PS3 Entertainment Hub spruke. Sony keeps pace with its aging demographic

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 21 February 2007 05:39

Opinion and Analysis

A recent interview with a Sony president has given the strongest hint of the steps ahead in next-gen entertainment with a PlayStation 3 centric living room.  But is this a way of keeping up with the competitors or a redefining of the Sony fan-boy demographic?

The 1up interview with Phil Harrison, President, Worldwide Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment gave the best indication of a broad content download service for the PS3 yet.

During the interview Harrison stated; “Well we made a very conscious decision in putting a hard drive in every machine and a minimum of 20GB, 60GB and who knows in the future, maybe that will rise -- you know, that tends to be a trend. “

Harrison continued; “The decision we made to put a hard drive in every PlayStation 3 was because we saw the long term benefit. The ten year plan of allowing people to download all kinds of digital content to their PlayStation 3 -- not just games but movies, music, HD, standard definition TV, you name it. And that was a significant investment, but it was absolutely the right thing to do.”

My iTWire colleague Adam Turner quite rightly points to this being a direct attack on the current Microsoft Xbox 360 content download service.

It is also a continuation of the Sony approach to the living room entertainment hub push began with the PS2.  Inserting a DVD player into a games console circa 2000 was seen as a strange yet provocative move at the time.  Sony’s strategy has since proven sound as many PS2 sales have been attributed since to the simple fact it offered DVD playback.

Now we have the situation of the next-gen console release from Sony sporting a next-gen optical disc playback device, Blu-ray, as well as a next-gen price tag, AU$1000.00 and a fair amount of surrounding negative press. Some of which I have been guilty of generating.