Chrystia Freeland, Financial Times US managing editor, recently interviewed Howard Stringer of Sony. You know, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sony Corporation.
Other "places" have already reported this but none can report it like the way we do at GamerNode. Enjoy.
(Note: Everything with *** and italics around it is GamerNode commentary by me.)
Howard Stringer: Yes, it is. I think I would be the first to say to you that Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise and a very good business model compared to ours. But our process…***I smell an excuse that no one cares about!***
FT: Because it’s cheaper?
HS: Yes, because it’s cheaper.
FT: Maybe more creative, more fun? ***Oh no they di’int!***
HS: No, no, no. Fun is in the eye of the experiencer. ***Now he’s going to start saying that he’s "The Decider."*** No, no. I think PlayStation 3 is following a particular trend of 1 and 2, and if you looked at the history of it, it’s a very similar history.
People who play it, using only 20% of the bandwidth, are perfectly happy playing it and their games will get better…So I don’t worry about that at all. I think that the public would like the cost to be lower, there’s no question about that, but meanwhile…
FT: How much lower can you afford to bring it down?
HS: That’s what we’re studying at the moment; that’s what we’re trying to refine. But PlayStation 2…***What? What were you going to say there? Seriously. ***
FT: Will you come up with an answer by Christmas? ***I see what you did there, clever. ***
HS: Yes, of course. So I think PlayStation 3’s travails are usually solved by time. And it will have an instant gratification environment, not only in life but in the press as well as everything else, and so it’s a good story right now, will PlayStation 3 get to Christmas? And the answer is, of course it will get to Christmas.
— end of interview —
I think that we, as the passengers on the Goodship PS3, would really like to know if we should hang on and rely on the ol’ bird or if we should start throwing on our winter gear and find another ride home. For those of us that are fortunate enough to have other options for transportation, let’s be honest, do we really want to get on board the vessel before it is "fixed?"
All kidding aside, all of this corporate/political nonsense of never giving the straight answer is one of the reasons why the general gaming public holds so much animosity towards the largest Japanese consumer electronics company right now.
Come on Sony, for the betterment of your company, for the betterment of our industry, show us some love for a change.
[via Financial Times]
