Microsoft en Sony, ze zijn als water en vuur. Tenminste, zo lijkt het tijdens de grootste consolewar van onze tijd. Toch is er niet alleen sprake van kwaad bloed tussen de twee bedrijven. Phil Spencer, corporate vice president bij Microsoft Studios gaf Sony complimenten voor de aanpak van de PlayStation 4 en de strategie rondom haar franchises.
Sony – and I’m focused on first-party because of what I do – I really respect their focus on investing in new things and creative things, what they’ve done with David Cage and Quantic Dream around Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain. They stay committed to franchises even if they don’t sell 10 million units, they’ll stay committed to things.
I think that long-term commitment to franchises is important, where it’s easy to pull off the Band-Aid and move onto the next thing [if it doesn’t sell]. I respect their stick-to-it-iveness. I’ll say, they’ve done a nice job with PS4… When I think about their announcement, their clear focus on a customer, leading with the value proposition of what they’re trying to do, staying true to a vision, I think they’ve done a nice job in how they defined the PS4.
They have such iconic stories and this will seem somewhat random, but when we go back and do something like Killer Instinct, a little bit of the history of your franchise can actually be important part of people feeling connected. Obviously the history of Killer Instinct isn’t a history on Xbox, but it’s Rare’s history and I think the reaction when we announced it on-stage at E3 showed that playing to the people’s heart, I think Nintendo does that as well as anybody in terms of hitting the franchises and having huge success with them.
