PlayStation 3: 10-year lifespan
During his speech, he also contended that – surprisingly for a console, which would usually be expected to have a five-year life-span – he expected the PS3 to soldier on for 10 years. So, would this take us up to a period when broadband is quick enough to mean that consoles can do without disks altogether, and games will simply be downloaded to them? Understandably, given that the PS3’s Blu-ray format (responsible more than anything for the PS3’s difficult conception) has just won its format war, he doesn’t reckon that’s the case: “I think that’s going to be a little way off. Even with PS3, today, you’re talking about games that take 14, 15Gb, even upwards of 20Gb. If you try to offer that complete game as a download, you can do that, but what is the consumer experience going to be like?
“You also have to realise that different countries all have broadband, but the speeds are different, and then there are some territories where there isn’t too much broadband infrastructure at this point in time.
“When you look at it from a worldwide business perspective, the most efficient way of delivering 50GB, say, is going to be on a disk for a while to come.
That’s not to say we’re not doing the online stuff – which we are, through the PlayStation Store, but it’s basically a combination that makes the most sense for us and consumers. That’s why in some instances, we’ll offer both versions, like with Gran Turismo 5: Prologue.”
Change of culture
And we also touched on the culture-shock that inevitably follows from moving from the US to Japan, although it seems that Hirai still spends a fair amount of time at Sony’s US HQ in Foster City: “I’m now based in Japan, but I do spend time in the US every month – my family is still there. My day in Foster City starts at around 5.30pm: that’s when all the people in Tokyo shuffle into the office and phone-calls, videoconferences and emails start flying around. So I kind of do a double-shift when I’m in Foster City.”
Hirai does convey the impression that Sony Computer Entertainment is in good hands. And with the news, announced at the PlayStation Day, that global PS3 sales are approaching an impressive 12 million, plus blockbusters like LittleBigPlanet, the innovative avatar-based Home front-end for the PlayStation Network, Metal Gear Solid 4, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, Resistance 2 and Killzone 2 (disappointingly not due until February 2009) waiting in the wings, things are definitely looking a lot brighter for PS3 owners.
But with the Xbox 360 and Wii having notched impressive sales, it remains to be seen whether the PlayStation 3 can yet dominate the console world in the same manner as its two predecessors.
