Don't judge consoles by launch software, says Harrison
Don't forget lessons of PS1/2.
Sony's Phil Harrison has warned that it's "dangerous" to make predictions about the success of a console based on the software released for it at launch.
Speaking to Game Informer magazine, Harrison took issue with the view that the PlayStation 3 lacks titles demonstrating its superior technology - referring to MotorStorm, Resistance: Fall of Man and Formula 1 to illustrate his point.
Even so, Harrison was quick to warn against judging the PS3 on the basis of those launch window titles alone.
"Now, it's always dangerous to judge any system by its launch line-up... You only have to go back to the games that launched PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2," he said.
"If you took those few dozen titles and analysed them, you would never have imagined that either of those formats would have on to sell over 100 million units each."
Harrison also addressed the issue of platform exclusives. Although he pointed out he is in charge of first-party output, not third-party exclusives, Harrison said that he is "always concerned to make sure that consumers can buy the best games and get the best game experiences to validate their system purchase".
"[But] as long as the games they get are great," he continued, "[consumers] don't care if they are third-party or first-party. What I do believe is that the investments we have made in Worldwide Studios globally - US, Europe, and Japan - will yield the best quality software and the highest quality experiences that are clearly going to be exclusive to the platform.
"We have a larger platform-dedicated development resource than our competitors combined. So all of that goes towards the fact that the best games with the best technology are coming exclusively to [Sony] platforms."
Harrison expects the Home online service to go live in October and said he is pleased with its beta progress so far. Although he was unwilling to concede that PSP software sales have been unsatisfactory, he did agree that Sony can do more to take advantage of the portable system's capabilities.