Steve Boxer caught up with President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Kaz Hirai at PlayStation Day. Read on for more on the man who stepped into the shoes of the ‘Father of the PlayStation’.
As President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Kaz Hirai is the big cheese at PlayStation. He took over from the legendary Ken Kutaragi, the man known as the “Father of the PlayStation” about a year ago, having previously run Sony Computer Entertainment America. Although of Japanese extraction, Hirai has spent most of his life in America, although now, he divides his time between the US and Tokyo. His keynote at the recent PlayStation Day marked the first occasion in which he has addressed the press in the UK, and Three Speech was privileged to catch up with him afterwards, and grab him for a quick interview. This is what he had to say:
Q: So here you are in the UK: is this the first time you’ve been here?
KH: I’ve been to the UK a couple of times on business, but it’s the first time I’ve been able to do a presentation and meet up with a lot of people in this kind of environment.
Q: Was it a bit of shock when Phil went to Atari?
KH: At the time, I didn’t know he was going to Atari. It was obviously a surprise when he told me he was going to move on. But, you know, it’s a small industry and he’s obviously remained in it and from his perspective, it was a great thing to move on to a new challenge. On his last day, I was in Tokyo and I called him, and said I was sad to see him go but, at the same time, I was very happy for him to take on some new challenges.
Q: The PS3 had a difficult birth. Would you say that now, the PS3 is really starting to get into its stride?
KH: I think that some of the initiatives that I put in place after I took over the job in Japan are starting to bear fruit. We talk about this all the time: the fact that we’ve repositioned the PlayStation 3 as being first and foremost a videogames console. I think that cleared up a lot of confusion in everybody’s minds – certainly people in the press as well as consumers. And if we’re saying it’s first and foremost a videogames console, we’ve got to back it up with some big games. So we’ve put some initiatives in place to make sure we have more and more titles coming out on the PlayStation 3 from both first-party studios and third-party publishers. So those things, I think, are starting to come together. It hasn’t been a year yet since Kutaragi-san left, but I think things are heading in the right direction, and I’m very happy with where we find ourselves today. But certainly, not happy to the extent that we can just kick back. There’s a lot more stuff that we need to do.
Q: What’s your policy on securing games exclusively for the PS3 from third parties? Because Phil Harrison changed the policy towards not paying for exclusives. Is that still the case?
KH: That’s something that we can re-evaluate, but it’s also something that the publishers need to make a business decision on. Ultimately, it becomes a dialogue – if it makes sense for them to go exclusive, that’s a business decision that they need to make. But generally speaking, because of the investments that publishers need to make in this round of hardware, it’s going to be more difficult for publishers to make that decision. Where we come into the picture is to have that dialogue with the third-party publishers, to say: “OK, what can we do together if it’s not exclusive that makes the PS3 version of the game more compelling for the consumers than any other version?” Let’s face it – all the games are coming out on a Blu-ray disk which has 50Gb capacity, so let’s put in some making-of content, or maybe additional levels. Also, it really becomes important for the first-party studios to really come up with some envelope-pushing, genre-defining content.
Q: You spoke about the PS3 having a 10-year shelf-life. Will that take it to the age of the diskless console, where games are distributed by downloading?
KH: I think that’s going to be a little way off. Even with PS3, today, you’re talking about games that take 14, 15Gb, even upwards of 20Gb. If you try to offer that complete game as a download, you can do that, but what is the consumer experience going to be like? You also have to realise that different countries all have broadband, but the speeds are different, and then there are some territories where there isn’t too much broadband infrastructure at this point in time. When you look at it from a worldwide business perspective, the most efficient way of delivering 50 gigabytes, say, is going to be on a disk for a while to come. That’s not to say we’re not doing the online stuff – which we are, through the PlayStation Store, but it’s basically a combination that makes the most sense for us and consumers. That’s why in some instances, we’ll offer both versions, like with Gran Turismo 5: Prologue.
Q: Are you now based in Japan rather than the States?
KH: I’m based in Japan, but I do spend time in the US every month – my family is still there. My day in Foster City starts at around 5.30pm: that’s when all the people in Tokyo shuffle into the office and phone-calls, videoconferences and emails start flying around. So I kind of do a double-shift when I’m in Foster City.
Ask him why we never recieve any answers to the real questions we ask or even the slightest hint of acknowledgement from Sony to e-mails,phone calls,letters or forum posts.
Also ask him why they are condoning developers delaying so called exclusive. platform showcasing titles which turn out to be seriously flawed and unoriginal when released.
Ask him why Europe trails all the other regions in store content, why our store has amazingly been “improved” for the worse along with the official forums.
Ask him why the EU pays more for everything to get an inferior service.
In fact you could have actually collated a load of questions from us the PS3 customers and let him answer us for once.
Comment by Ton Capone — May 29, 2008 @ 11:57 am
Kaz Hirai’s ‘Billy Idol Snarl’ is coming on well.
Perhaps there is a smell of Europe under his nose just out of camera shot?
It’s not as if Mr Hirai is new to the industry, so he should know what the media expect him to say, and how to present enough information to warrant interest without giving too much away… so don’t read too much into a lack of detail, Ton.
He probably isn’t ignoring your e-mails. He probably has never seen them.
Also, ThreeSpeech must have only just got to the PlayStation Day venue in time to play with the games in the afternoon as they didn’t report they were leaving until midway through the day… what makes you think that there would be some organisation to the process such as inviting Blog & Web Site owners/administrations/moderators to a get-together at 3Rooms to meet with a Sony Executive? No wait, that ThreeSpeech Blog entry has now been removed. Forget it was ever mentioned.
It *would* be a good idea to canvas opinion of end users of the PS3 console… perhaps an electronic mail-out to all registered PlayStation Network users with a questionnaire attached with the ‘carrot’ of entry into a prize draw to win ‘a game a month for the next 12 months’, or perhaps just a PS3-branded lanyard or key-ring, or something similar, for everybody who returned the mail with completed questions. Even arranging for one lucky winner to visit the Sony offices in the UK wouldn’t cost the earth, but the publicity generated on every Web & Blog site would mean than a larger quantity of opinions would be submitted.
However, many users will have conflicting opinions… and it may well prove too big a task to collate all the responses into something meaningful to take the PS3 forward.
PS. Does Games Journalist Steve Boxer write specifically for ThreeSpeech now (as well as for The Guardian [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/steveboxer ])? I’ve seen his articles taken from interviews with Sony representatives published a few times previously.
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — May 29, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
PS. PSN Update this week may raise some more questions…
“Super Puzzle Fighter II”
“Rayman” (PS One)
“Medievil Resurrection” (PSP)
“Army of Two” Veteran Pack [not out in the US this week, Europe sees it first!]
“Super Stardust HD” Team & Solo trailer
“Overlord Raising Hell” trailer
“Metal Gear Solid 4″ E3 trailer
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — May 29, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
Update (courtesy of TheSixthAxis.com):
PS3 Games:
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (€9,99)
PS3 Game Content:
Army of Two - Veteran Map Pack (free)
PS1 Games
Rayman (€4,99)
PSP Games
MediEvil Resurrection (€19,99)
Videos
Metal Gear Solid 4 - E3 Trailer
Overlord - Trailer
Super Stardust HD - Solo & Teamplay Trailer
Media
PixelJunk Monsters - Wallpaper
Prince of Persia - Wallpapers
PS. Another (longer) article by Steve Boxer, dated 15 May 2008:
Interview: Sony CEO Kaz Hirai talks to TechRadar
The President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment speaks to TechRadar about the future of PlayStation
[ http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/exclusive-kaz-hirai-interview-368385 ]
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — May 29, 2008 @ 12:43 pm
And why the hell is Puzzle Fighter so god damn expensive over here?!?
Comment by TheWretched — May 29, 2008 @ 12:43 pm
ha ha ha tom he has to many YES men around him, I doubt he even knows there is a problem. remember he said that the 80Gb with BC model had been released in Europe and the they werent planning on releasing the 40Gb model.
Comment by carl — May 29, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
“Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix” is ‘only’ GBP 6.99 / EUR 9.99.
If you think that’s bad… “Medievil Resurrection” [PSP] is GBP 14.99 / EUR 19.99.
You can buy it on UMD for GBP 11.48 (including GBP 1.49 postage) at Softuk.com.
You can discount another 51 pence if you are a “SoftUK Collector”.
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — May 29, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
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Pingback by Kaz Hirai interview… | GameBlews PS3, XBOX 360, Wii, PSP, DS News — May 29, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
Is He a bigger fan of rice or noodles?
rice person myself….
Comment by JohnSketch — May 29, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
OMG i am soo disapointed,, i was really expecting to see wipeout hd this week.
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US? we have money to give you just give us the product. wipeout better not be a Haze special!!!!!
Comment by manley — May 29, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
@fanpages - I was thinking the same thing regarding the invitation to the three rooms event. I remember that a “special” bloggers only event was organised. There, blogger would have had the chance to put their questions to a Sony Exec and were encouraged to “be creative” in their questioning. I think that reading the outcome from such a meeting would have been a lot more entertaining than reading the above interview (sorry Steve!).
Anyway, I too searched these pages for the three rooms event but I could only find links to information regarding the first two events (the bloggers-only one would have been number #3). I was lucky enough to be invited to #2. It’s unlike three speech to delete whole posts so I reckon it’s here somewhere.
Three speech - what happened with the three rooms event?
Comment by reakt — May 29, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
Threespeech delete entire posts all the time, escecilly when somthing bad is said about sony!
Comment by carl — May 29, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
It would be nice if journalists relayed some of the real issues regular gamers are having with Sony, the perpetual delays and lateness, the lack of features and content, the disparities between stores, the DLC region locking etc. There seems to be no communication between the users and Sony management whatsoever. Sony should be feeling out this kind of input and improving their product and service.
Comment by Matt — May 29, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
Of course it is “only” 10€… but factoring in, that it is “only” 55HKD (which is 4.53€) or that the game is over 10 years old (the “hd” stuff is a joke, if one knows the original arcade version), 10€ seems a bit steep!
Medieval is a joke, concerning the price, that’s true. Sadly, the C&C games weren’t released in Germany, or else, I would have bought them… (although I do have the Decade Pack on the PC)
Comment by TheWretched — May 29, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
hello shoddy PSN update….
obviously the poorly trained monkey has just come back from his 2 week vacation…
Comment by Mike — May 29, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
Anybody got a Japanese PSN/Store account?
“Fatal Inertia” is available as a free downloadable demo, or the full version is 30 USDs.
From PS3Fanboy.com:
“…MTV Multiplayer made it known that Fatal Inertia EX would be available by the end of the month, so don’t be surprised to see it on the American PSN Store later today. With still no concrete release date for WipEout HD, will Fatal Inertia EX tempt you into a purchase? Probably not, we suspect.”
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — May 29, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
He better get that bad look off his face before I knock it off.
Comment by Ton Capone — May 29, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
“Will that take it to the age of the diskless console?”
liking His answer to this question, think about it, no discs = no secondhand games, no trade ins, full harddrives, no manuals to read, no boxes to cuddle up to late at night…
erm… anyway, what with 200Gb blu-ray discs a reality i seriously think hard media will always be with us, possibly in a new weird format, but it’s something we need on a base level.
EGG NOODLES!
Comment by mobiletone — May 29, 2008 @ 5:12 pm
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Pingback by SCRAWL: ThreeSpeech interviews Kaz Hirai — May 30, 2008 @ 4:11 am
@18 [mobiletone]
The PS4 may well have an integral 200Gb Blu-ray writer drive so any downloads can (or must) be written out to blank media before they can be played.
Not sure if that would be cost effective enough with the price of blank Blu-ray media at today’s prices, though.
BFN,
fp.
Comment by fanpages — May 30, 2008 @ 9:31 am
[...] rozmawiając z półoficjalnym odpowiednikiem amerykańskiego PlayStation Blog, czyli europejskim threespeech przyznał, że rozważyliby z pewnością opcję opłacenia ekskluzywności tytułów od [...]
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Pingback by PS3Star.com PS3 NEWS » Blog Archive » Kaz Hirai: Sony can ‘re-evaluate’ paying for PS3 exclusives — May 30, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
[...] rozmawiając z półoficjalnym odpowiednikiem amerykańskiego PlayStation Blog, czyli europejskim threespeech przyznał, że rozważyliby z pewnością opcję opłacenia ekskluzywności tytułów od [...]
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[...] PS2-exclusive series to become multiplatform successes on Xbox 360 and PC. However, Kaz Hirai told ThreeSpeech “that’s something that we can re-evaluate.” High-profile exclusives act as [...]
Pingback by Kaz Hirai: Sony can ‘re-evaluate’ paying for PS3 exclusives | J Playstation — May 30, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
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Pingback by Hirai: discless consoles | The Best Gameing Site — May 31, 2008 @ 9:58 am
[...] Kaz let the info slide in an interview with Three Speech. When Phil Harrison joined Sony way back in the day, he enacted the policy of not paying for third [...]
Pingback by Loot Ninja » Sony May Consider Paying for Third-Party Exclusives — May 31, 2008 @ 10:00 pm
Im a huge fan of the Ace Combat Series and it use to be a PlayStation exclusive, however my question is, will Ace Combat 6 Fires Of Liberation (which is exclusive to the Xbox 360) ever arrive on the PlayStation 3 console? There has been alot of rumors of this game coming to the PS3.
Comment by Alejandro — Jun 1, 2008 @ 12:21 am
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