I was walking around, and I noticed the hardcore gamers were running around screaming. “What is the cause of this distemper?” I asked. Frothing at the mouth, one hardcore pointed and said, “The PlayStation 4! The PlayStation 4!” He grabbed my shoulders and intensely said, “Sony’s going casual…” Then he ran around in circles screaming.
This story seems to be the source of the hardcore panic. It is from SCEE Vice President Armstrong:
“It’s hard to say right now.I do not think we’ll have a console with a lot better graphics than the PS3 currently offered. I believe the future will be to offer consumers better and more accessible experience. The aim will be to make more people enter the world of video games and try to design titles for women.”
We’ll have to wait to see the execution of this. It could either be ‘birdman’ casual, or be in the direction of the Wii. This is the correct strategy for Sony to go.
The PS3 overshot the market (this is an understatement). A PS4, by definition, cannot be much ‘better’ graphically than the PS3 and be released at an affordable price. Only if the PS4 launched at $599 and Sony lost tons of money with each PS4, only then could the PS4 be substantially advanced over the PS3 in terms of graphics and processor speed. But we all know why Sony won’t go that approach again.
The significant difference between the Wii audience and other consoles is women. Show me a best selling Wii game, and I will show you women. Wii Sports? Women. Wii Fit? Women. Super Mario Brothers 5? Women. Mario Kart Wii? Women. I do not like the idea of segmenting gamers into different boxes which people mislabel as ‘demographics’. But this customer known as WOMAN is uniquely different than the more typical gamer known as MAN. Game consoles didn’t use to be just for men. In the Atari Era, women were always there. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were favorite games for women. It was when arcade games began appealing to women that we got the Golden Age of the Arcade.
When the Wii was designed, Nintendo focused on what they perceived to be the biggest barrier: mom. Mom controlled the living room. So the Wii was designed largely to get past that woman barrier.
Sony’s move with the PlayStation 4 for women can go either two ways. If Sony goes the Old School route in an Atari-esque way, Sony could become extremely successful. But it is more probable that Sony will go the ‘Birdman’ route and see women as ‘dumb casuals’, as a ‘demographic group’, as ‘space aliens’.
I expect PlayStation 4 will not be called the PlayStation 4. It will have its own unique brand name.
PlayStation 3 is also such a computer. The PlayStation 4 would have to be a non-PC. No ‘hardware upgrades’. It needs to be very simple and hearken to arcade roots, not PC roots.
The hardcore need to settle down. It is too early to say whether the PlayStation 4 has gone ‘birdman’ “casual”. While this is a very big if: if Sony does things correctly, PlayStation 4 could be a reincarnation of the Atari.
