MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
PlayStation boss Andrew House has questioned the wisdom of Microsoft’s decision to bring the Xbox Scorpio to its E3 conference some year and a half before release.
I was surprised by the step of announcing something over a year ahead of time,” he told The Guardian. The dynamics of the tech industry are such that there’s a much heavier emphasis on immediate gratification than there was. A lot of that is to do with how Apple has very cleverly and elegantly managed the ‘available now’ approach.
We experienced this ourselves, when, in 2013, very much in line with our previous strategies, we announced a concept and a name for PlayStation 4, and everyone said ‘where’s the box? How dare you?!’ That was the point we realised, well, we hadn’t changed but the world around us had.”
It was this latter experience that informed on Sony’s decision to not include PS4 Neo in its E3 presentation, despite officially announcing it some days before.
The point of confirming the existence of PlayStation 4 Neo and the bare bones of the plan last week was about not disappointing the fan base who would obviously come to E3 with high expectations of all kinds of announcements,” he added.
And from past experience, the worst thing you can do is disappoint and pull the rug away from people. That’s why we went out last week and said, yes, it does exist but don’t expect to see it at E3. I think it was the right thing to do.
In terms of the right time to talk about Neo, just like every other hardware launch, VR being a good example, it’s when you’ve got a full range of experiences that you can showcase to say this is why this product’s great and that’s why we’re offering it. And that time is not right now.”
