Tretton admits PlayStation 3 mistakes

Written by Joe Martin

December 4, 2007 | 16:49

Tags: #birthday #launch #playstation-3 #ps3 #tretton

Companies: #blu-ray #sony

The Sony PlayStation 3 just turned one year old and, while there's obviously some people who are fanboyish enough to get out there and actually throw a party, Jack Tretton wanted to celebrate a little differently. Specifically, he has admitted that a lot of things went wrong for Sony in the PlayStation 3's first year.

Speaking to GameDaily Tretton, who has been CEO of SCEA for just over a year now too, said that things could have gone a lot smoother for the PlayStation 3 - especially at launch.

"I don't think there's any question that there were missteps, but I don't think anybody is being honest with you if they say that the first year of any platform goes perfectly according to plan. I think the biggest miss for us was the launch, in that we had easily a million consumers in North America alone that wanted to get their hands on a PlayStation 3 ... and we had roughly 200,000 units to take advantage of that demand. ... I think that that was probably the biggest disappointment for the first year." Tretton admitted.

Interestingly though, Tretton said that he wasn't too bothered about the low sales at the moment and that Sony had a long-term plan to see them through.

"What we're trying to do here is ... refocus the game industry towards high-definition gaming, a real state-of-the-art, future-proof machine for the next decade. ... I think if you have that long-term perspective, while I fully admit we'd like to have sold more units, it's hardly cause for panic."

When quizzed about what he thought of Microsoft, Tretton was critical of their decision to offer gamers multiple different SKUs yet not provide free online gaming support.

"Our competition talked about the fact that they want to offer consumers a choice, but then they make it clearly apparent that if you really want to have the full gaming experience, you need to go out and invest a lot more money than you originally thought you were," Tretton said.

Hmm - that could be the most sensible thing I've heard all week, but what do you think? Is Sony going to come out on top as consoles refocus themselves, or do gamers just want more of the same? Let us know what you think in the forums.
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