Jack Tretton, chief executive officer of SCEA, said the company is confident that holiday 2013 is the right time to launch its next console regardless of what Microsoft may offer.
“We’ve always had different competitors, we were in the space before Microsoft and we may be in the space after Microsoft,” said Tretton.
“We’ve seen competitors come and go, I think we’re mindful of what we do. Quite frankly we believe that anything that adds attention and success in the gaming industry is good for us. We’re aware of our competition but we march to own strategy and we’re very confident that holiday 2013 is a great time to bring out PlayStation 4.”
In the interview, Tretton was also quizzed on the role that new casual audience will have to play in the PlayStation 4, given that the reveal event was seemingly targeted at the hardcore market.
“There’s a lot of the story still to tell,” he replied. “We wanted to focus on the games and talk to our gaming audience… The gamers got it, that’s who we’re talking to.”
“I think those [casual] consumers are great, they’re additive. They play those bitesized free experiences, those five minute experiences, it demystifies gaming and hopefully they move up the food chain to a dedicated console.
“But if you’re a dedicated gamer who plays a console you understand the difference between a tablet and smartphone experience, so I don’t see them as a threat. But we recognise that our gamers are very communicative, they’re using other devices, and we want to involve them in the PlayStation universe regardless of of where they are or what device they’re using.”
Although Sony has specified a holiday 2013 (November/December) release date for the PS4, it qualified this by saying the release would be in “at least” one region this year.