A Chat With Phil Harrison

Next Generation sat down with Phil Harrison after the Sony keynote last week, and they discuss the PS3, the PlayStation Network, and Harrison's place in the company. From the article: "Q: Aren't retailers going to be slightly annoyed that they're selling this hardware for next-to-no margin, just so the software can ultimately be sold directly via downloads? A: I completely disagree with that. The software business for PlayStation 3 will continue to grow. PlayStation 2 has more software on it than PlayStation 1 - more units sold in more countries to a wider demographic of consumers. PlayStation 3 will continue to grow the market and will generate a bigger opportunity for everybody - retailers, developers, and publishers alike. So I do not accept your statement that retail is going to be in any way affected by this other than positively."

Comments

"The future is unevenly distributed"

[Sean0michael]

"Not everybody has broadband or will have broadband for quite a while."

Sure, but most people are going to have the Hi-Def TVs that make the blu-ray component useful. I don't have any numbers, but I would imagine more people have cable/DSL than HDTVs. That's just what I think though.

"Clearly, you are not going to use a keynote by the head of first party studios to announce the price of PlayStation 3. I don't think anybody was surprised yesterday when I neglected to include that slide in my deck."

Maybe not surprised, but disappointed certainly. While there may be smaller concerns for consumers right now, the biggest one (and one that will affect every consumer and their wallet) is the price. That little tidbit of news probably would have caused more articles, blogs, and rumors on the web than anything that was in the GDC keynote.