Talk Playstation 3 News

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe have confirmed that David Reeves has called it a day as President. Reeves will be replaced by Andrew House. Reeves has been with the company since 1995 and plans to leave on the 30th of April 2009.

Click through for the full press release.

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David Reeves talked to The Guardian about the PlayStation business. As expected he sees the PlayStation branch to have it hard but it will bounce back strongly in the long-term.

It’s like Ali v Foreman – go eight or nine rounds and let him punch himself out. We’re still standing, we’re still profitable and there’s a lot of fight in us. I don’t say we will land a knock-out blow, but we’re there and we’re fighting

While keeping development on reducing PS3 component costs is a main focus the question about a price reduction keeps popping up every time.

If we’d cut the price, lost another billion dollars, we might have had a huge Christmas but it would have been followed by a huge loss. The company could have thought: ‘Hmm, I’m not sure I want to be in this business at all.’ But we’ve shown Sony this is still a good business to have

Admittedly, in the current climate, more people will go for the lower price, but we still make a profit and that is our objective

Reeves expects the PS3, to enter more homes as a home entertainment system by introducing more ‘non-game apps’.

We hope that he means the PlayStation Video Store which will become available to Europe before then year ends.

Source

What every happens in the next few years, the PlayStation 3 will remain the most expensive console in the current generation.

David Reeves said in an exclusive interview with Eurogamer.net that there are no plans to reduce the price of the PS3 in the current economic downturn.

I’m not saying there are going to be any price cuts at all in the short term or the medium term. I’m not saying we don’t need to do it – we are expensive. It is possible that as the cost [of manufacturing] comes down, we will be able to do it

Despite the PS3 sales being down in the last quarter of 2008, he doesn’t believe the console has reached it’s sales peak. They were able to make a profit with the current business model even during these hard months.

But we’re protecting ourselves with a very hard shell to get through the next one or two years of an economic situation. If you’re experienced, you know you have to go into that mode – it’s like being an armadillo. You have to be hard, and then you will come out when the sun comes out

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Shuhei Yoshida says this year will be the year for big exclusive titles for the PlayStation 3. Some of them being Killzone 2, MAG, God of War 3, and the list goes on. He also says there are other exclusive titles that haven’t even been announced yet. Hopefully they will be unveiled during GDC or E3. Nothing much has been said in the PSP front, except that we will see some new innovations for the handheld. 

In an interview with David Reeves, he also says this year will be a great year for the PlayStation 3. What he expects out of 2009, is a goal to start making profits off of the console. When they hit their achievement, then they can move onward. He mentions about the video and music service to release in PAL regions by year’s end. 

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Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president David Reeves has revealed that Sony will not be cutting jobs in the Playstation division despite the current economy.

We’re certainly not planning to cut back in personnel at all. Half of our personnel are in the development of the games, that’s an investment. We’re not scaling down at all,

To my knowledge, no one is cutting back on the R&D side of the projects we’re working on now. Sony live and die on the innovative projects they bring out.

In our division we’re still continuing to develop the products which we put in our mid-range plan six months ago, one year ago.

As long as we plan prudently, I think we will be fine. We have a good business model. People will continue to buy the hardware, continue to buy the software. I’m convinced of it.

It’s not recession proof. I don’t think any industry is and eventually we may see a downturn. For the moment, we’re seeing our sales of both hardware and software are hitting projects in most countries in Europe.

Looks like the staff working in the Playstation department are pretty safe.

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Either David Reeves is a pretty bad actor or he’s the next guy will who be fired. The latest rumours suggest that Sony is already working on a PSP 2 which was previously denied by the SCEE President.

Now rumours are spreading again about the Playstation 4 and his response on that was

I’m not even sure if that’s being considered, It’s certainly nothing I can talk about. I have absolutely no knowledge of it whatsoever. Not even sure it’s being planned.

With a claimed lifespan of 10 years for the Playstation 3, starting now for a possible release in 2010-2012 of the PS4, it’s becoming more likely as Microsoft is already starting a buzz for their next console. By that time Microsoft will be able to pick up from the popularity of the ever growing Blu-ray sales and run away with it.

Will Sony have to reconsider their life span for the Playstation 3 or will they let the competition get a head start and believe it the PS3’s true power.

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With concepts of a possible PSP 2 hitting the web since the PSP-2000 and the lately ‘leaked’ info about a possible manufacturer, Sony still denies their working on a PSP 2.

No, there are currently no plans for a PSP2. I go to Tokyo quite a lot and no one has referred to it – I think they have their hands full at the moment

Sony’s main focus is to keep improving the PSP with help of the latest version of the PSP-3000 which David Reeves feels still needs to really hit the market. One way is to stimulate the PSP (sales and attention) through methods like a dedicated PSP version of the PlayStation Store for downloadable titles.

Nintendo has been doing this well with the transition from the DS to the DS lite and the now currently flagship DSi. And Mr Reeves hopes the PSP can do the same.

But it has it’s Kryptonite and that is developer dedication.

Its weakness, however, is its software. And that’s because developers, when it comes to placing their bets, have to choose PS3 and 360, then Wii, then DS, maybe even PS2 before PSP. It’s the same at our internal studios, where the focus has been on PS3.

We still believe in the PSP, not because it’s a Playstation product but the innovating technology it brings between the PS3 and the PSP.

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Despite the Xbox 360 creating great sales number these last few months, David Reeves is not worried. In the PAL area’s Playstation managed to still outsell the Xbox 360 by 300,000 units.

He said

We’re relying on the fact that the industry will keep growing and while we might have a comparatively smaller share of the market we will have higher sales. PS3 is tracking where PS2 was at the same point in its life. The value added strategy will continue for some years to come. The PS3 is already ahead of Microsoft’s rival.

SCEE how ever managed to get out of the red number after two years of losses. So their not interested in lowering the price of the PS3, like the leaked report said.

The SCEE president continued by saying,

Our strategy is very much value added, and Sony’s business model for the console isn’t designed around dropping the RRP every time a manufacturing cost saving has been found.
When we came into the industry we started at zero. And we had to have a model that offered price elasticity. As soon as we got the manufacturing price down on PSOne we lowered the price. Same with PS2. But we’re not doing that on PS3 – that’s not the model, even if people are expecting it.

We can however expect a more aggressive approach once they have reached the break-even point, which he hopes is next year.

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SCEE President David Reeves talked to MCUK revealing some details.

The Limited 160GB SKU that will be released in Europe on October 31st will be see as a test device. After being forwarded messages about people wanting 500GB SKU’s but also some not being able to fill up 80GB units, they will use the 160GB SKU as market tool to measure the use of higher HDD capacity with their consumers.
This will really start playing an important role the moment PlayTV and an EU Playstation Video Store are available.

On other news he also said

There is no new news, and it’s completely on track. The closed beta has just ended and the open beta will launch in Autumn. Now when that will be announced, I’m not actually sure – we just didn’t have anything new to announce here. But it’s all on track and we have lots of third parties on board.

The closed beta ended? Does this mean that no invites are being send out until the open beta gets out or do they keep sending them?

But the good news is they have found more third parties to support HOME, hopefully they won’t charge us (too much) to use some features.

Source, via PSU1, 2

Over at Gamesindustry.biz some doubt was cast on which bundles the UK might be receiving.
David Reeves announced at Leipzig that Sony would be releasing 2 new bundles for the PSP.

These are the silver PSP-3000 plus Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, and black PSP-3000 plus 4GB Memory Stick. The United Kingdom won’t be getting these lovely bundles apparently. A yet to be announced bundle will probably take these two’s place as the price of GBP 149.99 price and release dat of 17th October are not a standalone PSP-3000.
The PSP-3000 will not be sold separately in the UK for the next few months after it’s release

The rest of Europe can get a hold of the Ratchet and Clank pack on October 15th and a still to be named date in november for the 4GB pack. You can count for a bundle price around EUR 199.

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In an interview at gamesindustry.biz with David Reeves, he believes that exclusives with publishers are a  ”thing of the past,” but exclusive with developers is something that “may work.” 

“But for developers, and you could take someone like Quantic Dream for example – a great game, it takes a lot of time to develop, they need a little bit of funding, external development. In exchange, it’s exclusive – that works. So exclusivity possibly with developers is more likely that exclusivity with publishers.”

David Reeves also hinted things which may be announced at TGS. At TGS software related is going to be the theme for Sony’s Press Conference. 

Source

Full Interview

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss David Reeves has revealed that getting things last (Europe get most things last like games and hardware) is an advantage.

“People say, ‘Well, why do we always get things last? Why can’t we say things?’ Well, I’ve said this many times before: sometimes it’s an advantage to be last in Europe, you know, when everything’s ironed out.”

“This time, we do have things to say in the European [market]. We have the music service, and we’re doing great things on SingStar and there’s more to come. These are global announcements.”

“They recognize that the show’s in Europe, whether it’s in Leipzig, Cologne or London: we can do the announcements wherever. So they said to us in Tokyo, ‘Do you want to do it here?’ And we said, ‘Yeah, we’d love to do it here.’”

Europe don’t mind waiting a few weeks but waiting months on end is quite dissapointing. Hopefully now, this will be sorted for Europe.

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Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss David Reeves has revealed that the new 160GB Playstation 3 will be in limited supply when it launches in Europe in November.

David Reeves has been speaking with uk.playstation.com about the new 160GB model and said that the machine will be in limited supply. This is what he has to say.

So what we’re going to do at the start of November is releasing a 160GB Limited Edition PS3. The configuration is exactly the same as the 80GB model, with double the size of the hard drive. It’s a limited amount and we want to see what the reaction of consumers is.

If your looking into getting the new 160GB model especially for Christmas we suggest pre-ordering one because we think it will be a sell out.

Source via D-PAD.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss David Reeves has said that all the Playstation Network titles announced during the E3 2008 Press Conference will come to PAL territories.

“We are making every effort to make these day and date with the US releases, but please appreciate that we have not one language, we have 13 languages and 27 stores – it takes a while to get these totally localised and uploaded,”

So its not all that bad for Europe, David is working really hard to make this happen.

Source.

If your wondering where Wipeout HD is… it has been delayed because of technical issues. David Reeves, Boss of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has said:

“There is a specific technical problem with WipEout that we have to solve. I can’t go into details but it is a really, really tricky technical problem that no region has been able to solve at the moment,”

“I think it will come out before the end of the year but it is something that was just very difficult to get to grips with.”

For those that were wondering and waiting for this game. Looks like you will have to play Fatal Inertia Ex for the time being, check out the screenshots for it.

Fatal Inertia Ex

Fatal Inertia Ex Screenshots.

16 Photos

 

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