"We want to increase the value, or the brand loyalty of our Sony products. There is no question about it," said Sony Executive Vice President Kazuo Hirai in a recent interview.

Hirai, who overseas games and network services, noted that Sony in the past has not been good at communicating between divisions. The exec also noted that the future integration of the PSN is something unique to Sony.

"That's the kind of combination that I think is not seen anywhere else," Hirai said. "That I think is where our core competence lies, and that's a differentiator for Sony."

Sony hopes online service will build brand loyalty [Japan Today]

What's more, the official way to type out the name was in ALL CAPS.

The new console iteration ditches both in favor of either the PlayStation 3 or simply the PS3. There's new font, too! When asked by The Times why the font was changed, Sony Computer Entertainment exec Kaz Hirai replied that the company wanted to "set a new direction for the PS3." And what better what to do that than by resetting the logo, Hirai asked.

The new PS3 Slim — which Sony is selling at a loss — also helps Sony transition into a new chapter in the PS3's lifespan.

The logo change, however, was inspired more than merely giving the console a re-start. "On a practical level, when you have PlayStation 3 spelt out, the aspect ratio was such that if you wanted it on a billboard it became tiny," Hirai said. "It didn't work in terms of visibility." Thank tiny text for for killing the Spider-Man font. Thank you, tiny text.

Sony boss reveals plans for PlayStation [Times Online]

When the original PS3 launched, Sony bled money on each PS3 sold. But the manufacturing process improved, and Sony was able to close the gap.

Just as that started to happen, the company is now launching a new hardware iteration. New hardware means new costs. When The Times asked Sony exec Kaz Hirai if Sony was losing money on the PS3 Slim, the exec said this:

If you're just talking about the hardware alone, the quick answer is yes. That makes good headlines, but I don't actually know that that's the true nature of the business that we're all in, whether it's PlayStation, Xbox or the Wii. I think the better indicator is to look at the business as a whole platform, to ask: are you profitable in terms of the hardware, software and peripherals. And the answer to that question is yes on a gross profit level since the last fiscal year.

So the small picture is that the PS3 Slim is not profitable, but the big picture is that PS hardware, games and peripherals are.

Oh, and thanks for the headline, Kaz!

Sony boss reveals plans for PlayStation [Times Online]

PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai has told The Times "we are slating it for spring of next year". "It" being the motion controller. "One of the things is that we just don't want to put out the controller", he says. "We need a great software that supports the controller at launch. It's something that we've been working on for the longest time."

Wonder if he means one or two pieces of genuine software, or an EyeToy-like pack-in of party games?

Sony boss reveals plans for PlayStation [The Times]

The keynote, titled "New Tactics for 2009," will kick off on September 24th at 10:30am. There will also be a panel discussion about tactics and strategy for global game makers featuring execs from Capcom, Sony, Bandai Namco and Square Enix.

This year's Tokyo Game Show runs from September 24 to September 27 at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba, Japan.

SCE平井一夫氏：TGS2009基調講演で「2009年新戦略」を語る/ゲーム情報ポータル：ジーパラドットコム [Gpara]

According to a Fortune report, it was PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai that said the bigger PlayStation Network should rear its head next Spring. The service is said to make Sony devices "talk to each other efficiently," according to Stringer, that it will make it easier to handle digital camera images, edit video, share content and store whatever it is you download from a Sony device.

Fortune also reports that Sony has designs on making acquisitions that would "accelerate the effort," but plans to "start small" and roll out the new PlayStation Network over time.

Sony: Lost in transformation [Fortune/CNN Money]

Over 8,000 investors were in attendance at the annual shareholders meeting in Tokyo. Stringer told investors that the company was trying to streamline business. For example, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai will head a new business group that brings together Sony's mobile electronics and personal computers.

"This reorganization is designed to transform Sony into a more innovative, integrated and agile global company," said Stringer earlier this year. These changes and reorganization "will now make it possible for all of Sony's parts to work together."

Sony has been posting enormous losses due to a strong yen, global economic slump and competition from rival companies like Apple and Samsung.

Sony shareholders approve new management [Japan Today] [Pic]

A console always needs a solid core of games that appeal to gamers...If you go mainstream too quickly and don't support the core gaming audience then you lack the pillar to support your platform. Without this pillar you end up with a fickle audience that might be big but will probably move on.

Why? Because I agree 100% with the man. It's been my biggest fear/concern for Nintendo for a while now that when the wind changes - and one day, it will - they'll be left without that "pillar", and fall flat on their faces.

People often make fun of Sony for going on and on about a "ten year lifespan" for the PS3, but the tale of the tortoise and the hare has been told and re-told for a reason.

Interview: Playstation boss Kaz Hirai [The Guardian]

When asked if including a Blu-ray drive on the PS3 was a mistake, Hirai replied, "Purely from a gaming standpoint there was no other choice for us." The reason being, Hirai explained, that the disc capacity is essential. "Last year's Metal Gear Solid 4 was pushing 50GB as it was," Hirai told The Guardian. "If it was on DVD it would have been a 6 disc set. The packaging and cost would have been prohibitive and it would have been hugely inconvenient to consumers."

What's more, the PS3 helped Sony get a leg up in the format war. Winning that format war was a bright spot for Sony — and the company isn't looking to abandon it any time soon. C"onceptually it may make sense to remove the Blu-Ray drive but in reality it doesn't make sense," said Hirai. "Also we never want to be in the position where countries without super fast broadband connections are locked out of the PlayStation business because the PS3 has gone download only."

The PS3 launch, however, wasn't as smooth as the company would have liked. Does Sony have any regrets? "Looking back if we could have done it again we probably would have not gone for the simultaneous worldwide launch," Hirai said. The exec pointed out that it's not so much how a console starts, but how it finishes — take the PS2, for example.

"For other consoles which have a five year life cycle it is much easier to judge performance after two years," said Hirai. "But for us, with the 10 year life cycle we have, it is premature to judge after such a short time."

Interview: Playstation boss Kaz Hirai [Games Blog]

"We need to quickly bring our PlayStation business on a break-even level and later to profitability," Hirai said Thursday. Sony plans to do this through cost-cutting efforts and network service expansion. According to Hirai, Sony is thinking about added PlayStation Network services to other Sony products like televisions and digital cameras.

This echoes what Sony boss Howard Stringer stated way back in 2007 — that Sony was "trying to get our devices to talk to each other efficiently. PlayStation Network should migrate from gadget to gadget."

What appears to be phase one was announced today with Sony's new phone that lets users stream media from the PS3.

"We need a strategy where buying a hardware is not the endpoint but instead a starting point that can offer new experiences to our customers," Hirai said.

An aggressive strategy is needed as Sony's game division has been in the red three years running. Sony as a whole chalked up its biggest group operating loss ever. Whether or not that rumored fall PS3 price cut will factor into Sony's plan, Hirai refused to say. Instead, he stated that prices will be decided by "market developments."

Sony's Hirai vows to bring game division back to profit [Japan Today] [Pic]

Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai will head a new business group that brings together Sony's mobile electronics and personal computers. It is unconfirmed how this will affect his PlayStation duties. We are following up with Sony for clarification.

"This reorganization is designed to transform Sony into a more innovative, integrated and agile global company," said Stringer. These changes and reorganization "will now make it possible for all of Sony's parts to work together."

Sony has been criticized, often by Stringer himself, of its multiple divisions operating in "silos," with a lack of communication between its product development teams. The move reflects an increase in power and further reach across multiple areas of the business for both Stringer and Hirai.

Sony C.E.O. Takes Over Company's Presidency [The New York Times]

Gimmicky, sure, but one of many ways Sony has been trying to link portable and home console. There are other ways Sony seems interested in linking the PS3 and PSP.

In what appears to be a recent Sony survey, the company apparently asked users several questions and to rate their answers on a scale of 1 - 6 with 1 being "Not Appealing" and 6 being "Very Appealing."

Questions nineteen and twenty were as follows:

19. If you could make one modification to the PSP system, what would you like to see?

20. The following statements concern the way you would like a portable device to interact with a console. Rank these statements based on their appeal to you. (1 = Not Appealing, 6 = Very Appealing)

Use the device to complete side missions for console games (unlocakables, etc.).

Transfer media (music/pictures/video) wirelessly from the console to the device (broadcast television, new levels for games).

Use the device WHILE PLAYING the console game as an addition weapon/utility to help the gameplay (second player option, radar for incoming enemies, etc.).

Record console gameplay for display on the device (showing off your high scores ore "cool moves" to friends).

Well... How would you rate these?

[Pic]

How can that be? Surely both mouthpieces, whether they're boasting "official leadership in this industry" or whether they're claiming the other is "out of touch with where the industry and consumer is today" can't find common ground. Or can they? Pachter speaks!

"Aaron Greenberg is right that Sony likely won't catch Microsoft in the U.S. until at least 2014. Kaz is right that Sony will likely catch Microsoft globally," said Pachter. 2014! That's probably not what Sony's thinking.

Mr. P puts both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in a "dead heat" by 2011, according to his comments to GameDaily. He also points out Sony's besting of Microsoft in Japan year after year, as reason why this global fight isn't quite over.

The analyst expects that upcoming price drops from Sony on the PS3 will certainly help the console's chances.

Pachter: Aaron Greenberg and Kaz Hirai Are Both Right [GameDaily]

You'll find two things of interest. Here's one:

This is not meant in terms of numbers, or who's got the biggest install base, or who's selling most in any particular week or month, but I'd like to think that we continue official leadership in this industry.

And here's another:

We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?

Shine on, Kaz, you crazy diamond.

Hirai: We're the "official" industry leader [Eurogamer]

Let's cut to the chase, here's Kaz talking to the Official PlayStation Magazine:

It's difficult to talk about Nintendo because we don't look at their console as being competitors. They're a different world and we operate in our world — that's kind of the way I look at things...

And with the Xbox — again, I can't come up with one word to fit. You need a word that describes something that lacks longevity... Last time I checked, they've never had a console that's been on the market for more than four or five years and we've committed to a ten year life cycle, so you do the math...

And unless things go really bad, there's no way that at the end of a life cycle our competition is going to have a higher install base.

Can't come up with words that lack longevity, huh. How about temporal? Ephemeral? Short-lived? Brief? Fleeting? Transient? Fleeting? Evanescent?

Hirai: Xbox "lacks longevity" [CVG] [Pic]

Hirai also revealed that more than 300,000 user created levels have been made for LittleBigPlanet, with over two years of game play time racked up in the PlayStation 3 game. That's over 17,000 hours by our calculator.

Kaz also noted that some 17 million PlayStation Network accounts are in the wild, with 2.1 million of those created in the month of December. Hey, that's the same number of Xbox Live users! How convenient.

The final number that the Sony folks wanted to throw out was 330 million. That's the total number of things downloaded from the PlayStation Store. Great success!

The thing that I did when I took over last year was to boast the appeal of games themselves... The main premise of the PS3 is video games. That's the absolutely most important thing that we cannot lose sight of.

Hirai goes on to say by putting priority numero uno on games that that's how Sony will expand its position in the marketplace. And about Nintendo, Hirai said, "We cannot allow Nintendo run off alone."

「『任天堂の独走許さない』ソニーのゲーム戦略」〜ゲームが破る閉塞 [NBonline]

I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re recession-proof, but we expect to be hit much less than an auto company, for example... We expect to do very well in the year-end shopping season.

Good thing video games don't cost like 20 grand, huh? Microsoft also expects to do reasonably well with its recent price cut. As Microsoft exec John Schappert pointed out: "When you look at people, who are certainly more price-conscious than ever, that price is something people are going to be looking at." Keyword: "look."

Sony, Microsoft Bullish on Game Systems [WSJ via VG247]

Well, I was not in place to decide on some of the issues for the worldwide launch, but while we were very confident – and still are – of the PS3’s capabilities, we may have been a little too zealous in trying to get that message out too quickly. In other words, we can talk about all the non-game functions, features and services now because we actually have them. To say that it isn’t just a games machine without being able to point to tangible things that you can show to consumers — that’s a bit of a challenge.

So in the US operation, which I was running at that point, our positioning was firstly as a great video game console, but I think there was a bit of a disconnect between us and Japan, when they were concentrating on the PS3’s other capabilities at a time when we didn’t have anything to back up that claim.

The exec quotes at that time were quite nutty — zany, even. Though, for Hirai to claim he was completely divorced from that muck is silly, really.

Kaz Hirai: The Station Master [EDGE]

"Our first-party product is obviously platform exclusive and is the best out there," Mr. Hirai says, namechecking upcoming PlayStation 3 exclusives like LittleBigPlanet, God of War III and Resistance 2. In addition to those internally developed games, Kaz, not pictured, points once again to the power of the Blu-ray format, saying that bonus content exclusive to the PS3 platform is totally rad.

"Peace!" Kaz then didn't say. I'm out.

Hirai: Rivals can’t compete with PS3’s exclusives [MCV]