Games Thirst – Amazing Life
It’s not easy to enter the console business, he warns, adding that you need “deep pockets” and “great fortitude” to succeed.
As Valve’s foray into the games hardware business threatens Sony and Microsoft’s turf, Phil Harrison, Microsoft Studios executive and ex-Sony PlayStation development boss sort to scare the zealots (Valve, Ouya, Project Shield) a bit, reminding them it’s no easy game being a console manufacturer.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Harrison said:
Entering the hardware business is a really tough business. You have to have great fortitude to be in the hardware business and you have to have deep pockets and a very strong balance sheet. It’s not possible for every new hardware entrant to get to scale.
They can be successful at small scale. But it’s very rare for a new hardware entrant to get to scale, and I mean tens or hundreds of millions of units. There are a very small number of companies that can make that happen.
And it’s not just having a great brand or a great software experience. It’s about having a supply chain and a distribution model and a manufacturing capacity and all the things that go with it. It’s a non-trivial problem to solve and it takes thousands of people to make reality.
Harrison went on, contending that although Valve has a venerable service with Steam, boasting over 50 million unique users and counting, he wouldn’t label the service as the industry leader, instead, as expected, he pointed to Xbox Live.
I admire Valve as a company and what they’ve achieved with Steam,” Harrison continued when asked if Microsoft would be satisfied if, in two years’ time, it had emulated the success of Steam with its own cloud gaming offering.
So I wouldn’t in any way criticise what they’ve achieved and the role they’ve played in the industry. But I’m not sure we would choose Steam as a benchmark of success. We would always seek to innovate and push beyond.
Xbox Live as a foundation, the reach we have and the experience we deliver is a great place to build on.
Still, Harrison thinks the industry benefits when new consoles apart from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are released. Everybody wins, he said.
Any new entrant, without being specific to any company or brand or product, to the games industry is ultimately a good thing, because it helps validate, grow and enhance consumer excitement and consumer interest in our category. So, ultimately, it’s a win for everybody.
