Interview: Sony UK's Ray Maguire

AAARRRGGHHH BGates... ;)

This maguire guy seems to know what he's on about, though everyone will flame him for saying the PS3 is cheap and a bargain. I don't think it's cheap but I do think it's value for money.

nob
doesn't even sound like he know's what he's talking about!
Will the UK get a large share?:
"who knows, who knows." - WTF!?!?

"only starting to look at networking abilityies of PS3 - ONY STARTED!? It's out in 6 months you know!!

Constantly justifying the price of the PS3 by quoting probable prices of a Bluray player (which I wouldn't buy anyway) cuts no ice with me.

The price will not be a problem for Sony in the first 6 months, because in that time period they will not be able to make enough to satisfy the number of early adopters who will be prepared to pay it anyway. However if after 6 months or so, there have been no stunningly must have games and Blu-Ray hasn't already started to dominate the HD video market they will have to lower the price.

I'll still probably get one though, you end up having to have all the machines anyway as they all end up with some exclusives you want to play, and at the end of the day what you pay for the machine usually gets dwarfed by what you've eventually spent on software for it.

LOL, everytime they display that 'we will sell the ps3 for 599€', i expect it to repeat like 5 times.

Lol at where he says 'ppl are asking: is that a ps2 or ps3 game?' Effectively giving the ps3 the boot.

He goes on about how the BD, but forgets his earlier comment on ppl not even knowing about that stuff (and giving a toss about anything but dvd)

He seems nice enough, but everything he said basically confirms what the critics are saying; "It's a cheap BD player, who cares about the games?", "No one really knows what BD is, or cares", "The devs have only just got kits, so should be able to turn out some great stuff in the next 4 month before we launch" etc etc.

The one thing they should be congratulated on, however is the option of putting in your own much larger HD. Now, if only you could dl and run the games off it, avoiding the inevitable disk read errors that seem to signal the death of most consoles...

At the end of the day, I can't see myself buying a PS3 until its been out for quite a while and proven it's not all just hype and market speak. The 360, for example, seems to be just about getting to that stage, so I might go for one if/when this rumoured price drop materialises. And I have more than £25.10 in the bank : (

god damn stop with it been cheap. Yes if Blue Ray is a big success then yes PS3 will be a bargain, BUT god knows if it will take off. Loads of people are not going to upgrade to the new HD formats yet, especially since you can get DVD players that upscale a normal DVD. Then there is the one thing people forget, most movies really are not shot in HD format so just because the DVD is HD if the source is not i doubt you'll see a big difference (my speculation).
Has any one here seen a movie on the HDDVD format, if so how much better is it than the bog standard DVD.............

if he can't see the difference between a PS2 and PS3 game - he needs his eyes tested.

I didn't think he sounded or looked to confident about PS3 at all.

has anyone seen sky's adverts for HD, the fancy screensavers, i just think , well it looks ok on my tv without HD so why bother upgrading. i feel HD is gunna be like the jump to digital from analogue, barely noticable.

and is anyone here willing to upgrade their entire DVD collection to blue ray or HDVD, id say no as most of us are still replacing videos we had.

sony are putting all their eggs in the blue ray basket and if it fails then theyre gunna give microsoft a big boost

@jamesphilip

Man, they are damned if they do and they are damned if they don't. He's honest abhout some stuff, and that still isn't good enough. Are you perhaps not quite impartial in your view?

@yonno

I got an HDTV the same week Obvlision came out (mostly unrelated) and the difference is noticeable. On games, very much so. But also for watching DVDs. Now given that DVDs have a lower res than HD broadcast, I would expect HD telly to look even nicer.

EDIT: I'm going to leave that Oblivion typo, just 'cos my mind seems to have tried to include the word vision and it seems appropriate. Easily amused I know.

I felt for the guy, you could tell he did not really believe what he was saying, but obviously he’s got to say it.

It may well be the cheapest bluray player on the market when they come out, but to be honest with new tech like that cheap normally means shit. Take the DVD playback of the PS2 for example. No, please do take it, take it away and bury it.

"It's a bargain, in fact I think I'll buy one." - Ray Maguire

Yeah, that'll be employee discounts.

Anyway, Here Be Dragons, late to market in a part of the market that Microsoft is going to be really aggressive in over the next few months.

Meanwhile Nintendo will be selling a different kind of console entertainment.

I don't think it'll be a cakewalk for Sony, really. I'm sure its all hot quality stuff, but they are going to take a kick in the nuts if they aren't competent getting safely into the market.

Microsoft's mistake is that they'll end up with 5 or 6 DVD games because they refuse to use HD-DVD for games, but at that level of data PS3 games will still be on one Blu-Ray disc. Switching between 2 or 3 discs not much of a pain, but 5 or 6? More so!

And if I hear one more guy moaning about "needing" to replace DVD's ... Stop thinking of VHS to DVD, because it doesn't apply to this change in format; you couldn't put a VHS in a DVD player, but you can put a DVD in either a Blu-Ray player or an HD-DVD player.

As was addressed on another discussion, Blu-Ray movies would be re-mastered from the original film which has a much higher definition than DVD, so you're not scaling up a DVD onto a Blu-Ray disc.

Seems a genuinely nice chap, however Sony's universal justification for the price is the fact that the PS3 is excellent value for money given th fact that it is a cheap blu-ray player as well as a games machine.

I personally do not have an issue with the selling price, it could be a lot worse, however what I do have an issue with is that personally as a consumer, I haven't hit that level which tells me, "okay, DVD is rubbish, it's time to move onto a better format."

PS2 and DVDs launched at a time when we were crying out for a new technology. However I cannot help but feel that Sony and MS are trying to push something that consumers are not quite ready to invest in. (Sony are pushing harder I would say).

Let's face it, a true HD TV setup which fully utilises the technology costs a small fortune. Excluding TV prices Sky HD includes a £300 box, an extra £10 per month because of the greater bandwidth used and on top of that, if you are already a basic Sky customer, you will also pay an additional £10 per month as all HD boxes utilise Sky Plus (this extra £10 is waived if you have movies or Sports).

The fact is that the technology is still a little expensive so mass market consumers are still not going to buy into it just yet. I concede that the BBC will transmit the world cup in HD, but that is for only 4 weeks and little is known as to when HD transmission will be standard in the UK. I'm simply the type of consumer who prefers to hold on and see a technology take hold before I invest.

This is purely a personal perspective, the bottom line is that I wouldn't consuder myself an "early adopter" of new technology and as such, I'm afriad that I;ve had to reverse my decision and hold off to see how things pan out.

PS - Regarding my comments made on game prices. I would like to state that these are of course not confirmednumbers. I have however managed to have conversations with a couple of the friends who are connected to the games indsutry (netierh of them know each other) and they have both heard rumblings of the £70 price point.

SImilarly, rumblings also exist on forum boards on the net. They are purely speculation, however with similar speculation surroudning 30 games last year that they would be £50, I'd say that we're currenly not far off that.

The guy thinks he may buy one. So he's not sure. And they expect consumers to buy one for £425.00

Seems to me Sony is wearing a sign on it's back "Kick me".

He has to buy one with his own money? Working for Sony sure seems to pay off.

what a cock. i hope he is the first to go when they have to make cut backs.

oh dear, not very convincing was it - ps3 is cheap cos its really a bd player.
i spent 600 on importing a ps back in the day, but theres no way i'm buying a ps3 anytime soon at that price.

oh yeah and "the hardcore can buy the cheap version and upgrade to a 500gig drive" - if they're that hardcore they'll prob want an hdmi output you frickin turd! the whole thing is a complete mess.

he did a great job of blotting out the 360 as if it never existed with his answers tho - although toeing the party line a bit too much means you wont get any respect from me son.

as for the bd offering the only way to enable great hidef gaming - straws, grabbing at, springs to mind. i dont see any 360 games lacking in the hd visuals front because they're on a piddling little 9gb dvd.

sony, you need to seriously start worrying about your profits for the next 5 years. you are become sega.

Compared to our other gaming export Maguire comes off rather badly in front of the camera. I know its all about the marketing buzzwords but I hate consoles and games refered to as products.

He also lost me when he was going on about explaining what the ps3 was to consumers. For a games console they're focusing on media playback a lot. Also touting a great online service which no one has yet to see seems a little bullish (trying to think of a better word...). If your online service is such an important function of the ps3 then ffs tell us what the hell is going on with it, get us excited - make me think "Wow! My games will have something cool that I can do with it online" or even "Wow! I can do something cool online!".

On the price: this quote from the forrester brand trust survey speaks volumes:

Sony's current customers are affluent, young, and more likely than the general population to stick with a brand they like. Sony's prospects have a different profile: poorer than the general population, less brand loyal, and more likely to buy on price. To reach these 9.8 million households, Sony will have to tailor its marketing messages and retail presence to compete on price."

So the ps3 will sell well at launch (those illadvised comments that its will sell out even if there are no games appear to be true). Its a given. I think in the U.S., barring console jokes like Gizmondo, all console launches since the PS1 have sold out at launch. So unless you do something stupid like showing the president of your company eating babies in your TV ads, the ps3 will sell out.

I think I'm right in assuming that one of the reasons the ps2 is continuing to grow (they hope to sell 6 million this year to emerging markets and people who can only just afford them) is the price. This isn't an advantage the ps3 shares and the lack of a cohesive vision to the consumer of what the ps3 is meant to achieve and bring into the market makes me think that Sony is screwing themselves when it comes to the postlaunch sales.

Maguire acknowledges all this and then doesn't do anything to change my mind. Bad bad bad marketing. He also goes on to say that there are ps2 games at e3 which can't be distinguished from ps3 games graphically (4:53), which is just plain stupid to boast.

out.of.touch.

Nah just clueless.