Kaz Hirai Interview May 2008

Kikizo: One of the things that was most interesting to me just then from a marketing perspective is the very clear alignment that you guys are looking to do with the music industry and especially the cult stuff like unsigned bands. I mean Microsoft has won all the core gamers and now needs to expand - is alignment with cool music something that is intentional for this broadening strategy, or is there another reason?

Hirai: Well I think that the strength of the PlayStation business has always been to try and reach out and tap into different markets, and I think we've been very successful, even dating back to the original PlayStation. We certainly did that with PlayStation 2 and PSP as well. And I think it's a natural way of expanding our demographic, and to appealing to the other parts of entertainment, which are motion pictures and the music industry, and try to incorporate some of the things that they bring to the table. It also allows us to really send a message very clearly that we're all about games, but we don't start and end with just games. And I think we mentioned as well that we're all about entertainment in general, with games obviously as the core - but music should be a part of it, and motion pictures and video content should be a part of it as well.

Kikizo: Sure. Because I think the message was a little bit confused, before you took over and repositioned what the key point of the PS3 is supposed to be. I am glad that you cleared that up quickly when you took over.

Hirai: And I'll say this until all the ducks and all the other farm animals come home! It's first and foremost a video games console. But it does a lot more. But I think that message was received loud and clear, and we've made great strides in proving that, with all the great games that are coming out. But as I said before, I don't want it to end there, because I think it can do a lot more. And that I think basically is a good thing for the consumer, in that they'll buy it primarily to play fantastic games in a HD environment, but there's more that they can do with the PlayStation 3.

Kikizo: Well I am personally very convinced about the line-up, not just in terms of software but also the other functionality that the machine can do [Play TV, movie collaboration, content creation and upload, community sharing, PSP interactivity].

Hirai: But I think that when you try to pile too much on at the same time or at the beginning then I think people do start to get confused.

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