Say goodbye to the President of SCEE and hello to the new President of Sony Europe. Chris Deering talks to PlayStation.com about online gaming, PSX, PSP and more.
As President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Chris Deering has been a driving force behind the PlayStation business in Europe from the very beginning. He's recently been appointed as President of Sony Europe, tasked with instigating closer collaboration between the various divisions and bringing a little PlayStation magic to other areas of the Sony business. As he prepares to take up the reigns of Sony Europe, Chris talks to PlayStation.com about the current state of play and the exciting developments underway in the world of PlayStation.
Congratulations on your promotion. Can you tell us about your new job?
Sony hardware has been in Europe for 50 years or so and has a great heritage, a strong brand image and a lot of fans. Sony, over the years, acquired skills in movies and music and then of course, in the last ten years, in games, so it's well positioned to leverage these skills to make new kinds of entertainment and new kinds of devices, maybe even new kinds of network devices for redefining entertainment in the future.
The success of PlayStation has been noted, obviously, by senior management in Japan, and I think they felt that I could bring some of that energy and imagery to the broader Sony business, along with bringing the companies a little more close together. So, the opportunities are exciting, there's plenty to be done but there's a great base of products, not only in TVs, DVD players and DVD recorders, but also the still and camcorder product lines and of course the Vaio line. As we now face the launch of PSP, it's a good reason and a good opportunity to bring the thinking and the style of the hardware company and the PlayStation company a little more closely into alignment, and I'm looking forward to it.
Will your new role mean changes in the way that Sony Electronics and SCEE work together?
Well, it might mean that there's more contact between the people, maybe some meetings, co-operation on making the best out of PSX and maybe even PSP. But I think the companies will stay separate; PlayStation is heavily reliant on software sales, software creation, third party relations and third party royalties, and the business model for PlayStation is not the same as a hardware only model. With PlayStation being so important to the overall success of Sony and the overall profits of Sony, it makes sense to leave that operating in its own style and its own way.
But I think there'll be more collaboration, and hopefully more fun, shared between the companies, and even between the music and movie companies eventually. Because in Europe, we have a unique situation where everybody's a little closer together. In the headquarters and in the territories, there are close relationships between the various divisions, so maybe we can lead the way and show the world how Sony can make the best of its resources by better co-operation in Europe.
Where do you see Network Gaming this time next year?
The evolution of online gaming for TV-based consoles has an amazingly exciting future. The first thing that has to happen is people have to hook up their TVs. Where people already have cable modems working to feed their desktops, this is a lot easier and, of course, where there's no broadband availability, it's impossible. The price of broadband in Europe has been a limiting factor, and continues to be a limiting factor, but it is coming down pretty rapidly. The kind of services and features we have on PlayStation network gaming, including the Central Station portal and some of the new features on the network gaming service, are going to be very widely noticed as the new line-up of products comes out.
We've had tremendous success so far with SOCOM, and now EverQuest is starting to gain some users, but the best is yet to come, with some fantastic features on This Is Football, GT4, Formula One, and other games from our own studios, as well as many new games from third party studios. We're carefully and cautiously rolling the features out to make sure that they all work with ultimate reliability, because we know that console users appreciate, and in fact demand, plug-and-play simplicity. Online gaming will become a major part of the market for PlayStation 2 and of course, in future generations with Cell chip and even more affordable broadband, may become the main way that people play.
PSX is coming next year. Do you see that as a particularly significant and important product for the business?
The screen in the living room is now able to deliver dozens of TV channels and, in some cases, more than a hundred channels, depending on the satellite or cable system that you're hooked up to, but online interactive use of television is in its infancy. Attempts in the past have been made with web TV and, more recently, with Tivo type PVR features, and they've got amazing reviews from people who use them and who understand them, but the mass market still hasn't quite caught onto that. But it is happening, and we think that PlayStation is an efficient and very exciting way to open up the world of what you really can do in your living room using the power of PlayStation, the Emotion Engine, the graphics chip and navigation software.
PSX makes that all very simple with a fun and easily understood navigation system, which is the core of it really. And once you have that in place, along with the sizeable hard drive capacity, you can also do other things that make more sense in the living room than on the desktop. For example, edit your home movies, do your own playlists for living room enjoyment with music and even more robust forms of online gaming; possibly downloading demos of games, or at least non-playable video of games and, with an electronic programme guide, even allowing the power of PlayStation to create your own channel for you.
So it's still early days for the general category, but the signs in Japan are that the interest in PSX is rapidly skyrocketing; the hits on the website, the pre-orders on the mail order side of the business, the .com delivery method, as well as pre-orders in stores would suggest that there's a revolution about to happen, and we're very excited that it's coming to Europe.
What can you tell us about PSP at the moment?
There have been a number of announcements and even pictures on the web of a prototype design for PSP. Everyone understands immediately what a PSP is; it's the Walkman of the next century, it brings TV quality of portable gaming into existence for the first time, with a massive UMD disc enabling content that was never before possible in a portable mode. But the features of music playing (the MP3) and Memory Stick feature, along with the capacity to handle all kind of video content in addition to the great games, and maybe even more features that involve GPRS modems, location-based (GPS type) software, messaging and other features make it a very handy thing to have and something which will be very fashionable to be seen with. So, we're excited and hope we can get enough.
Has the interest from third party publishers and developers been strong?
The interest has been strong right from the first time that Ken Kutaragi announced it back at E3 in May. We're working very closely with a number of developers and publishers. There are some elements of development tools that are available to get a sense of how to write games for it, and these kind of tools are being expanded and distributed more widely, and will be even more over the coming months. <u>There's no official date for its unveiling, but it has been announced that the target date for its global launch is November 2004</u>, so I'm pretty sure it'll be widely announced plenty of time ahead of that.
With two new products - PSX & PSP - on the horizon, how do you see the PlayStation family of products co-existing in the market place?
PlayStation has been an evolution as well as a revolution. When we started, we had PlayStation and that migrated into PS one, along with the arrival of PlayStation 2 with backwards compatibility. I think people have come to know, understand and expect that continuing evolutions will occur and that compatibility will be maximised. It's true that PSP is not directly compatible with PS one or PlayStation 2, but it may have several areas of compatibility, through the Memory Stick, with PSX. Consumers are getting smarter and more familiar with the digital era and the different ways to enjoy interactive entertainment. PlayStation has their trust and their loyalty, and we hope to continue delivering a lot of variety that makes fun with PlayStation even more dynamic and exciting.
), given that that our reference here is the Gameboy line, simply "more" memory isn't all that impressive. Given Nintendo's inattention to the processing ability of their handhelds (which I predict is coming to a brutal close), a more insightful comparision would be to modern PDA's and devices of that nature.
