Ubisoft Loves The Xbox 360. Sony Doesn't Care.
If life were an RPG, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Sony’s leaders would all be cursed with a permanent negative 50 PR points.
The always excellent Ars Technica is reporting that Ubisoft’s president, Yves Guillemont, was singing Microsoft’s praises yesterday after reviewing the impressive X06 show.
“What Microsoft is showing is that even if Sony has a lead in market share, Xbox is going to get better penetration in Europe,” he said. “It’s good to have many players on the same battlefield; I think it will push Sony to react, and also Nintendo to look at how they position themselves to make their machine a success.”
Ars Technica makes a really good point: this isn’t going to be like the last Battle Of The Consoles. Instead of going up against the Dreamcast and a new system put together by Microsoft, Sony is going to be in direct competition with two systems which are a great deal cheaper and available in much greater numbers than the PS3 will be at launch. Not only that, but Guillemont’s comments make Ubi’s gradual shift away from the PS3 all the more obvious- when it was first announced, Assassin’s Creed was going to be a PS3-exclusive title, but now it’s planned for release on the 360 and Sam Fisher is once again making an exclusive Xbox appearance in this month’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent.
If life were an RPG, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Sony’s leaders would all be cursed with a permanent negative 50 PR points.
The always excellent Ars Technica is reporting that Ubisoft’s president, Yves Guillemont, was singing Microsoft’s praises yesterday after reviewing the impressive X06 show.
“What Microsoft is showing is that even if Sony has a lead in market share, Xbox is going to get better penetration in Europe,” he said. “It’s good to have many players on the same battlefield; I think it will push Sony to react, and also Nintendo to look at how they position themselves to make their machine a success.”
Ars Technica makes a really good point: this isn’t going to be like the last Battle Of The Consoles. Instead of going up against the sagging Dreamcast and a new system put together by Microsoft, Sony is going to be in direct competition with two systems which are a great deal cheaper than theirs. On top of this, the Wii and 360 will be available in much greater numbers than the 300,000 PS3s on November 17. Also, Guillemont’s comments make Ubi’s subtle shift away from the PS3 somewhat obvious- when it was first announced, Assassin’s Creed was going to be a PS3-exclusive title, but now it’s planned for release on the 360 and Sam Fisher is once again making an exclusive Xbox appearance in this month’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent.
Not only that, but Sony’s increasingly arrogant, not to mention glib, attitude about the PS3’s capabilities have continued to hurt the company’s reputation with the gamer market: from Phil Harrisons suggestion that the PS3 will render PCs unnecessary to Kaz Hirai’s claim that Microsoft copies everything Sony does, the heads of Sony seem to think they live in a fantasy world where they have nothing to fear from the competition. Now, Ken Kutaragi has simply said, “we don’t care,” in regards to the competition from Nintendo and Microsoft.
In light of the delayed European release, reduced shipment of units to North America, and the fact that both gamers and members of the industry itself are openly concerned with the upcoming console (not to mention the many problems that have and continued to plague Sony since its less-than-stellar PSP launch), it seems safe to say that Sony should be worried.
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to Video Games on 3 October 2006
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: Assassin's Creed, Kaz Hirai, Ken Kutaragi, Nintendo, Phil Harrison, PS3, Sam Fisher, Sony, Splinter Cell Double Agent, Ubisoft, Wii, Xbox 360
Truth be told , if one losts to past comments by Yves, you will see that he says stuff like this about all three. Totally depending on the situation, and what hes being interviewed for, so while today it may be singing praises for the 360, yesterday it was the Wii, and the PS3 the day before that. This guy seems to never say anything bad about any of the consoles. Heck, its almost as if he is a politician, not wanting to piss anyone off.