Sony’s Kazuo Hirai claims console market not going away

While some people might point at the losses sustained by both Sony and Microsoft with the current generation of consoles, as evidence enough that the market is dying, Sony's relatively newly appointed CEO, Kazuo Hirai believes otherwise, saying that consoles “aren't going away any time soon.”

Mr Hirai should know what he's talking about too, since he headed up Sony's entertainment division for many years. In an interview with The Verge however, it was put to him that the PS Vita had not sold well and did that mean the console market was in trouble?

“Based on the consumer feedback that we've been receiving, there is certainly a very large segment of the video game market that wants to play immersive games on a dedicated device, as opposed to playing casual games on smartphones,” he responded.

“Between that and home-based consoles as well, they're not going to go away any time soon.”

This is something that if you looked at all the developing consoles coming out in the next year, would seem obvious. Ultimately it looks like the console market isn't dying, it's evolving. Dedicated gaming machines are shrinking down and the bigger ones are becoming entertainment centres.

Hirai has been looking to restructure Sony since he took over, as well as attempting to turn around the bad fortunes of its TV production. He confirmed this in the interview: “The most important thing that I've impressed upon my employees is that we need to be a more focused company. Sony needs to take a look at where we excel and make investments in those areas, which will manifest itself in exciting products that will wow our customers.”

KitGuru Says:  At this point we're probably less than a year away from a PS4 release, whether it's called that or Orbis. Do you guys plan on getting one and do you think Sony is still the big player it was in the PS2 days?

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