SCEA’s Kaz Hirai was interviewed by CNET and delivered some candid answers to hard-hitting questions about the upcoming PS3, offering his take on the status and future of Sony’s next gen console.
Hirai remarked about the expected longevity of the PS3 and the effective useful life of the machine before a new model would replace it. "I think that if you look at the history of the way we’ve managed our console business, we always try to hit a 10-year life cycle. I can’t speculate on when we might come out with a new console after PlayStation 3… Once you become a family in the PlayStation family of products, you become a family member. We make sure that we take care of you.”
He offered his upbeat comments upon the PS3,s value to consumers and the Sony,s commitment to the console for the long haul. “The pricing that we announced for the PlayStation 3 is a price that ultimately offers fantastic value to the consumers. I think that we are offering a very good value for the consumers. We look at our products having a 10-year life cycle, which we’ve proven with the PlayStation. Therefore, the PlayStation 3 is going to be a console that’s going to be with you again for 10 years. We’re not going to ask the consumers to suddenly buy another PlayStation console in five years’ time and basically have their investment go by the wayside. So for all those reasons, I think at $599 we’re offering a very good value to the consumers."
Hirai deflected much criticism of Sony,s decision to include an onboard Blu-ray DVD player in their PS3 because of the added cost resulting from the expensive component. He countered by explaining, “The PlayStation 3 uses the Blu-ray as its storage medium for both games and for movies as well. We wanted to take advantage of the storage capacity that Blu-ray offers in terms of motion pictures and other content, but most importantly, for games as well. Our decision to include the Blu-ray player from day one in all of our PlayStation 3s was the right decision and, quite honestly, the only decision we can make… Look at the massive amounts of data that’s required to provide a truly immersive gaming experience in true HD. If you only have a DVD ROM drive, which can only go up to about 9GB or so, you’re going to end up with a game that’s going to have two or possibly even three discs. And then you’re going to have to ask consumers to swap discs out or cache all the game onto the hard drive, which I think is an inconvenience–not to mention the fact that you’re going to fill up a 20GB hard drive very quickly with some of these games. So trying to go without a Blu-ray drive in the PlayStation 3 really is a nonstarter.”
