Gara: Sony UK suffering from PS2 hangover

New SCE UK boss Fergal Gara has admitted that the business will have to sharpen up under his stewardship.

What I find at SCE is that we’ve lots of passionate and committed people. But there’s definitely an opportunity to up the pace of our competitiveness,” Gara told MCV.

We still have a bit of a hangover – at least in the UK company – from the days of being market dominant. I don’t think we are as sharp as we can be. There’s room for improvement there.

So it’s not change everything, but it is turn up the dial, and learn to compete as I have experience doing myself.”

Gara referred to his time in the cut-throat world of supermarkets, and how he intends to carry some of that work ethic over to Sony.

The UK retail environment is renowned for being the most competitive in the world. And if you take the supermarket end of that, that’s as blood bath as you can get,” he added.

One thing you gain from that market is a competitiveness; you have to have it, plus an immediacy. You don’t hang around and wait to react. I am used to daily numbers – if not hourly numbers – so if we were launching a big gaming title we would be on top of the numbers by the hour.

We’d be the first in with a re-order. And that’s really exciting.”

Read the full interview with Gara in this week’s issue of MCV or on the website tomorrow.