Kaz
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Sony CEO Kaz Hirai to kick off CES 2014 with opening keynote
CES 2014 is creeping up on us, and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has announced that Sony President and CEO Kaz Hirai will deliver the headline keynote on the show's first day. Last year, the honor went to Panasonic and its head honcho, Kazuhiro Tsuga. Mum's the word on exactly what Hirai will cover -- other than his thoughts on "innovations occurring at the intersection of content and hardware" -- but if he takes a page out of Panasonic's book, most product reveals will happen at a separate press conference. Admittedly, it's a tad early for scheduling, but if you're ready to clear your calendar, mark yourself as busy for 8:30 AM PT on Tuesday, January 7th.
Editorial: Sony needs more than Sorcery to resurrect the PlayStation Move
The first time we saw Sony's PlayStation Move, it didn't even have a name: we only knew it as the PS3 motion controller. The newfangled prototype was Sony's response to the success Nintendo found in the Wii, a motion-sensitive "me-too" that hoped to one up the competition with better tracking, more "core" games and a curious glowing ball perched on its top. Its first outing showed a handful of tech demos, flaunting gameplay concepts that we'd eventually see in Sports Champions and Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest. Since then, the Move has seen its fair share of exclusive and compatible titles, but none quite engaging enough to make the peripheral a must-have accessory. With the next generation just around the corner and Sony's portable cards already on the table, E3 2012 is looking a little light on the hardware front. If Sony's going to give the Move one final push, now is the time.
Sony gets a Kaz-style kick to its corporate guts, emphasizes its oneness
Kazuo Hirai doesn't officially grab the reins as Sony's CEO and President until April 1st, but in reality he's already at the stirrups. He's making a number of exec-level switches that he hopes will deliver "rapid and optimized decision-making processes as 'One Sony'." His strategy? An inner circle consisting of himself and fellow reformers -- such as CFO Masaru Kato -- who will engage with department heads and, you know, make 'em do stuff faster. Digital imaging, gaming and mobile will be considered pillars of the electronics business and receive more "concentrated" resources as a result. Meanwhile, Kaz will directly oversee the struggling TV business in an effort to turn it around, which means his days of enjoying life and staring out of windows are probably numbered. See the press release for more tectonic detail.
Sony's Kaz Hirai to step up as president as early as April (updated)
Nikkei is reporting that Sony will be promoting current Executive Deputy President Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai to president as soon as April, while Howard Stringer is expected to remain chairman and CEO of the company. As you may recall, Sony started its search for a new president as far back as November 2010, and with Kaz's two promotions last year (to Executive Deputy President in April and to Sony Computer Entertainment Chairman in September), it isn't surprising that he's the chosen one to pick up some of Sir Howard's work. It'll be a while before we see the consequences of this promotion, and anything can happen between now and the board meeting as early as next month to seal the deal; but here's hoping that under Kaz, Sony will go easy on all these new memory card formats while it further unifies its various groups within the corporation. Update: Bloomberg has received a brief statement from Sony clarifying that the board has not yet made a decision on this promotion, which isn't really a denial of the plan considering the final board meeting has yet to take place.
Sony's Kazuo Hirai: liveblog from AsiaD!
We're back! AsiaD's concluding today, but we've got a couple of big hitters left on the schedule. Kicking things off this morning -- yeah, it's morning, we're in the future -- is Sony's Executive Deputy President, Kazuo Hirai, and we're guessing he'll be shooting it straight regarding the PS Vita, those nasty "outages" and whatever else he feels like keeping us abreast on. Join us after the break for the blow-by-blow!
Sony's Kaz Hirai discusses NGP strategy, longevity, expectations (video)
Why was the NGP announced so far ahead of its launch? How long does Sony expect the NGP to reign before a refresh is needed? What impact will the NGP have on Nintendo's supremacy in mobile gaming? Each of those questions has been handled by Sony Computer Entertainment's chief Kaz Hirai in a video interview you can now eyeball after the break. In case you want the textual version of his responses, Kaz says the PSP successor was unveiled early in order to allow Sony to get as many third-party developers on board as possible (which is a lot easier when you don't have to worry about them leaking your hardware to Engadget), the new mobile console's lifetime should be no less than what we've come to expect from Sony's home consoles (so at least four or five years), and Sony's weapons for attacking Nintendo's dominance will be the litany of integrated sensors and connectivity options at the NGP's disposal. Kaz is careful to note that Sony is only aiming to improve on the PSP's current install base, but we suspect Sony's unofficial ambitions are far higher than that.
Sony's Kaz Hirai talks up virtues of touch controls, weighs in on PlayStation phone
The PlayStation phone keeps popping up time and again, and still no one at Sony is going to flat-out admit anything -- but that hasn't stopped playful speculation. Even SCE chief Kaz Hirai is joining in the fun. "We don't want gamers to be asking, what's the difference between that [a PS phone] and a PSP... we have to come up with a message that users will understand," he told The New York Times. "It would have to be a product that keeps the PlayStation's strengths intact." So that's the issue, then, differentiating a new PSP and a variant with phone capabilities -- nothing a good marketing campaign can't fix, if you ask us. But enough about the phone, what of the PlayStation's portable brand in general? Hirai seems to fancy touch controls, actually. "Depending on the game, there are ones where you can play perfectly well with a touch panel," he said, adding that "immersive games" -- the ones he think are Sony's focus, vs. the more casual fare offered by Apple and Android -- do well with physical buttons, and that some games work well with the two. We can't help but notice he said touch panel and not touch screen, which reminds us of the touchpad we saw on the PS phone leaks, but we wouldn't want to harp too much.
Kaz Hirai isn't rushing Home
Kaz Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment's "Big Boss," tells MCV that the company is taking its sweet time to make Home. Hirai explains that if Home is good, it won't matter when it launches, "so long as it's in a reasonable time frame." By our estimates, "reasonable time frame" left a while ago on a trip around the world and, if we think in a circular fashion, should bang back around sometime soon.Hirai goes on to say that if the competitors decide to follow what the company is doing with Home, it would be their prerogative -- we're sure Linden Labs is thinking the same thing about Home. Anyway, Hirai is "confident" that the Home open beat is something that'll "resonate" with consumers.
Kaz Hirai confident PlayStation will reclaim lead
It's not a race, it's a marathon. That's according to Sony Computer Entertainment President Kaz Hirai, who recently told BBC News that he expects the PlayStation to reclaim its lead in the console ... "marathon." It's the kind of marathon that lasts ten years, as you may heard countless times before, and remains hard to visualize when none of the competitors have any legs. "I am very confident that after the 10-year lifecycle we will have the install base that we are looking for and that is obviously to be in the leadership position," said Hirai. He insisted that Sony has only "begun to scratch the surface" with the PlayStation 3 and that it wouldn't "let [its] consoles go by the wayside after five years."With the PS3 said to have surpassed Xbox 360 sales in Europe and a "whole raft of titles between now and the end of the year" in its lineup, developers have more reason catch up to the system's technology. Said Hirai: "I think they are beginning to embrace the technology and are able to express their creativity on the platform certainly more than they were able to at launch." And to think, that wasn't even two years ago. Time truly is an illusion -- launch time doubly so.
SingStar: providing unique PlayStation media
Why is there no video download service yet for PSP and PS3? In a recent interview with Joystiq, Engadget and PS Fanboy, Kaz Hirai noted that they need to provide a unique experience for PlayStation fans to interact with media. "I want to make sure that we are able to put a unique, PlayStation-esque way of presenting the music content, for example, to the PlayStation 3 users. Otherwise, we're just one of them," he commented."But its a part of the overall SingStar experience that you're downloading the music that so that is a kind of different experience than you would have for downloading music that's specific to the PS3 experience that you can't get anywhere else. That's the kind of thing i'm talking about, and therefore, in conjunction with Singstar, there is going to be music download obviously because we find something that's very PlayStation-esque. So I want to try to come up with something that has the same kind of different PlayStation experience for music downloads, if we're going to expand it to the PlayStation Network Store and also for video downloads as well."Sony is waiting for a "unique" way of providing video downloads, but we adamantly believe that consumers will love to have standard video service, akin to the one available on Xbox Live Marketplace. Isn't providing downloadable 1080p video differentiating enough? We think so. Read our complete interview at Joystiq.%Gallery-3205%
Kaz takes stab at Nintendo, we laugh hard
Sony's own Kaz Hirai (Riiiiiiidge Raaaacerrrrr!) recently spoke with IGN during CES 2007 about the PS3 and Blu-ray in general. Of course, most of his time spent with the IGN folk was to talk up his hardware, however he did take a moment to speak his mind on the incredibly popular Wii by saying "a worldwide launch for any console is quite ambitious. In fact, it has never been done before. I suppose if we had simply done a mild upgrade to the PS2 and not pushed the envelope so hard, it would have been easier on ourselves. However, if we did that every time, we wouldn't be Sony." Isn't he hilarious guys? Look Kaz, we're sorry your company decided to manufacture a system that is so expensive as to exclude the common consumer and has no fun launch games. Face it, the only reason anyone is considering buying a PS3 is for Metal Gear Solid 4. Don't be a sore loser, guy!
Kaz Hirai talks PSP, denies redesign
Nintendo fans have Reggie. We have Kaz. There's no real new info in his interview with Gamespot, but it's always interesting when a Sony exec goes on the record about the system. Here are some bullet points summarizing what he said: Sony is still "hard at work" on Connect. (Note: It was originally supposed to come out in March.) PSone downloads will come "close" to the PS3 launch. "Obviously, we certainly are not going to have 1,200 titles come out at once. You also need to realize that some of the games just don't translate well onto a PSP environment, games that require the use of the two analog sticks, for example." No plans for a PSP price drop OR redesign. Sony is "happy" with PSP; it is their "fastest-growing product."
The price ceiling for PS3 games is under construction
Nothing in life is free and if 'Fun' had a price, then recent videogames are out to bankrupt you. I mean what with the cheaper medium of CDs and all, who can blame them for charging upwards of 60 bucks for a single game? Okay, sarcasm aside, there's probably a small army of people out there who are ready to hear something official about the pricing of the PlayStation 3's titles.Our favorite talking bobble head Kaz Hirai is at the presses again spreading the gospel. This time he's finally said something about the game pricing of the next-gen console. "I think it would be a bit of a stretch to think that we could suddenly turn around and say 'PS3 games now $99.99,'" he said to PSM. "So, if it becomes a bit higher than fifty-nine bucks don't ding me, but, again, as I said, I don't expect it to be a hundred bucks."So it's a "stretch", but we shouldn't expect a three-figure price point for those nifty new Blu-ray games... yet. Actually when you get down to it, what he's saying is that the titles won't be less than $59 or more than $100, while keeping their distance from the latter. They've got such an uphill battle with just the price of the console that I really don't think Sony would have the cojones to push the games to, say, $69.99 or more. Then again, Sony likes to surprise us. But seriously, how much are YOU willing to pay for next-gen games?
Sony: We want PS3 to be like the ipod
Ken Kutaragi recently held a very long interview with Japanese web site PC Impress Watch where he spoke about the PS3's current presence and that for Sony, their goal is to have their next-generation console have the kind of market pull that the Apple brand does."Steve Jobs could slap an Apple logo on the PS3 and sell them for $2,000 each. We couldn't do that. That's the difference between the PlayStation brand and a computer brand, like Apple."Kutaragi emphasized that he wished to make the term "PS3" synonymous with "entertainment computer." The company's goals seem to be in establishing an electronics "ecosystem" in the consumer's household, where the name Sony means enjoyment. However, where Apple has achieved this through stylish, trendy gadgets at affordable pricing, will this goal be achievable for Sony given the hefty price tag of the unit?[Via Gamespot]
Kaz Hirai says "Thanks" to Microsoft
It's been no surprise that whenever Sony is faced with the accusation of copying Microsoft's online strategy, they talk about progressing the industry as a whole and broadening the scope of the business. Kaz Hirai has furthered that mentality by going on the record saying "thanks" to the software giant."Thank you, Microsoft, for helping us in taking consumers online," he said to Mercury news. "The most important thing for us is to make sure online is an integral part of the experience. It's not a 'nice to have' feature. It enables new businesses."Even though the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will soon be going head-to-head, it's obvious that Sony and Mr. Hirai believe that this is a collective endeavor all the same. Think of it as competitive synergy. Of course if that's not the case then at least he's putting on a good poker face.
Kaz: 15 titles for launch
Sony's Kaz Hirai commented to news site Bloomberg that he expects the company's Playstation 3 to launch with 15 titles this November. This is in contrast to what some third-party higher-ups have been saying, including Sega's Simon Jeffrey and THQ's Brian Farrell. Jeffrey's argument stems from third parties apparently not receiving finalized dev kits yet, which is reportedly supposed to occur this month, where Farrell's recent comments towards choosing to not release a version of the upcoming Sopranos game on the system as it is "too risky" to attempt without final hardware specs form the basis for his disagreement.
