Sony president Kaz Hirai was a popular guy at CES today, and he spoke a great deal about the future of the PS3 and Blu-Ray. Perhaps most newsworthy of all, he vehemently defended the power of Sony's next-gen console against those who say early titles aren't representative of said power.
"I have heard many people say our competitors' systems are just as powerful as the PS3. That simply is not true," said Hirai. "No other next generation entertainment system pushes the envelope on advanced technology like PS3.
Based on the company's history with consoles, we'd have to say that their systems grow exponentially with time. The PS2 grew further, in terms of visuals, than either the Xbox or GameCube (perhaps due to the fact it released a full year earlier, but nevertheless), and we foresee the same thing happening with the PS3. Therefore, if the PS3 follows the same path as the PS1 and PS2, and the games look like they do right now, the PS3 should have the edge in the end.
Hirai also talked Blu-Ray-
"I have heard people say that a high-capacity game delivery vehicle like Blu-ray isn't necessary in a next generation computer entertainment system," he said. "You just can't expect that 9GBs of storage capacity found on today's DVDs are going to have enough space to hold tomorrow's games."
Of course, the Blu-Ray production issues led to the difficult delays of the PS3, and Hirai did admit this was a definite problem. However, he reiterated a strong position on the format.
"I don't think anyone could have foreseen the difficulties we encountered in the production of the blue laser diode for the PlayStation 3, which ultimately delayed the launch of PlayStation 3. We were asking our teams to develop millions of components for the PlayStation 3, like the Blu-ray Disc player and cell broadband engine, that had previously only been produced in the thousands."
Hirai went a step further in regards to the system's power, actually suggesting Sony would've had a smoother launch had they pulled a Nintendo; issuing a marginally more powerful console that developers would immediately understand. It would be far cheaper and far less problematic initially, but it's not what they wanted for the long run.
"A worldwide launch for any console is quite ambitious. In fact, it has never been done before. I suppose if we had simply done a mild upgrade to the PS2 and not pushed the envelope so hard, it would have been easier on ourselves. However, if we did that every time, we wouldn't be Sony."
Well, that's certainly true.
