Unity CEO and former EA CEO John Riccitiello spoke at the GamesBeat Summit about the console war, bluntly offering up his opinions on the war and on Sony and Microsoft.
He mentioned that the real difference between Sony and Microsoft are the ideas surrounding what a gaming console actually is. He explained how Microsoft wanted the Xbox One to be more of an all around entertainment system, which perhaps wasn’t the best approach they could have taken.
In the battle of big ideas … there was a clash of ideas that really separated Sony and Microsoft. They actually had very similar architecture that they were trying to bring to the table. But Microsoft focused … a lot on entertainment beyond gaming. Microsoft was trying to [compete against] Apple. They didn’t feel gaming was big enough to justify the pent-up desire … to have the recognition they wanted as an innovator.
Riccitiello went on to talk about how Sony took a “gamers first” approach with the PlayStation 4, which paid off in the end.
Sony just said, ‘We’ve made the best fucking game system we could’ … partly because they didn’t have the resources to do more about it. Microsoft was focused on the shot after the one they needed to make, putting the 7-ball in the corner pocket, but they missed the first shot and didn’t get another shot after it. Sony focused on the shot they needed to make, which was win the hearts and minds of the gamer. The broader scope of entertainment might be a bigger idea, but not with an unfocused execution. A tight execution on the 50 million people that matter, which are the people currently lapping up consoles … Sony fucking nailed it, and they deserve the victory.
What do you think of Riccitiello’s comments? Do you agree with him?
[Source: VentureBeat]
