SCEWWS new boss speaks: 8 Days/Getaway, profitability, strategy for PSP

[Farid]

Not a lot of fresh or worthwile info, but it's interesting to read from Yoshida. He's relatively a new face on the public scene. So every interview is a good opportunity for us to learn more about the guy's approach to the industry.

When your appointment was announced as head of WWS, one of the things mentioned by Kaz Hirai was that you would be expanding the market. How will you do that?

This is something I think we have been saying, and what Phil was pushing – his studios worked on EyeToy, SingStar, Buzz and social gaming – and now it’s a big hit with Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Nintendo Wii. Because we want every household to have video games, we are really only half way there from our future ambition – so that was the push that PlayStation group had. And it is achievable in the future.

[...]

So you can position PlayStation as the platform that brings those new consumers closer towards bigger or deeper experiences?

Yes, in my mind Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft are conspiring to really expand the market together. It didn’t work that way in the prior generation because all three companies tried to get the same market. Nintendo made a very good choice for all of us to go for a completely different direction and bring new users into the industry.


[...]


Ubisoft has tapped into a lot of emergent markets in its expansion – is that something Sony could do?

Yes, I have been watching them closely and I always have been amazed at how well they do. Many years ago we visited Ubisoft Shanghai, in 2002 or 2003. Back then they were just doing porting work, but now that team is developing original title. That’s a very special thing. And now Ubisoft has a studio in Morocco as well – they are clearly the innovators in terms of cultivating talent in new places. And many of us will follow them.


[...]

And what about the PSP – what’s your strategy for that?

The PSP hardware sales are doing well – it’s actually doing better than we planned for, there is in fact a big of a shortage on the hardware.

[...]

Because there is no direct competitor to the machine, it’s an opportunity. That might be a bit of an issue from a business standpoint, because if there are similar platforms you can plan for multiple SKUs, but Wii, DS and PSP – each is unique so its games need to be focused more.I hope more and more third-party publishers see the PSP as an attractive opportunity.

http://www.developmag.com/interviews/216/Meet-the-new-Boss

All in all, he sounds relatively tame. He's definitely not taking snipe shots at the competition. He's in fact giving credits to Nintendo for trying (successfully) to reach new markets. He's also including MS in his talk of market expansion, which quite unique... We got used to a cast of bellicists and arrogant talking heads, as far as SCE executives go. With Harrisson being one of the rare, more reasonable personalities.

Anyway, the plan for SCEWWS seem to be in line with what Harrisson had in mind when he left: reach out for the "casual crowd" with titles like Singstar and the likes, while also catering to the core market with bigger titles.

With that said, Yoshida might be gearing toward the casual goal more frankly than Harrisson did, since he canned two big projects (8 Days was in production, Getaway was in pre-prod) at Studio London... It might just be a case of refactoring the studio into an ATG (tech support) & casual only dev-house. This not having a direct impact on the entire strategy for SCEWWS.

 

[Kittonwy]

I wonder what's going to happen to Team Soho now that their project has been canned. It's kind of strange not to see both Cambridge and Soho work on at least one traditional IP this gen. I don't think ATG was a huge group and I would be surprised if London Studios goes 100% casual. There has been some changes in SCEWW VP spots as well, Mike Denny and Scott Rodhe are now in charge of SCEWW Europe and SCEWW North America now, although I'm not familiar with either one of them.

 

[almighty]

I wonder what's going to happen to Team Soho now that their project has been canned. It's kind of strange not to see both Cambridge and Soho work on at least one traditional IP this gen. I don't think ATG was a huge group and I would be surprised if London Studios goes 100% casual. There has been some changes in SCEWW VP spots as well, Mike Denny and Scott Rodhe are now in charge of SCEWW Europe and SCEWW North America now, although I'm not familiar with either one of them.

Maybe Sony have moved them to EDGE only development and R&D?

 

[deepbrown]

I wonder what's going to happen to Team Soho now that their project has been canned. It's kind of strange not to see both Cambridge and Soho work on at least one traditional IP this gen. I don't think ATG was a huge group and I would be surprised if London Studios goes 100% casual. There has been some changes in SCEWW VP spots as well, Mike Denny and Scott Rodhe are now in charge of SCEWW Europe and SCEWW North America now, although I'm not familiar with either one of them.

I'm sure they are working on other projects...Team Soho and Camden are now the same studio....just one London studio now. They're working on Home, Singstar, LBP (helping), Eyetoy and every other game under the sun (KZ2).

But it is strange for both of their games to be canned...rather than just the one. This makes me think that they have another game in development in the studio.,,