStation 2 consumer."

Karraker added, “They've got the hardcore gamer - that's the 10-million figure - the challenge is how do you grow the consumer outside of the hardcore demographic. We don't feel like splintering your market further is the way to do that." Plus, he notes, "From the developer side, they [the developers] still have to develop for the lowest common denominator - the Core SKU."

"We're focused on reaching out to the mass market beyond the hardcore gamer, through things like LittleBigPlanet, through Home, through the network…. This validates the same business model they were decrying back in November. They said that consumers don't need HDMI, now they have HDMI. They said that 20 Gig was enough to host downloadable content and now they are upgrading that, too. To borrow from my friends at Nintendo, it's kind of a 'me too' side."

For all the full details on the Elite Xbox 360 check SPOnG’s latest news update.

†Source: 1-Up
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Comments

Dreadknux 28 Mar 2007 09:46
1/7
Now that sounds like a company who's worried. Honestly, why bother complaining, if hardware manufacturers double back to add more features for their consumer (*coughPS2revisionscough*) then surely that's a good thing for game consumers, not confusing?

In my view, what's worse than a 'me too' position is an arrogant 'me first' one. And both Microsoft and Sony have been chucking those out in spades.
schnide 28 Mar 2007 10:48
2/7
You know what? I'm sick of all this. Sick of all the bitching and screw ups and counter releases and spoiler tactics. Sick of Microsoft buying into the market, Sony having to come back and messing it up, even Nintendo for um.. not having enough Wii's available.

F*ck computer games! I'm going out to play with these Girl things I keep hearing about.
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kmogul 28 Mar 2007 11:25
3/7
schnide wrote:
You know what? I'm sick of all this. Sick of all the bitching and screw ups and counter releases and spoiler tactics. Sick of Microsoft buying into the market, Sony having to come back and messing it up, even Nintendo for um.. not having enough Wii's available.

F*ck computer games! I'm going out to play with these Girl things I keep hearing about.



What is this 'girl' you speak of? Surely some arcane heretic device!
OptimusP 28 Mar 2007 11:41
4/7
So...MS has the hardcore gamer and the Wii has ...everyone else... who do you have Sony? Hmmmm...

Now i know why Sony has become the biggest first party developer, they know bloody well the faults of their system and copied Nintendo's softwarebussinessplan. They're going to need every exclusive they can get and money hats won't be enough anymore. So just produce them yourselves.

This will be a very interesting next 5 years for gaming, that's for sure.
TimSpong 28 Mar 2007 11:43
5/7
schnide wrote:
You know what? I'm sick of all this. Sick of all the bitching and screw ups and counter releases and spoiler tactics. Sick of Microsoft buying into the market, Sony having to come back and messing it up, even Nintendo for um.. not having enough Wii's available.


I dunno, young people, no stamina... back in the olden days (I refuse to use the phrase, 'back in the day' - it's meaningless) when it was Nintendo vs SEGA vs Commodore vs Atari vs SAM vs the Acorn vs Spectrum vs CPC, it was all so much more complicated.

What we need is a single, over-arching platform holder that controls everything all the time. A kind of Stalin of videogames!

One processor to rule them all!

schnide wrote:
F*ck computer games! I'm going out to play with these Girl things I keep hearing about.


Talking of stamina... and anyway, those girls are also playing videogames nowadays... back in the olden days when it was...
OptimusP 28 Mar 2007 18:32
6/7
As long that Stalin is Nintendo it's a-okay for me. At least with them we can be kinda sure what will happen...third parties not allowed to make crap games.

Girls don't play games, girls live games, cuttle games, "ooooooh how cute!!!" games, but playing, no.
Hypnotoad 29 Mar 2007 01:07
7/7
My girlfriend plays Viva Pinata all the time - it's also the *only* game she'll play...didn't touch the Wii for the brief period of time in which I (ashamedly) owned one.

I think Sony is being very narrow minded about 360 - I think with IPTV (chicks dig TV), Live arcade with old school classics (when some start turning up at least) & some variety like Viva Pinata, the 10mill figure is hardly M$'s market extent.

Having said that I think PS3 is a sweet piece of kit too - they should start to harness the power of Cell & beat M$ at their own game.

Oh, and a single console overlord would suck arse - we need competition or otherwise we'd all still be playing PS2s right now...
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