The console war for the next generation is heating up and SCE Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida is quite optimistic about it, but he doesn’t underestimate the competition, as he expressed in an interview on the Japanese website 4Gamer.
First of all, he mentions that the team is very optimistic, as there are “millions” of pre-orders worldwide for the PS4.
On top of that he made a couple of very interesting statements on the relationship with the competition at Microsoft when asked about the proportion of pre-orders between North America and Europe:
It’s a little hard to talk about specific numerical values, but the proportion [between North America and Europe] is pretty much the same we had with the PS3. However, because of the large number of people in North America and the size of the market, I feel the market share there is a little low [compared to Europe].
I’m not saying that the PS4 is losing at the moment, but the Xbox 360 was very strong in North America. That’s why we’re working there with the mindset “we are the challengers.” I think that when you have a strong rival, it’s good for the market as a whole. We want to do our best so that we won’t be defeated (laughs).
It’s really hard not to notice the difference in attitude between Yoshida-san and western professionals in similar position. His humble demeanor is downright refreshing, and even if sometimes he won’t spare a pointed joke, he always delivers it with a smile.
I can’t say I wouldn’t like quite a few others, on both sides of the console war trench (including gamers, why not?), to learn how to handle this kind of dialogue from good ol’ Shu.
