PS3 Fanboy

At their Tokyo Game Show press conference today, Sony finally revealed how the PS3 got its groove back. Kaz Hirai announced that the DualShock 3 -- a Sixaxis controller with rumble -- will be out this November in Japan and Spring 2008 everywhere else.

Future games, such as Metal Gear Solid 4, will incorporate rumble technology, while older titles can enable rumble through software updates. No price has been given, nor was there any discussion on whether the Sixaxis would be phased out.

It seems like Kaz Hirai is making his interview rounds today, as this next bit comes from the latest issue of the Official PlayStation Magazine (OPM if you're acronymically inclined). It's been said before that the PS3 isn't going to let developers squeeze all of the power from it for a while, but Hirai finally put a fairly specific (we mean generally vague) date on this optimization of the PS3's potential. "The power that we've packed into PS3 will really manifest itself in software titles that come up four, five or six years down the line."

That's a long time! But looking at the most recent PS2 releases, we can't say Hirai is really straying far from what history tells us. Games now look oodles and boodles better than when the PS2 launched, so the same should be true for the PS3.

In fact, keeping the parallel with the PS2 alive, Hirai mentioned the difficulty developers are having coding for the PS3: "If you look back at the commentary we received when we launched PS2, there was a lot of talk to the effect that 'It's very difficult to program for' and 'It's easier on a Dreamcast'. It's happened before." He goes on to say that if people said it was easy to program the PS3, he'd be worried. That wouldn't be pushing the envelope for technological development, he explains. What do you guys think? Is Sony showing a bit of their trademark arrogance, or are they totally right in saying these things, because as Hirai said, it has all happened before?

One of the big heads of the hydra known as Sony, Kaz Hirai, sat down with an interview recently with Japanese site ITMedia to discuss what makes the PS3 so special and why multiplatform developers should add a little spice to the recipe when utilizing Sony's new console. He said that developers should focus their activity around the PS3 and move the games to everything else afterwards -- asking developers, essentially, to make the PS3 their leading platform.

He doesn't deny the importance of many devs moving to the multiplatform arena, saying, "When you consider the cost of developing on today's platforms, I think it's a logical progression that they're all thinking of making their games cross-platform ... But I think it's important that third parties use the unique characteristics of the platform to add a little bit of extra flavour to their games. For example, with the PS3, you've got the Sixaxis controller, or you could utilise the extra capacity provided by Blu-ray to add more levels, put on interviews with the developers or have your videos able to play in 1080p."

These ideas are a positive step if they catch on, but they're starting to pop up already. For the fans of Heavenly Sword, extra content has spread like a virus throughout the PlayStation Store over the past months. The Blu-ray edition of Warhawk has a ton of extra stuff packed into it. Stranglehold has a full HD movie packaged on the same disc as the game. Folklore has downloadable content planned for months to come after its release. The only thing missing are for multiplatform companies to jump on board and see how much stuff those Blu-ray discs can handle. Do you guys think this scenario will ever unfold, or would the entire industry have to support Blu-ray before it became the norm?

[via ThreeSpeech]

The successor to Ken Kutaragi, the man behind the curtain, the Phantom of the Opera, Sony Computer Entertainment Kaz Hirai will be leading the keynote speech at Tokyo Game Show this September. His topic of choice? Flavorful dessert dishes for every season and occasion. Just kidding -- the future of PlayStation, naturally. To be more specific, Hirai has titled the speech "The expanding PlayStation world, business strategy for new growth."

We think that's a comma splice, but it's a title so conventional rules don't exactly apply. What do you guys think he'll discuss? Will he reveal any important bits of PS3 news, or will he lull the audience into a nap with statistics and a business market analysis?

Why is there no video download service yet for PSP and PS3? In a recent interview with Joystiq, Engadget and PS Fanboy, Kaz Hirai noted that they need to provide a unique experience for PlayStation fans to interact with media. "I want to make sure that we are able to put a unique, PlayStation-esque way of presenting the music content, for example, to the PlayStation 3 users. Otherwise, we're just one of them," he commented.

"But its a part of the overall SingStar experience that you're downloading the music that so that is a kind of different experience than you would have for downloading music that's specific to the PS3 experience that you can't get anywhere else. That's the kind of thing i'm talking about, and therefore, in conjunction with Singstar, there is going to be music download obviously because we find something that's very PlayStation-esque. So I want to try to come up with something that has the same kind of different PlayStation experience for music downloads, if we're going to expand it to the PlayStation Network Store and also for video downloads as well."

Sony is waiting for a "unique" way of providing video downloads, but we adamantly believe that consumers will love to have standard video service, akin to the one available on Xbox Live Marketplace. Isn't providing downloadable 1080p video differentiating enough? We think so. Read our complete interview at Joystiq.

Gamesindustry.biz is reporting that Sony have clarified their "380 game released by March '08" statement. It seems Kaz Hirai was citing international figures, whereas the true number of games released to the US market is to be at least 145 during this fiscal year. That doesn't include games which have already been released since last March.

The number breaks down further to 105+ boxed games and 40 PSN games. It is unclear whether games such as Warhawk, which will be released in both formats, will count as boxed games or not. 15 first party titles are slated for the pre-March window, including Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Heavenly Sword and Little Big Planet. Most, if not all, of which should be out before the year's end.

There is no word on how many games are to be released to European regions. However with the heavy emphasis on worldwide releases this generation, plus the fact that some of the big games are being developed in Europe, it's fairly safe to say that we can expect a similar number as the Americans.

Reuters is reporting that the president of Sony Computer Entertainment, Kaz Hirai, has stated that by March 2008 the PlayStation 3 will have a total catalgue of 380 games. This will be a solution to the current slump in sales the PS3 is currently seeing worldwide. Apparently Kaz only just realised that having actual games to play might persuade more people to pick up a system.

The current plan is for the release of 200 titles in shops and 180 downloadable from the PlayStation store. Hirai states that there are currently 60 titles in stores and 50 downloadable. If the software library really does almost quadruple in less than a year, then the PS3 will have no problems selling worldwide. The games drought has been hard on early adopters of the console, but with the release of Rainbow Six: Vegas, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, The Darkness and Super Stardust HD all in the next two weeks, the drought looks to be almost over.

So start saving those pennies. Before long there will be so many games vying for your attention, you won't know where to start.

[Via Gameindustry.biz]

The father of the PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, has officially retired from Sony Computer Entertainment. Previously, following a corporate re-shuffle, Mr. Kutaragi stepped down as CEO of SCE, replaced by Kaz Hirai. Now, Ken Kutaragi is relinquishing his Sony duties further, stepping down as SCE's Chairman and Group Chief Executive while remaining on board with SCE in an advisory role. Perhaps Sir Howard Stringer can assist with Ken Kutaragi's early retirement by quickly issuing restraining orders against him on all things Sony PlayStation-related. After all, earlier reports show "Krazy Ken" Kutaragi clearly doesn't know "when to say when" as he proceeded to inflate the PS3's budget until it exploded in everyone's collective faces, causing fallout from a few layoffs to a huge quarterly loss. Except now without Kutaragi in the limelight, how are we going to get such beautiful mock-ups of the PlayStation grill?

Already being hailed as the anti-Kutaragi (not against-Kutaragi, but antithesis-Kutaragi), Kaz Hirai has some big shoes to fill as the new CEO later this year -- big shoes to take some big steps towards success with the PlayStation 3. We'll highlight some of what's expected from Hirai from this impressively competent article from Business Week.

• He's affable and articulate -- he's expected to shift Sony from a Japanese empire to a global organization.
• He's great at getting ties with distributors, game developers, etc. Hopefully he can score some exclusive titles with his... personality.
  
• Kutaragi demanded to be in complete control, wanted to answer everything himself. Hirai is set up to be a better listener and be more pleasurable to work with.
• Hirai isn't as technologically savvy as Kutaragi and hasn't even dealt with the main Japan office that much. He's a stranger to many at Sony. As Business Week said, "that's both an opportunity and a risk".
• Hirai recently said "that he had separated strategic planning from daily decision-making and had given regional heads more responsibility over console shipments, inventories, and new game titles." Hopefully this will keep people in-touch and not alienate anyone from the PlayStation 3's progress.

Will Kaz be able to bridge the gap between the PS3 and the competition? We'll find out in due time, but as smart and influential as Kutaragi was, it is a different business model nowadays and Hirai seems to more accurately and appropriately reflect that. Let's just hope the world is ready for a new leader behind Sony.

For those of you who think that Sony always rolls with the punches, spins negative into positive, or act like they meant to catch laptops on fire, you may be interested in some of the things Kaz Hirai spoke about at CES 2007. Yeah, most of it is just that, but he did admit that the PS3 has had a bumpy start. Before we go more into that, though, here are some of the flowery things he said:

• "I have heard many people say our competitors' systems are just as powerful as the PS3. That simply is not true. No other next generation entertainment system pushes the envelope on advanced technology like PS3."
• "I have heard people say that a high-capacity game delivery vehicle like Blu-ray isn't necessary in a next generation computer entertainment system. You just can't expect that 9GBs of storage capacity found on today's DVDs are going to have enough space to hold tomorrow's games."

We've actually heard that all before, but words are just words until we see the promises in action -- if a picture is worth a thousand words, think how many words a video game fulfilling a promise is worth! Anyway, Kaz also talked about the launch of the PS3. He admitted it was rough, also saying, "I don't think anyone could have foreseen the difficulties we encountered in the production of the blue laser diode for the PlayStation 3, which ultimately delayed the launch of PlayStation 3." As a final note, he said that if Sony had gone the route of Nintendo, with a mild upgrade in capabilities, the launch would have gone down a lot smoother and a lot sooner. But, he says with his infamous grin, "if we did that every time, we wouldn't be Sony."

Sony has an interesting "strategy": low supply creates high demand. Ah, the wonders of basic economics concerning luxury goods. In any case, Kaz Hirai recently sat down to an interview and discussed the whole PS3 supply/demand issue, among other things. Let's highlight the big points, shall we?

• To compensate for the limited supply, Kaz says that Sony is chartering flights to bring systems to North America faster -- normally, items of PS3 size/weight are sent via boat. Production is ramping up also, but still... chartering flights is way more expensive than boats. Thanks, we guess?
• Shipments would like to be weekly to keep up with demand, but that's up to consumers. As for grabbing one off of a retail shelf casually, that's also up to the demand of consumers and Kaz has no idea when the surplus will kick in.
• Kaz says that Sony does not favor one retailer over another, so if your pre-order falls through due to unit allocation, it's the store's fault... not Sony's.
• No price cut in North America for the 20GB model. Oh well, who wants that one anyway?
• The bottleneck in production came from the blue laser diodes, but that's been fixed. Even so, says Kaz, "you do have a ramp-up period. You suddenly can't go from zero one day to 100,000 units the next day."
• Support for the PS2 will continue for some time -- unlike other console companies who drop an old console overnight.
• Kaz assures us that PS2 and PSOne titles that have compatibility issues will be ironed out with firmware updates. That's the beauty with the PS3!

Overall, it was a good interview. Nothing necessarily groundbreaking was revealed, but it's always nice to be reassured that things are okay, even if they're not. If your dog died, you'd want a hug from your mom and not a silent crying session... or something. The point is, being told nice things is nice. How can you possibly disagree?

Our two favorite people, Ken Kutaragi and Kaz Hirai, Krazy Kaz and Ken if I may, have moved up in the world! Maybe not the world as a whole, but the world of Sony. The two men, who have a tough time not making fools of themselves (a few exceptions, but they elude me), have indeed garnered new seats in Sony. Kutaragi, formerly the President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., is now the Chairman and Group CEO. Kaz Hirai was formerly President and CEO of SCE America is now President and COO of SCE Inc. At least he's not in charge of Sony America anymore? Whatever. You can check out other managerial movements if you'd like, but really, it's interesting how people more or less mocked by the public continue to move up in the world.

Sorry guys, no last minute price changes for the North American PS3 release. As you may have heard, Kaz Hirai is "very comfortable with the pricing we have announced." He also claims there has been tremendous support by retailers for their pricing also, which is probably true. What store wouldn't want to guarantee selling out of a $600 machine? Also of note, which we already know but it bears repeating, all 20GB models in all regions have HDMI support -- not just the special price-cut PS3's in Japan. For some reason, a little bit of confusion surrounded that. Hopefully none of our well-read readers had such an issue (we know you're smarter than the average bear). That's really about it. Good luck, everyone! If you're camping out, be sure to take pictures and send them in as tips. We'd love to toss a few of them up in lieu of our generally boring pictures.

Kikizo had the rare opportunity to conduct a video interview with Kaz Hirai, one of the biggest of men at Sony. It's a fairly lengthy one, so we'll give you a teaser of what to expect.

• Sony after E3 -- what changed?
  
• Showing PS3 off to consumers for the first time, reactions
  
• PlayStation profitability - "making huge contributions"
• Losing IP exclusivity on titles like Assassin's Creed
• PS3 as a completely different entertainment experience
  
• Why's all the Rum(ble) gone?
  
• If HD-DVD prevails what will become of Sony and Blu-ray?
• SCEA not concerned with Blu-Ray, but establishing PS3
• Launch supplies and ramping up production for Holidays
• Strategic delay of the European launch
• Strong platform six or seven years from now

That's really about it. Kikizo covered the main points to check out pretty well. All that's left is to download the interview and watch the spin machine on a heavy cycle!

Phil Harrison... Kaz Hirai... Ken Kutaragi... no, they do not comprise the three heads of the mythical Cerberus, but they do comprise the three heads of a real-life corporation that rivals such mythical beasts: Sony. Game|Life got to interview them all in one night and a couple of interesting tidbits came out. Here they are:

• Phil Harrison believes there's no North American price drop because the $599 is a "magic price point". Basically, it's the price people will buy at that gives Sony the greatest marginal profit (or if manufacturing costs are still more than the price, the lowest marginal loss).
• The Playstation 3 is region free for games, but not movies. So you can grab a PS3 from Japan if you really, really want, but you'll have trouble playing local movies. This is also good news for import junkies, especially among fighting game fanatics (less translation to deal with). Oh, this also includes downloadable games.
  
• Kaz Hirai and Ken Kutaragi both leaned towards "no" as to the inclusion of component cables in the box.

Alone, each point is kind of "meh", but add them together and you've got a bevy of PS3 common knowledge. It's surprising how these more common points are overlooked, so while many may have heard these, there will be some who were wondering about these and, well, now they know.

[FYI: if the link to Game|Life doesn't work, just hit refresh. That worked for me!]