Although the PS3 had a bit of a rocky start, 2009 was a big year for the console with the release of the Slim model. SCEA senior VP of publisher relations Rob Dyer believes the PS3 is “better for publishers than 360,” and the price cut had a “huge impact” on Sony’s sales. With that, Dyer took some shots at Microsoft and its Xbox 360.
“They had a year’s head start against us, so we’ve been playing catch-up ball,” he explained. “Before the price cut, they had a two-to-one advantage; if you were a third-party publisher looking at the index, you should have been selling twice the number of units on the 360 as you would on the PS3.”
Dyer also criticized Microsoft’s first-party labels, saying they don’t have enough strong labels or an internal development studio.
“They have very few first-party studios at Microsoft. Bungie’s next Halo is the last one, Rare rarely puts out anything, you’ve got Peter Molyneux with his Fable stuff…but they don’t have first-party development studios inside at Redmond or anywhere for that matter,” he added.
“We do,” he countered. “So rather than putting their money behind that, they’ve been going to Epic or Valve or BioWare to do what they did with Mass Effect, and that’s where they throw their dollars.
He concluded by saying, “Candidly, we’re not going to compete with Microsoft on that front, but what we have is a global business here. Our global business is bigger than 360’s and will continue to get bigger than 360, and people are seeing that. We passed them in Europe and they don’t even exist in Japan, and we’re going to catch them and pass them here in the U.S. as well.”