Kaz Hirai is still confident that the PlayStation 3 will eventually win the consoles’ battle and thinks that developers seeking to build multiplatform games should start with the PlayStation 3 first.
In an interview with Japanese website ITMedia +D Games, Sony Computer Entertainment president Kaz Hirai said that the noticeable tendency to develop multiplatform games should “force” game designers and programmers to start with the PS3 in their endeavor, due to the console’s prowess and the presence of the Blu Ray.
Hirai said: “When you consider the cost of developing on today’s platforms, I think it’s a logical progression that they’re all thinking of making their games cross-platform.”
“But I think it’s important that third parties use the unique characteristics of the platform to add a little bit of extra flavour to their games. For example, with the PS3, you’ve got the Sixaxis controller, or you could utilise the extra capacity provided by Blu-ray to add more levels, put on interviews with the developers or have your videos able to play in 1080p. I think it’s really important that we talk with third party developers so that they can have these interesting extras in the PlayStation 3 version.”
Since the interview was taken by a Japanese site, a large part of it was focused on the relationship between the gaming landscape there and the PS3, with the interviewers “accusing” the lack of home ground-crafted exclusives for Sony’s rig. Hirai pointed out that the company’s commitment of having localized quality games means that first party titles will not be “Westernized” just because the Western market is larger.
“There are probably people who think that, looking at the output of Worldwide Studios, there are fewer and fewer Japan-developed ‘Japanese style’ titles coming out.”
But we definitely don’t have the intention of just bringing Western games into Japan. We will keep on steadily releasing titles that are developed in Japan and designed to appeal to all Japanese users.”
“Speaking generally, it’s obviously much better business sense to have games that, even if they’re developed in Japan and designed for Japanese users, will be received in the same way by Western gamers.”
“While I can’t give an accurate number here, there are a number of games which are being developed with the viewpoint of making the game consciously for the Japanese market but also wanting it to sell well in the West,” he said.
Hirai also underlined that the reason for which Sony has a Japan-based studio is that the company wants to have games specifically addressing the Japanese market:
“Sony Worldwide Studios has three pillars – Europe, America and Japan – and seeing as within that the Japan Studio only makes games in Japan, it’s natural that we would place the most emphasis on the Japanese market.
“Just because the foreign market is bigger than the domestic one, we don’t intend to take strategy of just making what would have been considered previously as ‘Western games’ and saying ‘We’ve got no choice but to do this’ to our Japanese users. If we did that, there’d be no point in having the Japan Studio.”
In a later interview with the Official PlayStation Magazine, Hirai also addressed the speculations according to which developing games for the PlayStation 3 is harder than for the other two main platforms, the PC and the Xbox 360. Surprisingly, he said that this is a good thing:
"If you look back at the commentary we received when we launched PS2, there was a lot of talk to the effect that 'It's very difficult to program for' and 'It's easier on a Dreamcast'. It's happened before," Hirai told OPM.
"If they came back and told me, 'PS3? We can do this in a heartbeat,' that would be worrying because what it is telling me is that we're not pushing the envelope from a technology standpoint."
Hirai seems to admit that PS3’s raw power is indeed harder to harness, despite the fact that opinions are split for that matter. For example, Yann Le Tensorer, the Ubisoft lead developer responsible for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, said last month that "It's not harder to develop on the PS3 than it is on the 360, it's just a different console. Developers might say it's harder because it just takes time to understand the technology, we're still early in the lifecycle."
"We need all developers to learn from the console; it was the same with the PlayStation 2. Our team is more than happy with the PlayStation 3."
Hirai confirmed in his interview with OPM that PS3’s capabilities are only starting to be understood by programmers: "The power that we've packed into PS3 will really manifest itself in software titles that come up four, five or six years down the line."
