Sony co-Chief Operating Officer of SCEA, Jack Tretton, has commented on the loss of GTA IV, E3 2006 and the company's answer to Halo 3, his replies? Not a big deal, went well and we really don't have one respectively.
Mr. Tretton began his interview with financial website The Street, by discussing how E3 2006 was a success for the PS3 even though many attendees viewed the company's presence at the exhibition as disappointing. ...I think if you ask the trade, meaning the retail constituency and the third parties, they came away pretty pleased with how everything went... he said.
Commenting on the high price point of the PS3 Mr. Tretton claimed that Sony's PS2, priced at USD 129, is outselling the XBox 360 but the PS3 will offer greater functionality than X360 and therefore deserves a heftier price tag.
Asked about the loss of exclusivity on the GTA franchise, a series that helped make the PS2, Mr. Tretton raised a point which makes good sense. The Sony exec claimed that third party titles, due to the rising costs involved in developing a game, cannot afford exclusivity. This however, was also the case during the PS2 and XBox days but back then Sony had a big enough lead to be able to cover the sales needs of a developer. By using this argument it seems that Sony has accepted that XBox will be a much stronger competitor for its console in the next-generation console wars.
Since Mr. Tretton claimed that first party titles are where the real strength of the new consoles will lie, as opposed to third-party exclusivities, he was asked whether Sony has anything that could compare to Microsoft's Halo 3. His initial reply was ...so, do we have a title? I don't know, adding however that, I think it's a fact that Sony Computer Entertainment software has far outsold Halo, because Halo was the one and only title to come out there. There is little doubt that Sony has enough, strong first party titles to be able to make MS accountants shudder at will but the fact that the Japanese giant was looking into Killzone 2 means that it is aware of the need for a Halo killer.
Until then we will have to accept the undeniable truth of Jack Tretton's final comment, ...I can guarantee you that Sony Computer Entertainment's first-party software far and away outsold Microsoft's first-party software.
