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SCEA's Steinberg: Sony will lead the way
Scott Steinberg, SCEA VP of product marketing, had a lot of aggressively frank comments to say in an interview with Next Generation. In fact, he comes off quite arrogant, taking pundit jabs at his company's competitors; however, we actually love this no-holds-barred, non-political, cocky confidence that he displays. It's refreshing to hear such unabashed statements such as "[Our] focus and dedication is unparalleled with any other first party company. Our first-party games will lead the way."It appears that Steinberg's confidence stems from the PS3's strong holiday sales, and then the ending of the format wars. He says now that the "Berlin Wall" of HD-DVD is torn down, they can focus on one less front and work on pushing the company's 2008 line-up of new IP and "comfort food IP." Yes, he actually used the terms "Berlin Wall" and "comfort food IP."He no doubt symbolizes SCEA's high spirit and rightfully so as he brings out some very good points. Take this one for example, "In the years ahead our games will begin to distance themselves from other next-gen games ... you'll see games begin to tip the scale at thirty gigs, forty gigs, fifty gigs. You can't possibly fit that on HD-DVD unless you want to do the old floppy disk swaps of years past." This is especially a good point since the PS3 will stick in the game for the long run with plans to last ten years. "The pendulum is swinging," he said referring to developers who once worked on the Xbox 360 and ported to the PS3; he believes there is going to be a huge reversal of this dev ritual. In the end, he believes consumers will naturally see the PS3's advantages and will make the right choice when he says, "Once Grand Theft Auto ships on the platform I think you'll see those folks on the side line saying 'I don't want to get stuck with the wrong one. I'm a PlayStation fan. I waited out the HD-DVD thing and I listened to a lot of misinformation. Now I don't need to wait.' There are lots of reasons to jump in, and PS3's by far the strongest choice."
Dr. Phil talks Manhunt, but Steinberg steals the show
We're totally enjoying CBS' coverage of Manhunt 2. After Katie Couric's eye-roll inducing Notebook entry two days ago, the odiously designed CBS.com site bubbles up a clip of Dr. Phil with Early Show host Harry Smith and journalist Scott Steinberg. We're sorry, but just try not to laugh as Smith introduces Dr. Phil to the show and Steinberg starts flailing the Wiimote trying to execute the guy on screen. Of course, you'll have to go to CBS.com to watch it. We're sorry, but the networks haven't discovered the basics of embeddable code.Dr. Phil is far more careful here then the last time he talked about video game violence's effect on children during the Virginia Tech massacre -- probably because his hypothesis was dead wrong last time and he looked like a total (insult of choice goes here). Dr. Phil says about Manhunt 2, "Now the truth is, if somebody plays this game and then they go and do this in their life, there was something seriously wrong with them before they got the game. But it's modeling." We'd prefer if the mainstream media did a simple PSA and told parents not to let their children play M-rated games instead of all this fear mongering.[Via GamePolitics]
Sony unveils hardware marketing boss Scott Steinberg [Updated]
Update: Sony has written to clarify that Steinberg is not taking over Karraker's PR duties. He is, instead, handling marketing for Sony's hardware. We're sorry about the miscommunication.When Sony's Dave Karraker left the company for the greener, more distilled pastures of vodka marketing, the company was temporarily left without a mouthpiece for PlayStation 3 and PSP issues. That gap has now been filled by Scott A. Steinberg. Steinberg seems to have the right sort of resume for the job, after working with Sega during the Genesis days. Since then, he's worked with Crystal Dynamics, Eidos and at the (legitimate, but less cool) Napster. He'll take over as Vice President of Product Marketing for SCEA on October 1. Though not quite the maelstrom that Karraker walked into, we doubt Steinberg's in for anything close to a cakewalk. That said, this is a man who probably, at some point, had to justify the existence of the 32X ("The polygons are gouraud shaded!"), so it's not exactly his first time at the rodeo.
Sega believes in the eventual success of the PS3
In a recent interview with Reuters, Sega Sammy VP of Marketing Scott Steinberg spoke about the Wii and his hypothesis that the PS3 will emerge victorious. He admitted to being "a little concerned about the creative depth of the Wii pool ... The Wii will start to look really dated in a couple years when developers get more value from the 360 and learn more and more about the PlayStation 3." It is a good question -- how much more will developers get out of the Wiimote in five years that isn't derivative of something else that's already been done? The same could be said of the Sixaxis. However, Steinberg insists that "We know the PS3 pool is pretty deep. There's a lot to exploit there." Which is also rooted in truth. As Factor 5 said, the potential is limitless. It will just take some exploratory surgery time, so to speak. Steinberg also predicts the PlayStation 3 growing into the ultimate winner this console generation due not only to graphical prowess and hidden potential, but the inclusion of Blu-ray will be a great addition in the coming years. Time to sound off your own thoughts to his words. Can the PS3 really last the 10 years claimed by Sony?[via Gamasutra]
Interview: Sega plans big for movie-IP games
GameDaily interviews Scott Steinberg, Sega's VP of Entertainment Marketing, about established IP and its importance to games. With Sega licensing Alien IP, will we see the company shift to games based on movies?Stenberg says that while Sega will continue to create original games, it sees how important licenses are to other companies; movie tie-ins sell. Sega won't describe the intended balance between its licensed IP titles and original content; Steinberg only says that other publishers release about half of each, letting us speculate that Sega will follow that trend.Basing a game on a movie or TV show is a difficult proposition, unless a publisher is just trying to shovel a quick cash-in onto the shelves. The mediums are inherently different; we hope that Sega plans games based around an IP universe instead of trying to shoehorn a movie plot into a videogame.
