Man, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss David Reeves is an analogy machine! In a recent interview with Eurogamer, he put his powers to task in summing up the current state of the console war.
"I prefer to talk about the fact that, yeah, we're competitors, but the competition really has made people so much sharper, and if I can use this analogy, if you're fighting in a war that's, say, Boeing versus Airbus, it's almost like battleship against battleship and you're fighting from 15 miles away; if you're fighting in the car war, it might be that you're fighting in tanks and you're one kilometre away; in the videogame industry, if there's a war, if there's competition, it's almost like hand-to-hand fighting, but it makes you sharper. You want to have a sharper sword, you want to have a sword that feels just about right, and everyone is very sharp, and what they're doing is they're looking for high ground, low ground where they can get an advantage."
So the console industry is like melee combat with swords...or is it like shoes?
The winner is the consumer, and I think that's great. That's why we are not going to slag off Microsoft or Nintendo at all, because again it's rather like the trainer market: one year it's Reebok, next year it's Nike, and then suddenly it's Adidas; it's cyclical, but in the end everyone wins in five to ten years.
See? He's like one of those guys who is really good with analogies. Just reading his words has sapped me of my will to explain one thing using another thing as an example!
Of course what he is trying to say is that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are equally matched in terms of what they have to offer the public and are just jockeying for position, but he makes it all seem so poetic, doesn't he?
Incidentally, for those of you who don't keep up with Brit slang, "to slag off" is equal to "to dis". Also, trainers are sneakers, and David Reeves might be the only English-speaking games industry exec who needs a translator when addressing English-speaking markets.
Interview: Sony's David Reeves [Eurogamer]