Andrew-House
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Sony: PS4 demand is challenging European supply
The PlayStation 4 is in high demand for the second holiday season in a row, according to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe CEO Andrew House. Without offering specific sales numbers, House told Reuters that the console is potentially "going to be quite inventory challenged." Shipments for the PS4 reached 13.5 million consoles as of the end of October. "I'm not going to say you won't be able to find a PlayStation 4," House added. "I think it's going to be kind of hand to mouth in terms of that market." The CEO noted that sales for the system in December were in line with Sony's projections, though it was a "tougher" month thanks to the $50 holiday price cut by its main competitor in the United States, Microsoft's Xbox One. While its gaming division is thriving, Sony upped its loss forecast to $2 billion in September due to struggling smartphone sales and opted to not renew its FIFA sponsorship at the beginning of this month to spend more money on structural reforms. [Image: Sony]
Sony games division to launch internet TV by end of year
While the PlayStation 4 continues to sell like black, plastic hotcakes, not all of Sony's business divisions are doing so well. Thus, it shouldn't be too surprising that the company is trying to push their little slanted box's success as much as they can. Andrew House, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, told the Wall Street Journal that includes launching an internet television service by the end of 2014, as well as a service that could stream games onto mobile devices other than Sony's own Vita - though the latter has no planned release window. It's not clear if the proposed video steaming service would change release plans for Powers, the Sony Pictures Television-produced adaptation of the comic of the same name. House told the Wall Street Journal he was "absolutely focused" on creating a profitable ecosystem that would benefit Sony as a whole, but some doubt how far the PS4 can carry such a burden. The Wall Street Journal reports that Merrill Lynch analyst Eiichi Katayama said that, while games can be a source of stable income, "for a company with such diversified income streams as Sony, it would be wrong to portray games as a business that could support the company alone." [Image: Sony]
Sony to 'welcome back' Wii owners with PS4 remakes
Sony is positioning the PlayStation 4 to capture a returning audience who skipped the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in favor of the Nintendo Wii during the previous console generation, Sony Computer Entertainment president Andrew House told Eurogamer this week. "Our big opportunity is to welcome back an audience much earlier in the lifecycle that possibly bought into the Wii previously," House said. "[O]ur consumer data suggests some of those people are already coming in now and that's what's contributing to the really great sales we've had." Sony plans to introduce the returning audience to a slate of remastered and rereleased games from the last console generation, starting with this month's launch of The Last of Us Remastered for the PlayStation 4. Sony's PlayStation Now service will also offer a number of streamed classics upon its launch. "I hesitate to say this because I know committed gamers may roll their eyes about it," House admits, "but there's an opportunity with some of the remastering or re-imagining from PS3 franchises that will potentially find an audience that hasn't played them in the previous generation because they skipped that generation." House continued: "That bodes well for us as a platform, but it bodes well for developers and publishers as well. I've always looked with envy at the movie industry about what a great job they're able to do with taking content and making it work. Disney is the best example of this, right, of taking classic content and reintroducing it to audiences over time." [Image: Naughty Dog]
Sony heads dish on the PS4's famous E3 debut
The hour-long interview featuring Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House revealing how Sony strategically changed its E3 script to stray from Microsoft's DRM direction is now online. The video, from last week's Develop Conference in Brighton, also features PS4 architect Mark Cerny, and both Sony bigwigs discuss the brand's past and future.
White PlayStation 4 bundle debuts alongside Destiny [Update: $449]
When Destiny first appears on the PlayStation 4 on September 9 it will be available both as a standalone game, and in a special bundle with an exclusive "glacier white" console. According to Andrew House, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., this special version of the PlayStation 4 will feature a 500GB hard drive, a "glacier white" DualShock 4 controller, a copy of Destiny and a 30-day PlayStation Plus voucher. Notably lacking from House's revelation was a price point for the bundle. Update: Sony sent along further information on the bundle, which will cost $449 (439 euros). Alternatively, European buyers can pick up the glacier white PS4 alone for 399 euros. Glacier white and "urban camouflage" versions of the DualShock 4 controller will be available for $59 (59 euros).
PlayStation 4 supply won't catch up to demand until summer
For those wanting a PlayStation 4 for new games like neon superhero party Infamous: Second Son or the upcoming VR helmet Project Morpheus, be warned: PS4s will likely be in limited supply until summer 2014. According to Sony, PlayStation 4 won't catch up to demand until after E3 2014. Andrew House, Sony Computer Entertainment president and CEO, spoke with The Wall Street Journal at GDC 2014 about keeping up with PS4 demand during a post-release period when interest in the console remains high. "We're struggling to keep up with demand," said House. "Conservatively, as we get into the early summer months, we'll be closer to a full supply situation." As of the first week of March, Sony had sold 6 million PlayStation 4s worldwide. While the US and Europe account for the bulk of those sales and thus the bulk of retail demand for the machine, Sony is still releasing PS4 in new territories on schedule. Supply constraints did not affect PS4's Japanese release in February.
Sony 'very encouraged' by Western response to Vita TV
Sony is "very encouraged" by the Western response to its Vita TV, the device that will be capable of playing Vita games and streaming PS4 games, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House told Eurogamer on Friday. The Vita TV is currently only planned for release in Japan on November 14, with later releases reaching China and South Korea. House explained that Sony is launching the Vita TV in Japan first because "there is no existing competitor in the region for the device, whereas streaming media boxes in the West are more commonplace." In a separate interview, Sony Japan executive Masayasu Ito noted that the company would have to "watch the environment and identify what other services are available" before they decide to launch the Vita TV in the US or Europe. Until Sony makes their decision, you can take the pre-emptive route and see which Vita games are planned to be supported by the Vita TV. If it remains in Asia for eternity, however, well... there's always the Super Game Boy.
Sony: PS4 costs are 'much, much smaller' than PS3
Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House said the company "will not generate anything like the losses we did for the PlayStation 3" in regards to its forthcoming PS4 launch, Bloomberg reported. Sony lost more than $3.5 billion in 2007 and 2008 thanks to the PS3's initial cost; it launched in November 2006 for $599 and didn't become profitable until late 2011. Even after the company cut manufacturing costs with the introduction of the slim model, it still lost roughly $40 per system as of December 2009. Sony's plan this time around involves lower development costs at the outset. "The amount of investment is much, much smaller," Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato said, pointing to Sony's PC-like design decisions for the PS4. The system was announced in February, and will hit retail shelves this holiday season for $399.
Sony Network Entertainment president Tim Schaaff retires, House to fill in
Tim Schaaff, president of Sony Network Entertainment, will retire on December 31, to be replaced by Andrew House, Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. House will keep his position with SCEI, and Schaff will become an external director on the SNEI board of directors.The SNEI president manages online services, and Schaaff was president during the 2011 PSN hack. He appeared before Congress to present Sony's security plans at the height of that particular scandal. House became group CEO of SCEI in September 2011 when Kazuo Hirai left that position for a promotion to chairman."Under the leadership of Kaz, and Sir Howard Stringer before him, Sony gave me tremendous support to build a global team to coordinate and lead the company's network service business," Schaaff says. "Together we created something of significant value that will be an important part of Sony's future. I'm grateful to have had this unique opportunity, proud of the commitment my team has demonstrated, and encouraged about Sony's prospects in this strategic area."
Sony's House: Gaikai expansion to other Sony platforms 'absolutely' possible
Assuming it successfully clears all of the regulatory hurdles that govern these types of deals, Sony's $380 million acquisition of Gaikai (and the mysterious cloud gaming service borne from said purchase) may eventually benefit the electronics megalith's non-dedicated-yet-gaming-capable devices like cell phones, internet-connected televisions and Blu-Ray players, waffle irons, etc.Migrating Gaikai's capabilities to those devices is "absolutely within the frame," according to Sony Computer Entertainment president/CEO Andrew House, speaking with the Wall Street Journal. "It's recognition on Sony's part that the cloud and cloud streaming technologies are going to have profound and possibly a very positive impact on not only our game business, but also in the way our consumers interact with and obtain content in general."Of course, the world still has no idea what this partnership actually means in practical terms, but its nice to know that we may soon have a Blu-Ray player capable of playing modern video games. Oh wait.
Kaz Hirai drops some titles at Sony, still president
One morning, Sony president and CEO Kaz Hirai woke up and said, "I probably have too many titles." Beyond being the president and CEO of Sony Corporation (the umbrella parent company of PlayStation, Bravia, and many other Sony brands), Hirai is also "representative director" and "chairman" – until today, that is. Hirai is relinquishing his responsibilities and titles for both his positions as representative director and chairman of Sony Corp.Hirai is dropping both titles and responsibility in today's move, only remaining on Sony's board in a "part-time capacity." He became president and CEO earlier this year, taking over former CEO Howard Stringer's spot in early February. Sony Computer Entertainment president Andrew House is taking over the vacated chairman position, effective this month, and former Sony Corp. head Howard Stringer is also exiting his board seat.In case the bizarre-looking hierarchy isn't clear enough, this means that Andrew House – the guy who runs the PlayStation brand – is the head of Sony Corp.'s board, followed by eight Japan-based Sony Corp. employees. One of those is his boss, Kaz Hirai. Yup.
Too soon: No plans for next PlayStation at E3, Hirai says
Kaz Hirai, Sony's... um, let's just call him "Mega EXEC" for now, said the company will not announce the PlayStation 4 at this year's E3. The Wall Street Journal reports Hirai is sticking to the 10-year life cycle for the PlayStation 3 and currently sees no need to replace it. "Andy (House) is absolutely right in that we are not making any announcements at E3," Hirai said at a CES roundtable with press, referring to statements made by Andrew House that there's no PS4 plan for E3. Meanwhile, over at the other console manufacturers: Whispers of an Xbox tease at CES never occurred, with current chatter of the next console's details being "rumor and speculation." Nintendo will certainly go big at E3 this year with the Wii U, after revealing the hardware at the prior show, and getting ready for the console's launch later this year.
Hirai promoted to Chairman of SCEI, House becomes CEO
Just one day after announcing a new board member, Sony revealed a bit more corporate shuffling, this time at Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Kazuo Hirai, formerly President and Group CEO (and chief apologizer), has been promoted to Chairman, effective September 1. SCEE president Andrew House will take over as Group CEO of SCEI, with SCEE Executive Vice President Jim Ryan taking over his old job at SCEE. While this may seem like an inopportune time to reward executives with promotions, the shifts were prompted by the retirement of current Chairman Akira Sato effective August 31. Also retiring: Ken Kutaragi, who left his role as Honorary Chairman of SCEI yesterday, presumably finding the honorary demands of the position too honorarily strenuous. He will remain at Sony Corporation as "senior technology advisor."
Kaz Hirai to become Sony Computer Entertainment Chairman, leave Andrew House with tough CEO gig
When you've had to deal out as many public apologies as Sony has had to perform over its protracted PSN hacking saga, the typical expectation is that someone somewhere will be getting fired or "reshuffled" into a new post. No firings at PlayStation headquarters, however our old pal Kaz Hirai is getting a new position as Sony Computer Entertainment Chairman, with Andrew House succeeding him in the CEO hot seat. Mr. House was previously Sony's PlayStation chief in Europe, so he's simply stepping up to be responsible for the company's global operations, but Kaz's new duties are less clearly defined. Both changes will go into effect on September 1st, a day after current Chairman Akira Sato retires, giving both Kaz and Andrew a little time to get accustomed to their new(ish) surroundings before tackling Sony's massively important PS Vita launch at the tail end of the year.
Sony: every NGP game will be available to download, some might not even make it to physical release
We're filling the time between now and the NGP's holiday season release the best way we know how: by hunting down yet more information about it. Andrew House, the man in charge of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, has delivered the latest tidbit in an interview with MCV, where he states unequivocally that every game on the next PlayStation Portable will be available to buy as a download. Notably, he also expresses Sony's desire to have simultaneous distribution in both digital and physical channels, but that sounds a lot less concrete than his promise that every game will be downloadable. Digital-only games also figure prominently in Andrew's vision of the NGP's future, as he expects them to diversify choice for consumers alongside the big time titles like Uncharted. To learn more about Sony's replacement of UMDs with flash memory and the reasoning behind the PlayStation Suite, follow the source link below for the full interview.
NGP games will be downloadable day-and-date with retail releases
SCEA hasn't managed to deliver all PSP UMD releases digitally -- let alone simultaneously with retail -- and even said the likelihood of making such parity would be several years off. That doesn't appear to be the case with PSP's sucessor, the NGP, based on comments made by SCEE president Andrew House. "One thing we learnt from PSP, is that we want to have simultaneous delivery in digital and physical for NGP," House told MCV. "Just to clarify that, all games that appear physically will be made available digitally." While that's certainly positive news, we're still waiting on word about Sony filling in the gaps on downloadable PSP back-catalog games -- which will run on the NGP, some with patched-in support for the handheld's second analog stick. Then there's the matter of the system's proprietary flash storage media, needed to store downloaded games, being a bit fuzzy. In short: Sony still has a lot to explain about its powerful new portable.
Sony says NGP will be 'affordable,' won't cost $599, WiFi-only version also coming
We had quite the interview with Sony's Jack Tretton, but we certainly didn't corner the market on hot new NGP details -- Eurogamer and Game Informer quizzed the company's Andrew House and Shuhei Yoshida, respectively, and came out with some important tidbits about the quad-core gaming handheld, particularly regarding pricing. Though Tretton seemed to suggest we'll see a price somewhere northward of the Nintendo 3DS's $250, Yoshida was quoted as saying "It's not going to be $599," laughing off the idea that the system would cost as much as the PlayStation 3's infamous appraisal at launch, and House said that Sony "will shoot for an affordable price that's appropriate for the handheld gaming space." While none were willing to cough up a real ballpark estimate, the SCEE president revealed one way that the cost might come down: pushing out a lesser model, a strategy we've seen before. House said that while all devices come with WiFi, "a separate SKU will have 3G," making us wonder which of the handheld's other groundbreaking features might carry a premium. After all, OLED screens don't come cheap. Find the rest of Eurogamer's excellent interview (including a bit about how Sony will prioritize downloadable content over physical media) at our source link.
Sony 'studied the possibility' of 3D in NGP, decided against it
We've covered an awful lot of Sony news over the last 15 or so hours -- 23 posts thus far and counting, including this one -- and not once did the company bring up its 3D efforts. The entire NGP announcement has remained mysteriously devoid of one of Sony's biggest talking points of 2010, and Sony Europe head Andrew House has an explanation for why that is. "We view 3D as having the greatest potential, in the near term, in what I would call a dedicated entertainment environment," he told Eurogamer. House continued, "That's in the home, around the television, and where it's a shared experience. I think that's really important." A statement from Sony clarified that, "In the development process, we had studied the possibility of introducing stereoscopic 3D feature to NGP, but decided not to install it." House added to that, needling Sony's handheld gaming competition a bit in the process. "We struggle a little bit to see how that 3D, shared experience translates to portable devices as they currently stand." Perhaps he was holding the 3DS at a weird angle? We can't be sure.
NGP battery life likely comparable to PSP
A 1UP report quotes Sony head of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida saying that the NGP handheld will have "about the same [battery life] as the original PSP." The PSP's battery life varies considerably from around 3 hours if the UMD disc drive was whirring away, to much longer if played off flash storage. Sony's official estimate for average PSP operation time is 3-5 hours. Meanwhile, Eurogamer has Sony Europe honcho Andrew House saying the device will have a "good, solid battery life because of two factors." The dual delights of life extension are apparently the card-based media (instead of UMD, which requires moving parts) and the OLED screen. Those potential power savers are joined by energy-sapping features like a four-core CPU, 3G, and other factors, helping explain the PSP-like battery life.
Sony wants NGP hardware to be profitable and affordable
The more responsible gaming hardware enthusiasts among you have probably reserved your excitement over the recently announced NGP until you learn the device's ever-important launch price. Given the impressive specs of the handheld -- as well as Sony's infamous tendency to overcharge for its new gaming hardware at launch -- we wouldn't blame you for worrying. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss Andrew House recently provided Eurogamer with the first potential hints about the console's MSRP, saying, "I can't put a ballpark on it in terms of figures, but what I would say is that we will shoot for an affordable price that's appropriate for the handheld gaming space." However, Sony's not going to be giving the things away; House also shot down a Eurogamer source who claimed Sony would be selling the device at a loss. House explained, "we would want to have our hardware be profitable, in addition to our software," later adding, "We've experienced both sides and we know which one we like to be on!" That seems like a tricky balancing act: How exactly is Sony planning on introducing new (assumedly high-investment) technology at an affordable consumer price point and still hope for the NGP to remain profitable? Wizardry? Alchemy? Both? As far as a firm number, Game Informer was the only outlet able to get anything out of Sony's biggest wigs -- when GI brought up the enormous launch price of the PS3, Sony Computer Entertainment president of worldwide studios Shu Yoshida laughed, and replied, "It's not going to be $599." We're glad events unfolded in that order -- had he said "It's not going to be $599," then laughed maniacally, we would have started to get really nervous.
