Q&A: SCEE vice president Jim Ryan

Although Sony's fortunes as a whole haven't been that healthy in recent times, its game division continues to make some modest gains as evidenced by its most recent quarterly report. GameSpot AU recently got the chance to have a quick chat with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe executive vice president and co-chief operating officer Jim Ryan to gauge his views on how the company will fare for the rest of the year, whether the global financial crisis will bite Sony, and whether the gloomy economic environment is hastening the company's plans to drop the price on the PS3.

GameSpot AU: Let's start with Little Big Planet and the recent global recall Sony had to go through. How did that affect the business?

Jim Ryan: At the end of the day, it hasn't really impacted us that much. We've obviously had to recall some inventory, which we'll scrap, but the delay to getting product to store is less than two weeks. So in the context of making the correct decision--the correct business decision--we feel it's a very manageable price to pay.

GS AU: But financially, how big a hit was it?

JR: It was a reasonably big hit, but you have to make the right decision in these circumstances, and the money has to come second.

GS AU: Sony recently just reported their last quarter results. Can you talk about Europe and Australia specifically, and how those regions performed?

JR: The numbers for Europe are really very positive for all three formats. I can't talk specifically, but I can tell you we're tracking slightly ahead of plan on PS2, PSP, and most of all PS3. And Australia follows that trend.

GS AU: What are your expectations for next quarter, then?

JR: Further growth. If you look at the numbers, we're up 60 percent year-on-year, and we see that continuing to Christmas.

GS AU: In what way will the global financial crisis affect Sony's game division?

JR: Well, the received wisdom on this is that when there's a recession, people stay at home and watch movies and play games. Everything that we've seen so far on sell-through for both hardware and software is that that's the case. Our numbers don't seem to be affected so far, and we're tracking very nicely against our plans. This is a different economic climate to certainly anything I've experienced, so who can tell where it ends up? But as of now, we're happy the way sales are going.

GS AU: So are you of the opinion that games are recession-proof?

JR: I think recession-proof is somewhat of an absolute term. But I think we will be less affected than most business categories.

GS AU: Has this hastened any thoughts of lowering the PS3 price?

JR: Price is always something we look at, that we're always aware of. But I think the value proposition that we have is a great one for the Australian consumer, and the sales we're getting support that.

GS AU: But are you looking at dropping the price for next year?

JR: We'll look at pricing decisions for 2009 sometime in 2009. It's too early to tell.

GS AU: Let's switch to PlayTV, which has recently launched in Europe. How has it gone so far, and when will it arrive down under?

JR: The product is selling very nicely. It's launched in a number of European countries with good sales, steady sales, and we're looking forward to bringing the product to Australia at some point in 2009.

GS AU: So just 2009? No approximate date?

JR: There are a couple of issues--technical and commercial--that we have to work through, but it's definitely on the road map.

GS AU: Finally, let's talk Home. Is that still on track for this year?

JR: It's still on track to move from closed beta to open beta before Christmas.

GS AU: Jim Ryan, thanks for your time.