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}