This week Fox had an interview with Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO and President, Jack Tretton. Jack revealed more on why the PS4 will own the competition, how manufacturing is going and the most important reason why Sony has got the long-term gaming strategy right.The next PlayStation will launch in only eight weeks and launch-day gamers are already planning their midnight retail camp. Having worked the PlayStation 3 launch in Europe with HMV and Sony I can say expect:

• To wet yourself with excitement
• Feel intense affection for other gamers that you don’t know well because while holding a PS4 you just ‘understand’ one another
• To run home with that box

Now that we have high-fived each other, let’s look at what Jack Tretton said on Fox.

How are the PS4 pre-orders going?

  (We’re selling) Everything we can manufacture, it just keeps going up, (there) is so much pent demand you can sell every one you create. 

What’s happening with launch day stock?

 (We’re) holding back some inventory through(out) the holidays…production yield has been phenomenal 

Talk games. Please.

 33 games (will be) ready by the end of the holidays, many of these games are 3 years+ in development…(with) multi-seven figure budgets…(they will be) …huge blockbuster hits when they hit shelves… 

The PS4 will defeat everything else because…? I just have to say this is possibly my favourite answer. It’s straight forward, a full answer and packs a punch like a sledgehammer. I may call it the Jack-hammer.

 1. Most powerful machine on the market

2. $100 cheaper than the competition

3. Most importantly the biggest most diverse exclusive line up of any platform ever launched and that’s really what’s going to drive the sales for us in the long-term. 

Exclusive, tells us just how important the company is focussing on securing these deals. Gamers have been wondering if the next-gen will be as exclusive-centric. Seemingly, Sony is counting on it and they are making sure they own the exclusive line up. Long-term is indicative of their strategy. That suggests that more than just hot specs, the company has learned from the current gen just how important the long-term strategy is (PS3 finally earning a profit and has overtaken the Xbox 360 sales globally) and that they see huge exclusive blockbusters to be a part of the attraction.

He was also asked about the rise of mobile gaming and if smartphones are a threat to the PS4 particularly as during tougher economic times as some gamers will want to spend less. Jack pointed out that the PS4 has its own place in the market that is separate to handhelds offering “…deep dive experience…” that you can’t get on a smartphone or a tablet. Sony really seems to be choosing the broadest strategy, not ignoring any area of gaming, with PlayStation Mobile games on smartphones, a Vita upgrade and then the big-daddy PS4 luxury sleak-with-a-hot-blue-line-experience. He highlighted that now, more than ever, everyone is gaming, young and old, male and female, on a world-wide basis. As a result, there’s enough room for the different gaming experiences – smartphone, Vita, PS4.

Oh and he said it’s the biggest console launch in history.

Business note – check out the market prediction for the year 2018 in the video by market analyst DFC. One analyst alone of course doesn’t guarantee anything, but if you keep watch of the news, you would be hard pressed to find any analyst that doesn’t calculate something similar. They predict that by that time the PS4 will have 55% market share, Microsoft (do they mean the One or the One and the 360?) will have only 30% and the Nintendo Wii (and Wii 2?) will have 15%. Wow. With that market share and the PS4 angular design…it really is starting to look like the PS2 glory days again.

The video can be viewed (and really deserves viewing!) here.

Discuss:

How much will the PS4 own?