…and Full Auto 2: Battlelines coming to PS3 as launch title on November 17, 2006, and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz is set for the Wii launch in the last three months of 2006. Sega of America’s VP of Marketing, Scott Steinberg, talks about Sega’s approach to next-gen consoles, their thoughts on the Wii and the expensive pricing on PS3. As well as the publisher’s new emphasis on Western development.
GameDaily (BIZ): So let’s start off with a top line view. What’s Sega’s strategy on next-gen consoles?
Scott Steinberg (SS): Top line, Sega is supporting all three platforms, all three next- and new-gen platforms at launch. So we’ve converted a lot of our existing brands and new brands to next-gen launch titles. We’ve got Sonic the Hedgehog in its original naming convention shipping on the PS3; and of course it’ll be on the Xbox 360 as well, but it’ll be a launch title for the PS3. We have Full Auto 2: Battlelines, which is a sequel off of our 360 SKU last year, that’s shipping with the launch of the PS3. Then Virtua Fighter 5 will be in March of the following year, so we’ve got three games out of the gate supporting PS3.
On the Nintendo Wii platform, we’ve got another Sonic game, completely different and built just for the controller and the new system. That’ll be shipping probably in March as well. And Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz will be a launch title also on the Nintendo Wii. So we’re bringing our frontline brands as well as some new IP (Intellectual Property). You’ll be seeing some new IP that kind of rounds out our efforts on the two new platforms.
The Xbox 360 we continue to support; we’re shipping Chromehounds in June, which is a massively Xbox Live oriented game, a mech game. And we have lots of plans to be players on all three consoles. We’re not necessarily picking one or the other; we have the capacity and scale to support all three.
BIZ: Full Auto was a 360 game, and now the sequel is a PS3 exclusive. Why is that if you’re supporting all three? Is it just perhaps an exclusivity window?
SS: We haven’t announced a 360 SKU, so we’re exclusive on the PS3 right now.
BIZ: So, basically it’s coming but Sega isn’t ready to announce it…
SS: [laughs]
BIZ: From your perspective though at Sega, is there one advantage or disadvantage to any of the three platforms?
SS: We have to be platform agnostic and it’s definitely a different development approach for Nintendo’s [console] than the other two. There isn’t yet a lot known about what Sony is doing online, so there’s kind of a question mark there and obviously we know a great deal about what [Xbox] Live is. All the cards haven’t been revealed from the deck in that instance, but the two next-gen platforms… we’re taking a slightly different strategy with them as opposed to Nintendo’s, which has such a unique architecture to it that we mentally really have to think differently.
BIZ: One of the supposed advantages of developing for the Wii is that it should cost far less than developing on Xbox 360 or PS3. How much would you estimate Wii development to be on average, or how much less than 360 or PS3 do you think it is?
SS: Yeah, I’ve been asked this question a lot and it’s difficult to put it [in terms] of the kind of relationship you want, headline type relationship, because it’s like buying a car… You can buy a $100,000 car or you can buy a $20,000 car. Next-gen games don’t automatically cost $20 million dollars. It really depends on what you want to create. And you can spend, and people do, spend $15 million on today’s gen games. So, there’s no doubt that Wii is a more affordable [console] for developers and publishers to build games on; it’s much more analogous to the GameCube. And there’s no doubt that you can spend a lot of money chasing billions of polygons on the 360 and PS3, but you also don’t have to. I think the industry uses the 2X factor on next-gen games and that’s certainly a decent rule of thumb—it doesn’t always have to be that way—and we’re far below that on the Nintendo Wii. There’s no need—well you can I guess—but there’s no need to go that high.
So, family friendly, by that definition you’re not trying to do a lot with violence and with guns, and so on the Nintendo Wii we’re able to cost control a lot better. I think the economics with how the machine is going to be more affordable for the family and having games that are probably a bit more affordable for the family is really going to strike a nice installed base and we’re one of the few third-party companies, as Sega, that has had success on GameCube and quite frankly it’s easier to bring that success to the Wii because we’ve already introduced our brands to the [previous] platform holders.
BIZ: Do you think this affordability is going to allow for much greater third-party support on the Wii than Nintendo has seen on previous consoles?
SS: Well, we have always supported Nintendo, so we’re one of the top third-party companies, and we’re the top third-party company on GameCube, so I would think they would have to rethink their strategy if they’re not building Wii titles. I recently got back from a little tour around, and I’ve not seen a lot of third parties developing [on Wii], so they’re behind. There’s a bit of a design, creative learning curve on how to fully exploit the nunchuks and Sega is already thinking about its second generation software. So if they’re not already here, they probably weren’t on board at the beginning and the companies are going to have a harder time thinking about ways to innovate and Sega’s already thinking second generation.
BIZ: What is Sega’s perspective on the PlayStation 3 pricing? Doesn’t $499 and $599 seem like a bit too much?
SS: I think it’s within expectations, quite frankly. I think there’s a lot of much to do about what we all thought they would have to do. I mean, we know the price of the consumer electronics is over $1000; I think just about every analyst I’ve seen write a report pegged it in that range, so there’s no real surprise there. I think it’s an expensive device, but it’s a very powerful device. Their job is to convince the world that Blu-ray has a high utility and delivers on a promise, a value promise, and I’m sure they’ll sell out.
We’re obviously staunch supporters of the PS3 and we think the platform is going to be successful; they just have a job to do in selling and marketing it to not only gamers, but they’ve also got to play with the Blu-ray platform in the consumer electronics market as well. So they’ve really got to do two things with their tech to get this platform to be successful.
BIZ: It’s one thing for the hardcore gamer to put down $600, but do you honestly feel that the average, more mainstream PS2 user will do so? Are you concerned that this price may slow the adoption rate?
SS: In some ways, of course, naturally. We’ve never seen a piece of video game equipment cost this much ever [Actually, the 3DO retailed for $699 and we all know how well that went – Ed.]. It’s definitely new territory, but again I look at on the arcade side, we’re bringing Virtua Fighter 5 from the arcades to the PS3 in a relatively few number of months, and there is going to be very little if any noticeable degradation to the graphics. So, effectively you’ve got thousands of dollars worth of arcade tech in a machine that’s 500 bucks, 600 bucks. So there’s a lot of value in that machine.
It’s a matter of how Sony can bring that to life with their games, and there are some pretty awesome games coming out. Definitely, the [price] is a concern, but globally the brand is so strong that when you think about the marketplace in Japan, North America and Europe, Sony has been the clear winner, so there’s a lot of marketing momentum and sales momentum that they’re going to absolutely carry into the PS3. To ignore that and sort of use price—I mean PS2 was $299 for a long, long time, so there’s definitely a band of consumers who if they’re fired up about a piece of software or multiple pieces of software, they’ll pay it. Whether that’s after the 5th million or 6th million unit is sold, that’s super arguable and they’re going to have to lifecycle price the hardware in a way that brings it to the masses, I would think relatively soon, because it is expensive. For a lot of families that’s too expensive.
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