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At ELSPA’s International Games Summit this morning, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president David Reeves said he had ‘no apologies’ for the delay Europeans face when waiting for official releases of the latest hardware.
In fact, he said “we like this – we don’t want to go first.” The comment may surprise gamers who are annoyed with the delay in the release of the PSP, due to launch on September 1st in Europe, compared to Japan which saw it before last Christmas and USA which launched soon after.
He proceeded to explain his position, however. He argued that hardware delays meant that more of the bugs and issues could be ironed out, thus heavily reducing the company’s return rate. “We have a very, very low return rate,” he commented, “less than 2 per cent.” He also noted that European gamers have many more games to choose from at hardware launches compared to Japanese and USA consumers.
Specifically referring to the PSP, Reeves said European gamers would benefit from “30 titles, and maybe 25 movies” when the handheld is launched.
At the beginning of his presentation, Reeves briefly addressed the recent legal action Sony has served to companies importing PSPs. Referring to criticism that Sony were only threatening legal action to a small number of companies, Reeves said “We’ve written over 600 letters to major importers on eBay.” He noted the difficulty stopping people selling PSPs on eBay.
Reeves went on to explain that various European specific issues mean software and hardware is often inevitably released later in Europe than other territories. Localisation, including the wide range of languages, safety compliance requirements, differing hardware standards and custom regulations all play a part.
Referring to PS2 hardware shortages, which seriously slowed sales last Christmas, Reeves said that Sony has to order its consoles for the holiday season six to seven months ahead of time – and that is will continue to be cautious about the possibility of overstocking the channel.
“Companies go bankrupt with too much stock – even companies like Sony,” he commented, “but never with too little. We will continue to be cautious… But we will do whatever we can. It costs £8 to airfreight a PS2 to Europe – we airfreighted three million of them last year, and we’ll do that again if we have to.“
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