Nintendo’s new next-gen console is certainly getting a lot of press for them. Despite some early criticism, pre-orders are reportedly selling out, making the Wii U another possible blockbuster for Nintendo. So does Sony, one of their main competitors, feel threatened about it? Not at all, if their UK boss is to be believed.
Eurogamer had a chance to speak with Sony UK’s Fergal Gara and one of the interesting topics of their conversation was about the coming holiday season launch of the Wii U and how it could potentially affect Sony and the recently unveiled Playstation 3 Super Slim. Gara nonchalantly says that while they’ll be watching the Wii U launch with interest, the Wii U really won’t be a factor until next year:
“We respect Nintendo as a highly successful competitor. Of course we will watch what they’re doing with interest. It’s a very interesting product they’re bringing to market. I don’t have a clear view on how successful it will be. And to a large extent it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the great British public think. So we will see.
“They certainly laid a broad church in terms of the list of features hopefully trying to have a broad appeal in the device. I don’t think there will be huge volumes in the market this side of Christmas. I think they will pull in early adopters. It’s probably one to be concerned about far more and watch more carefully into next year. But we feel very confident that in the PlayStation and we won’t be going after the same niche early adopter market they’ll be going after this Christmas. I think we’re sitting in separate camps at this stage, so it won’t be head to head.
“If they gain real traction next year it becomes a more important factor in the mix. They’ve been a very key player in the market overall as you well know in recent years. So we have to respect that, watch that and do our best to compete with that.”
Based on earlier reports, it looks like Sony still isn’t done with the Playstation 3 and plan to stay busy with it for at least 2-3 more years. It also looks like their strategy at the moment against the Wii U is to say that the a Playstation 3 and a PS Vita can already do what the Wii U is promising with its highly-anticipated GamePad. They’ve even gone so far as to tease that a PS3+PS Vita bundle is a possibility. Will it be enough to keep their sales numbers at par with Nintendo’s when the Wii U launches? We’ll know in a few short weeks.
Would you pick a PS3+PS Vita bundle over the Nintendo Wii U? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
One of the first games I ever played was donkey kong. In my teen years I truly enjoyed playing mario with my friends and family. Now days I enjoy bowling and golfing with my kids and family. I am super stoked about the wii u, can’t wait to play the new mario brothers along with frogger and of course donkey kong. Hurry up november 18th, cause I was one of the lucky ones who scored a pre-order for the deluxe!! Whooo hooo!
I think Nintendo is going to be the eighth generation’s winner in the console wars. I don’t care what the MBAs over at Microsoft think. You can’t drag computer graphics hardware along for 10 years. And Sony better think twice before trying to charge people $600 apiece for a console this time around. Nintendo has the timing right, and the price right. Sony should be concerned unless they really have something up their sleeve (like practical cloud-based streaming video games over Gaikai or something). If the new Nintendo Wii U is overall an order of magnitude more powerful than Gen 7 stuff, and the other competing Gen 8 systems are just incrementally more powerful than the Wii U, then Nintendo gets the oyster and Sony & MS get the shell.
Playstation is copying Nintendo every time . Wii u is gonna be ps3 even ps4 , Sony think there so good, but let me tell u something Sony u suck my cats fat ass ass
I have a ps3 and a vita. But still preorder a wii u and i still believe the wii u will win.
Sony is to late and to much. I doubt people will droponey on a ps3 vita bundel priced at $500-$600 vs a wii u $350.
Plus sony doesnt have the games. They claim they can do the same but where is the proof?
I can outrun a lambo in my civic.
It might not be a great threat to PS3 sales since it’s been out for 6 years, but it should seriously affect Vita sales since both cost almost the same. When PS4 arrives, it’ll be overpriced just like every new platform from Sony. Nintendo aren’t greedy, they set the right price (this time) and they have a head start which means there will be huge amount of descent titles available for Wii U before PS4 comes.
Sorry, but no Nintendo is doing a few things wrong for some stupid reason this time around, like making 2 seperate console bundles, no HDD, no ability to support the gamepad yet, nor buy one, along with NOT offering Nintendo Land with the “basic” wii u is a horrible idea. Especially at an additional $50 from the Wii’s price. That is why the Wii is so successful, comes with EVERYTHING you really need, at a very cheap price. While, I was excited initially at the possibility of having the one console bundle choice, like the Wii, only available in black OR white and no segregation of the two in a negative or positive way, but they decided to follow the model that MS did with their crappy 360. Sony followed suit with the original PS3 too, and that just sucked.
But now I’ll say that playing Batman, ME3, black ops 2 and all that will work just fine on my 6 year old PS3.
Thank you for providing an alternative perspective for me. I appreciate hearing the criticisms people have of any of my ideas. To add to what you said, Nintendo hasn’t yet made it clear to me, as an Indie dev, what I would have to do to publish on their system. It isn’t clear how they’re handling the crucial relationships with the third party game developers. I still do think they timed it right, however, and that’s a lesson their competitors need to learn from. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are the first to sell 100 million consoles.
This looks like the first time someone from Sony mentions Nintendo without being a total dick.
The only use for a ps3 is a blu ray player. The good online games are on xbox plus every game thats on the ps3 is already on the xbox and the wii had all the classic games. The wii u i think will take some of xbox’s thunder and i personally think the playstation has been irrelevant since the ps3 was released. Sony will be the next sega and will slowly die away. Nintendo should only be worried about xbox.
They must have a lot of balls saying something like this. They must be pretty confident about PS4, or stupid. Or both. Honestly I’m not saying this to make Sony look bad, I love Sony, but if done right, the Wii U could be a fatal blow to Sony. They already are hemorrhaging money as we speak. If Wii U is very successful, this will absolutely not be good for Sony. Careful, Sony. Your treading on uncharted territory.
I agree with you that the Wii U will definitely win the sales based on its broader demographic. As far as games are concerned, let’s not kid ourselves. The games on the Wii are trash compared to the titles available on PS3, PC and X-Box 360. Last year, Wii only had two critically acclaimed games: Skyward Sword & Rayman Origins. The PS3 offered Arkham City, Portal 2, Mass Effect 2, Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Little Big Planet 2, NBA 2K12, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Dead Space 2, Rayman Origins, Battlefield 3 etc. In the last few years, PS3 and 360 have been running circles around Wii in terms of good titles. As far as processing power and graphics are concerned, we can only speculate, but it damn well better surpass the PS3 considering the PS3 is 6 years old.
Nintendo is going to win again if they keep it up. The best part of the wii u is now I can play both nintendo first pary games and when I get bored of mario,zelda and pikmin I can switch over to third party games like mass effect 3, BO 2, soon to be announced battlefield 4. I mean come on that’s a huge win. As long as Nintendo doesn’t run off in the sunset and stop supporting third party games like they promised on the wii then stopped they can and will win AGAIN.
Yeah, God of War, Infamous, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, The Last of Us, Beyond:Two Souls, Resistance, Killzone, Little Big Planet, etc etc will like to talk to you…. oh, and got to play all the classic PS2 games I missed… Really, Sony craps over the competitors when it comes to good exclusive games. And a range of games. Microsoft has Halo and Gears of War… and Kinect (which is pretty fun admittedly).
I think Sony forgot how to add. The Wii U will be able to connect to the 3ds for some of its games which means that 3 screens all together. Besides Sony and Xbox will dis whatever Nintendo comes up with than wait and release their version of Nintendo’s technology.
Reading these type of articles a year later is super funny.