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Sony's Andrew House

Vita, PS3, 3D, Move and, of course, the PSN hack.

Eurogamer What message do you have to gamers who are worried about using their credit cards to buy content from the PlayStation Network following the hack?
Andrew House

We've learnt some very painful but important lessons through the PSN experience. I don't want to lose sight of the fact we were the target of a pretty much unprecedented sustained criminal attack that caused this situation.

That being said, we will do our absolute utmost to develop a sense of what I would call hyper vigilance. We are absolutely humbled and grateful for the faith consumers have continued to show in us, and we'll do everything in our power to be worthy of that faith and to provide our consumers with not just an entertaining and engaging experience but one that's also secure.

Eurogamer Did you adequately protect gamers' data?
Andrew House

Based on the knowledge we had at the time they were, in our view, appropriate. The scale of the attack we underwent was pretty unprecedented.

But clearly we now live in a world where, not just for gaming companies, but any company that has a digital network business or part of their strategy has had to learn they need to invest huge resources and time and effort into protecting their consumers' data.

"The scale of the attack we underwent was pretty unprecedented."

Eurogamer How long before the PS3 no longer seems future-proof?
Andrew House

I've always said we looked at PS3 as a ten years-plus lifecycle. The question mark for me is how big that plus is. Something we perhaps don't mention as much as we should is we're still selling PlayStation 2 in the millions around the world, 11 years after it launched.

Now, they're in different markets than they were and different profiles of gamer. We've with our US colleagues had a significant push into Latin America. We're working in India with local game developers for local content largely for PS2.

The reason I point that out is we've got some credibility in saying there's a possibility of at the very least a ten year lifecycle.

The goal is to keep searching for new experiences, whether it's PlayStation Move, which is only a year into the market and still showing huge potential for different experiences around that, but also just great content.

Eurogamer There's been a lot of talk about the next-generation of home consoles and the PS4. Is it a bit premature?
Andrew House

From a Sony perspective, we're very comfortable with PS3 and the way that market's developing. We're highly focused on launching Vita as a next-generation portable now some seven years after PSP was launched. We're really not looking at anything beyond that at this stage.

Eurogamer You announced 8.8 million sales of PS Move at your conference. Has it proven as successful as you'd hoped?
Andrew House

If I look back at our initial estimates it's tracking well beyond our initial expectations. We were perhaps a little bit conservative in our forecasts. It led us to be supply challenged during a large part of last year. We've addressed that now and we're in good and full supply.

We're particularly pleased with the success of Move in Europe. European consumers seem to have embraced the product. The reason for that is there is a heritage and credibility around lifestyle gaming on PlayStation, whether it's SingStar or EyeToy, that made it easier to build franchises and that connection with the European consumer.

But overall, globally, we're extremely pleased with the success. The goal now is to show this is not just about casual or lifestyle gaming experiences. We showed with Killzone that Move can be powerful when applied to a core gamer experience. The goal of the studios now is to focus on that and continue to deliver that great road map for consumers going forward.

Eurogamer I was surprised to see Ken Levine on stage during your conference to announce Move support for BioShock Infinite and BioShock Vita. How did you convince him to change his mind about Move?
Andrew House

I would not be the best person to answer that question. But I suspect some of my US colleagues had some good and frank conversations.

I thought it was a very funny presentation. It's so refreshing to see someone talk very frankly. I was doubly pleased because having worked in the third-party relations area, working with people who have their own vision, their own talent and creativity, you have to be in a position of persuading and showing and convincing people to come on board with you. It's great that in the case of such a fantastic franchise, that happened.

Andrew House is the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.