Thumbs up to Kaz Hirai, reassuring Sony fans worldwide
In the past, when Kaz Hirai opened his mouth, eyes would roll. Lately, his comments have been slightly more understandable and subdued. In an interview with Mercury News, Hirai responded to the comparison of the PS3's production to the Xbox 360's production shortage, saying Sony has "tighter control on manufacturing." Hirai also went over a little of their marketing strategy, saying Sony has met with retailers to pitch the value of the PS3. Other divisions of Sony are working together, stringing in digital TV sales with the PS3 console. Or trying to. Sales are tough.
Marketing, schmarketing. What of the Playstation 3? Hirai commented on the size of many of the games that will get shown at the Tokyo Game Show -- many are around 20GB, proof that Blu-ray is doing great things for developers. Hirai said: "You'll see the difference in the game play. In things like the number of levels, the lines of dialogue, the AI." It's nice to see he isn't completely focused on graphics, as AI is a bit more important than particle physics or advanced textures to many gamers.
Overall, cool. Hirai recognizes the criticisms of Sony fans, especially after seeing the posts made on YouTube about Dell computers catching fire and probably a few of Microsoft's creations (in fact, you could probably find any console getting whacked on that site). Let's take a different angle to end on... if your PS3 malfunctioned and you had to toss it (for some odd reason) and you put it on YouTube, what sort of destruction would you wreak on it? Or say what you think could go wrong with the PS3 to make it on there (overheating, red circle of death, whatever). We're not condoning PS3 destruction, but if it had to be put out of its misery, be creative, right?
