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Home's non-gaming plan 'too ambitious,' admits SCEE's Reeves
It seems even Sony knows when to admit it bit off a little more than it could initially masticate. In a short discussion with CVG, Reeves admitted they've "realized that maybe we were too ambitious with the non-gaming applications within Home, getting sponsors and stuff like that ... in that sense we were deserting gamers. So, we're concentrating on the gaming by launching games in Home, and attracting people who are into gaming in first -- instead of the Nike people, or Adidas people who are into fashion and not necessarily into gaming."This is interesting because we've always heard how one of the futures of advertising may be within video games. Now Reeves and Sony see that perhaps focusing on that isn't the right approach -- you need to fill a store with people before you can sell anything, after all. Sony is now refocusing their strategy on things like Trophies and Home-to-game launching, so expect more of that when the open beta hits this year, another thing Reeves promises. The beta will come this autumn. For sure. We'll see.
Home 'too ambitous,' but 'definitely' coming this Fall, Reeves says
While confirming Home will "definitely be coming out in Autumn," SCEE president David Reeves said that "maybe we were too ambitious with the non-gaming applications within Home, getting sponsors and stuff like that." In an interview with CVG, Reeves continued to say, "In that sense we were deserting gamers. So, we're concentrating on the gaming by launching games in Home."The closed beta for Home is still ongoing. Earlier today, EA Sports president (and former Xbox executive) Peter Moore said he was interested in the service but "disappointed" by its delays. Home producer Daniel Hill told our friends at PS3 Fanboy that game spaces will be shown later this month.
Official Sony external hard drives a possibility
David Reeves, boss of SCEE, has admitted that keeping only the 40GB PS3 on shelves is a worry in his mind in terms of consumer storage space. His mind has calculated a possibility for "official" Sony external hard drives. We find that a little odd because Reeves even reminds us that the PS3 has an easily replaceable hard drive already: "The PlayStation will stay the same, but consumers can choose whichever size of hard drive they want. They can now, of course, because it's not a proprietary hard drive." So why external hard drives? Maybe people are scared to crack open their PS3. Maybe they don't have anywhere to dump all the information before switching the new hard drive in. Any external hard drive, as far as we can tell (using a 120GB Western Digital currently -- it's old) works already. Reeves said there's no rush for this idea, though. "We've played the games with the hardware, with different hard drives and things like that, and we want to keep it very, very simple. We know that works." What do you guys think? Would you grab an official external, get a third-party, or just slap a new laptop hard drive direct into the system? Those of you who've done the latter, how has it worked since?
SCEE President: 'You will probably see' GTAIV DLC for PS3
SCEE President David Reeves has indicated that PlayStation 3 owners may be able to enjoy some Grand Theft Auto IV downloadable content, after all. Speaking to VideoGamer at yesterday's PlayStation Day, Reeves said, "Well I think you probably will see it, it's just that a deal obviously was struck between Microsoft and Take-Two to do that, and if that's what they want to do, I think that's the last shot they have."Of course, executives are known for their superhuman ability to talk a lot of hot air, and Reeves is no exception. The deal Reeves refers to is the $50 million Microsoft reportedly gave Take Two for exclusive GTAIV "episodes." It's unclear if Reeves is hinting at that DLC coming to Sony, entirely new DLC (also of questionable exclusivity) or absolutely nothing tangible at all.
Double EU PSN Store update next week to celebrate PlayStation Day
SCEE might just find themselves back in European PS3 owners' good books after next week. PlayStation Day, a press-only event in London, takes place on the 6th of May. The press conference at the event will be hosted by Kaz Hirai and David Reeves (President of SCEE) and will no doubt include some interesting announcements. We'll be there to give you up to the minute news as it happens. To celebrate PlayStation Day, the European PSN Store will be updated twice next week. Once on Tuesday and once on Thursday. Those of you who have become disheartened with the European PSN updates might want to take special note to this line-up. In total you can expect to see four demos, three full games and five add-on packs spread across the two updates. Plus a nice collection of videos, including the PlayStation Day press conference itself, hosted by Kaz Hirai.Check out the full list of content for Tuesday's update below. Thursday's list can be seen after the break.Playable content Condemned 2 demo Haze demo Blast Factor Advanced full game High Velocity Bowling full game Street Skater PS1 game Add-on content Blast Factor Advanced Research High Velocity Bowling Character - Mike Trailers: Buzz! Quiz TV Secret Agent Clank Siren Blood Curse
EA predicts PS3 will outsell Xbox 360 in 2008
Following the release of its latest financial results, EA has shared its estimates for predicted console hardware sales in North America and Europe in 2008. Though the Wii's continued domination seems obvious in even the murkiest of crystal balls, the publisher sides with Sir Howard Stringer's recent observation that the PlayStation 3 has departed the woods and setsEA sees the PlayStation 3 selling between 9.5 million and 11.5 million units, compared to the Xbox 360's 6 to 8 million units. Sony's system would take the lead in Europe (a view shared by SCEE chief David Reeves), where it's expected to sell between 5 million and 6 million, well over the Xbox 360's 1.5 million to 2.5 million. Towering above both would be Nintendo's Wii, with estimates placing its sales between 12 million and 14 million units.Only time will tell how accurate EA's predictions are and whether the PS3 will start contributing more heavily to the publisher's bottom line.
Sony president compliments Nintendo
We're normally used to insults, jabs, and cat fights when it comes to Sony and Nintendo talking about each other, so it's always refreshing to hear compliments instead. David Reeves, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, recently had some nice things to say about the company's competitor. When talking about how the industry has grown in the past year, he gives Nintendo due credit.Reeves states that, thanks to many Nintendo games (like Brain Age, for example), the video games market has expanded to include more female gamers and families. which in turn has been good for the industry. It's certainly hard to argue that Nintendo has brought in many new gamers, but it's still nice for SCEE to give Nintendo props. [Via GoNintendo]
PSN sales surprise even Sony CEOs
The PlayStation 3 is experiencing a power surge. No, it didn't ingest PowerThirst, but people have been purchasing the system and utilizing the PlayStation Store more than even Sony expected. SCEE president and CEO, David Reeves, expressed that very sentiment in regards to the European market: "We've gone from zero to almost double-digit millions in terms of what people have purchased in euros." Awesome.If this is any indication of Sony's 2008 domination (relative to their performance in 2007), we're off to a great start. We wonder how PSN sales are doing in the US and Japan, because quite frankly, Europe has often gotten the shaft when it comes to downloadable titles. We can only imagine if there will be another surge when Home releases, or if we'll get a surprising lull. Who knows.[via CVG]
Sony's David Reeves says PS3 victory in sight
Apparently Sony has decided to start both hangin' tough and unleashing the fury in the console wars, at least in Europe. According to SCEE president, CEO, and player-hater David Reeves, 2008 will be the year that the PlayStation 3 takes the gloves off and makes a nasty dent in the UK games market, amongst others. While not specifying official sales numbers for the machine, Reeves stated that the company has sold over a million systems in December across PAL territories, and went on to say that in some markets like Switzerland and France, the PS3's installed base outnumbers the Xbox 360's. Of course, it's easy to find small victories like monthly sales figures, but Sony's really going to have to break out the BFGs if it wants to tackle the big boys.[Via Pocket-lint]
SCEE chief: PS3 to overtake Xbox in Europe by summer
Despite the PS3's late start in Europe, SCEE chief David Reeves has confidently predicted to MCV that the system is poised to overtake the Xbox 360 in cumulative European sales by late summer. "In terms of installed base in some of our major markets, such as France, Spain, Germany and Italy ... our current cumulative installed base is now higher than Xbox 360," Reeves said, adding that the PS3 outsold the 360 in all PAL territories 3-to-1 last week.Is such a turnaround possible in the time frame Reeves suggests? A quick look at VGChartz (graph shown above) does show Microsoft's European sales lead on the PS3 recently getting cut in half, from roughly 1.8 million units in July '07 to only 0.9 million units in January '08. The narrowing came almost entirely during the highly competitive holiday season, though -- since then, PS3 and 360 sales have run roughly parallel.Of course, the whole Sony/Microsoft battle might be meaningless, considering the Wii utterly dominated European sales through the 2007 holiday season. Then again, we suppose there's some pride in battling for the silver. Just ask Mitt Romney after the Iowa caucuses.
SCEE: European PS3 install base to beat Xbox 360 in summer
While the PS3 continues to lag behind its Microsoft rival in America, it has done splendidly well in other parts of the globe. It's a non-contest in Japan, where sales of Xbox 360 have been abysmal at best. Europe, on the other hand, is an interesting territory. The PlayStation brand carries much more weight in the territory, and it's slowly on its way of overtaking the 360, in spite of its one year delayed release.SCEE president and CEO David Reeves this week, revealed that PS3 has already outsold 360 in certain territories such as France, Spain, Germany and Italy. He told MCV, "We don't often mention the competition, but I will give you some interesting data: In terms of installed base in some of our major markets, such as France, Spain, Germany and Italy – plus some distributor territories in smaller markets like Switzerland – our current cumulative installed base is now higher than Xbox 360.However, a majority of the console's sales comes from the UK, and PS3 has yet to fully conquer. However, the outspoken Reeves is confident in their goals. "The team here expect to overtake the installed base of Xbox 360 across all PAL territories in late summer." And why do they believe such a lofty goal is possible? "It's also worth mentioning that last week we outsold Xbox 360 in PAL territories by a ratio of three to one."[Via Videogamer.com]
Forty percent failure rate completely false
There are a lot of rumors that simply don't end up on PS3 Fanboy. Why? Because some lack any semblance of credibility whatsoever. One was a recent report that 40% of 40GB PS3 systems were failing ... days after the system's launch. The reports were limited to a number of unknown websites, and details were slim.David Reeves from SCEE responded to these reports, telling Kotaku "We are very proud of the quality and reliability of PLAYSTATION 3 and are disappointed that such extremely sloppy journalism has resulted in this totally inaccurate story ... Since launching the 40GB PS3, we have experienced a fantastic jump in sales and the failure rates have remained at the very low level that we not only strive for, but have been achieving since the launch of PS3.""Sloppy journalism" and "totally unfounded rumors" do seem to go hand in hand, especially on the internet.[Via Three Speech]
No 80GB PS3 for you Europe, how about 120GB instead?
In an interview with Norway's Dabladet, David Reeves, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, reiterated that a move from the 60GB to an 80GB PS3 didn't make sense for Europe. Unlike the US and S.Korea, "going up 20GB is not worth it." We know, that's a bitter pill for our more culturally astute gaming brethren to swallow. Still, take heart as Reeves went on to say that, "if you double it, it's worth it. So maybe you'll see something a bit later." Right, that's 120GB if we take his words literally. Of course, these bumps are inevitable, so some specific timing would certainly be appreciated. In defense of launching the new Starter Pack bundles (a 60GB PS3 with two Sixaxis pads and two first party games) instead of price cuts for Europe, Reeves claims that consumers in PAL territories are more concerned with "added value." Riiiight. Of course, this is the same man who said "the name of the game is not market share" only to predict that the PS3 will be "the winner" by March 08. In other words, anything can happen. [Via The Inquirer]
David Reeves calls PS3 "tsunami", will win console war
A rather lofty quote from David Reeves to open this post: "PlayStation 3, you will see, will be far and away the winner when you look at it by March '08. They really, really will ... It's something that is going to be a slow burner, and suddenly it's like a tsunami; it will just overtake you." This quote goes hand-in-hand with the announcement of the new PS3 bundle package in Europe, which also tells us that the 60GB PS3 model isn't going to be available in the US anymore after July (price cut rendered useless).Will the PS3 win this holiday season with their insane lineup of games that has the PS3 Fanboy staff crying at the abuse their wallets are going to get? We'd like to think so, but every console has some heavy hitters coming out, but by the end of the fiscal year, we do believe the PS3 will have created a much larger install base. Perhaps not enough to render Mr. Reeves' predictions true, but one that will show Sony has no intention of passing off their crown.
SCEE boss predicts 60GBs will be sold out by month's end - After that? No more
Gameindustry.biz has stated that SCEE president David Reeves has clarified that the 60GB PS3's days are numbered. At an E3 event in which Reeves revealed the PlayStation 3 Starter Pack for the European region, he was questioned over whether SCEE should have given Europe a price cut, as has happened in America. Reeves claims that "they aren't really" getting a price cut "because what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD 599 version with one game."Reeves went on to say that "all they're doing is taking their stock in trade that they've got at the moment of the 60GB model, marking the price down and it will all be gone by the end of July." When asked whether this was truly the end of the 60GB model, Reeves replied with "in America, yes."We see this as a very strange move on SCEA's part. Why undermine your announcement of a price drop by phasing out the lower end unit? Because the 80GB systems have had their Emotion Engine removed (which means PS2 games will now be software emulated, as in Europe) they are cheaper to build than the current 60GB models. Will we see this saving passed down to the customer with another price cut before the end of the year? This doesn't really bode well for those waiting for it to drop below $500 dollars. Our solution? Drop the 80GB to $500 in a couple of months, in time for the big Christmas releases. Then bring back the 20GB system, without the Emotion Engine, for $400 dollars. Things would make a lot more sense if that were to happen.
Sony: no 80GB PS3 for Europe
European gamers hoping to score a PS3 with a larger-than-60GB hard drive had better bust out their screwdrivers -- Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president David Reeves isn't planning on selling that 80GB PS3 in your hood anytime soon. Writing for MCV, Reeves says the larger hard drive only makes sense in a market like South Korea, which has "very high broadband penetration and the people there are used to downloading content, so they require a certain size hard drive." Ouch, way to underestimate your customers -- better start downloading more movies, Europe. Reeves goes on to say that he doesn't "feel" competing with Xbox Live since Sony is in a "different stadium," and that it doesn't have "eyes on the competition in any way." We're not going to tackle that one, except to point out that if Sony was looking at the competition, it might notice that 120GB hard drive said competition now has available.[Via PS3 Fanboy]
SCEE CEO knows nothing about a PSP phone
The PSP phone isn't happening ... or David Reeves, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, has been left in the dark. After some very detailed patent filings were unveiled, the Sony CEO has responded, flatly denying the possibility of such a product. "I know the head of Sony Ericsson very well," he told MCV. "He has a Walkman phone and a Cybershot phone available, but I know nothing about a PSP phone."He adds, "I haven't heard anything about it at all – and I would know. They wouldn't develop it without our knowledge."Of course, in the games industry, it's not uncommon for an executive to be kept out of the loop.[Via Next Gen]
Sony survey says: selling 80GB PS3 in Europe isn't necessary
Sony CEO and President of the European side of things, David Reeves, recently issued a statement regarding the potential release of a new, 80GB, model of the PlayStation 3 in Europe. You may recall this version of the Sony mammoth device is getting released in Korea, along with other special features like downloadable content. Well, Mr. Reeves has pointed out that such a model will not make its way to Europe any time soon.His reasoning behind such a decision is this: "there are markets like Korea where there's very high broadband penetration and the people there are used to downloading content, so they require a certain size hard drive." True, but does this mean we'll never see a higher storage capacity in our PS3's in Europe and the Americas (plus Canada)? Not for a while. If you really need the storage space, though, you can stick any internal hard drive you want in there. So long as it's a 2.5" SATA drive. If we start getting downloadable content like HD movies or TV shows, it'd be a worthwhile investment.
PS3 sales break million milestone in PAL territory
David Reeves, president of SCEE, spoke to MCV. about the console's surprising success. Since its launch in March, the console has sold through more than a million units in the European territories. "Early last week we went through the one million mark on PS3. And we did that in nine and a half weeks," he confirmed. He added, "That was faster than both PS2 and PSOne."Software sales have been fairly robust, with two million copies of first-party software sold in the region. Although the lineup since launch has been admittedly slim, things will definitely be picking up, with some new products to be unveiled soon: "Our big bangs will be arriving around September and October; Phil [Harrison] will be announcing these at a later date, but they will probably be in the arena of social gaming as well as more traditional games."[Via Next Gen]
Kaz Hirai and David Reeves promoted ... wait, what?
Kaz Hirai and David Reeves have done it! They've been promoted even further than their positions as presidents and CEOs of SCEA and SCEE, respectively and have added executive vice-presidents of the Tokyo corporate executive group. Now these gents will not only be in charge of the PS3's release in America and Europe, but they will have a very important say in all of Sony's business strategy planning.What does this mean for everyone else? Take into account everything Krazy Kaz has said, and multiply that times ... Sony's business strategies and planning and you get some pretty tedious situations. Not to bash his promotion -- Sony obviously sees something excellent in him and in David Reeves, but with all the negative press being garnered around the Playstation 3, it doesn't look like a good move to us. Again, it's not possible to really say yea or nay to the move, but it kind of evokes a small chortle. Was it really good to put Kaz and Reeves pretty much in charge of planning and strategy for all of Sony? Time will surely tell.
