Sony PS3 pre-launch interview with SCE Australia chief Michael Ephraim

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 22 February 2007 12:21

Your IT - Entertainment

On the question of the Xbox 360 – is Sony concerned that Microsoft might try to spoil the PS3 party by launching price cuts on or around March 23, and if that happens, what might Sony’s response be?

We think we have a product that speaks for itself – and really, we encourage your readers to demand a full demonstration of PS3 capability that was shown today. [Once they see that] I don’t think the price will be an issue. We run our own business plan and we will stay on course with what we’ve planned.

On the topic of the Wii, it has outsold everything, even the PS2 in the US for the month of January, with reports suggested Wii sales have fallen by 50% in Japan from a lack of new titles. Do you think that the PS3 will have sold the most next-gen consoles by the end of the year globally, and if not, do you have an estimated date as to when PS3 might be dominating the next-gen race in terms of units sold?

Alex’s that a big question that everyone would love to have a crystal ball [answer to]. [They are all] very different product offerings. We have a potential market of PS3, high definition and Blu-ray that [will grow] larger as the technology develops and games [get great] traction.

How many PS3s are expected to be sold by the end of 2007 in Australia?

We’re still in the process of firming up final numbers and we’ll make some announcement at a later date but I’d like to assure everyone that as to the [recent online] rumors of only 11,000 units being allocated for day 1 in Australia - I can guanratee to everyone that the numbers will far exceed that. Just as a guideline, Europe has announced a million units.  Australia is a very important territory, in the 10 years we’ve been in business, Australia [‘s market share] has fluctuated between 4.5 and 6.5% of Europe. You can do your own maths, it‘s not directly related to the day 1 number, but the 11,000 report is completely wrong.

Will the PS3 be able to plug into a printer, say one of Sony’s or another brand of photo printer, so you can print the photos stored on your hard drive or a memory card right from the PS3 itself?

I don’t have a clear answer on that, I will check and come back to you.

Just as we now have black, blue, white, pink and even a gold PSP in Japan, will we see the PS3 in other colours?

That’s always a potential but we have for the moment we think black and the silver highlights is the way to go but potentially that is all possible down the track.

Next up we ask about the possibility of a plug-in external Blu-ray recorder for the PS3 - and other questions - please read onto page 3 for the conclusion!