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Coming Soon > What's New > Playstation 2 > Interview | |
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| Sony
Speaks to API: On Monday September 13th we attended a special press teleconference with Sony U.S.A, to find out a little more about the new console and to ask a few pertinent questions. In attendance were: KAZ HIRAI: President and chief operating officer ANDREW HOUSE: Vice president, marketing PHIL HARRISON: Vice president, research and development and third party relations We have summarized the hour long discussions and omitted any items we felt would be of little interest to you: The Statements: Kaz Hirai spoke first and as we hoped, confirmed that the pricing strategy was intended only for Japan and that pricing and packaging information for the U.S. & Europe would be released at E3 in May, 2000. He also mentioned that Mr.Goto (responsible for the original Playstation design) was responsible for the new PS2. He reinforced that the broadband strategy would not be in place until early 2001. Phil Harrison was next and reviewed the technical specs in some detail. He mentioned that the precise MHz calculation of the EE (294.912) was to stay within a DVD frequency standard. He said that 89 developers in Japan, 46 in the US and 27 in the UK has signed letters of intent to develop for the console. There are currently 128 titles in development with 85 announced…so there are some surprises to expect yet! He stated that the US and European developers have begun to receive their development kits and a total of over 1000 kits are scheduled to be shipped to these countries. He also reviewed Sony's broadband strategy briefly and stated that a multi-gigabyte hard drive would play into the strategy. Andrew House reviewed the $150 million dollars marketing blitz that is schedule to begin for the current Playstation. He believes that the existing PSX will be able to compete in the market until Sony releases their new super console. The Questions: Q. Sony planned to produce .018 micron chips but rumors have been circulating that .025 will be produced instead until yield rates improve. Is this true? A. Phil Harrison: That is not true. We are currently mass producing the .018 micron chips. Q. How do you feel about the successful Sega launch in the USA and why is the PS2 double the price of the Dreamcast? A. Phil: We are happy that Sega did well. This shows that the retailers have confidence in the game systems and the consumers are interested in new consoles. This will help us when we launch ours. We are double the price because we offer more than double the power plus DVD movie capabilities. (small chuckle from the crowd) Q. You and your competition are claiming true 128 bit consoles. Is this true? A. Phil: First of all, you should go ask our competition why they are claiming that! (laughter) and yes our system is the world's first truly 128 bit CPU. Q. Do programmers consider the PS2 difficult to develop for? A. Phil: At first we knew that there would be a learning curve as there is with any new technology. We are pleasantly surprised to the see that developers seem to be coming to grips with the system much quicker than originally expected. Middleware will also assist the developers. Q. Why only two controller ports and can the USB ports be used for controllers? A. Phil: We will be introducing a new multi-tap device. This hasn't been officially announced yet. Yes, the USB ports could be used for controllers but that is not why we included them on the console. Q. How much did the original PSX sell for when it was released in Japan and will the new software be more expensive? A. Kaz: 39,800yen. The same as the PS2. The software cost will be the same as the existing Playstation. Q. Will the PS2 be able to play multi-layered DVD movies and games? A. Phil: Yes of course dual-layer is supported! |