Sony CEO Kaz Hirai has strongly implied that his company is going to play it safe and let Microsoft reveal its Xbox 360 follow-up before taking off the covers of their own PlayStation 3 successor, reports Polygon.
Hirai was quoted as saying:
"Why go first when your competitors can look at your specifications and come up with something better."
One does not to be have a degree in business to know that such a move is not the worst idea in the world. There used to be popular conventions, rules that everyone followed, when it came to unveiling game hardware. But even when things were far simpler, he he showed off his toys first was not always the victor.
The Xbox 360 was the first out of the gate, among the PS3 and the Wii, and ended up being the winner of this generation, more or less. And while timing perhaps played a part, it was not the ultimate reason. Both Sony and Nintendo's machines had time to shine and used their spotlight to varying degrees of success.
The most important thing to consider is how the next generation of gaming will be almost nothing like we've seen before, and are indeed exploring uncharted territory. Sure the next systems will boasts impressive technical specs, but it's no longer just about games.
Connectivity, flexibility, the cloud, and numerous other "non" game-related elements are becoming essentials must be delievered by these so called video game machines. It's less about the content itself but how it is served up. So one cannot blame Sony for sitting back and watching what Microsoft. To learn from what they do right, or wrong.
