Sony Exec Disses Nintendo Wii
Ahhhhh no he didn’t, well actually he did; Howard Stringer a higher-up for Sony showed no respect for the Nintendo Wii. At a media conference last week, he was asked about his thoughts on the juggernaut system, and he had this to say, “I’ve played a Nintendo Wii. I don’t see it as a competitor…It’s more of an expensive niche game device. We’re selling a lot of PlayStation 3s now and it’s still the best way to buy a Blu-ray player”
I don’t claim to be a living dictionary, but when I hear the term ‘niche’ it’s generally associated with something that has a small following. So I’m perplexed by his choice of words considering the Nintendo Wii is the top-selling console at the moment. If you wanted to get technical, the PS3 is the actual niche system since it has sold the least up to this point. It should be noted that my ill feelings are all generated towards Stringer, not the PS3 itself. I myself have a PS3 and enjoy it, especially for blu-ray movies. But to just come out and blatantly disrespect the competition (especially comp that’s whooping your blu-ray butt), is just poor public relations.
The last time I checked the Nintendo Wii and PS3 are both video game consoles, so no matter what the technology they are still competitors. While they might be going down different paths to try and be successful, they’re still relying on the same general market for success. Next time Stringer is asked about competition that is doing well, maybe he could just show some respect and leave it at that. Instead, sites are posting his disrespectful comments all over the place, and giving Sony a bad name.
(Once E3 kicks off, I promise to have some better articles.)
July 14th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I made a comment on the blog before stating that I had no problems with the PS3 itself but merely the business strategies and things of that nature in regards to Sony (specifically the Playstation division). If nothing else, this reinforces my earlier comments. I would love to see an article about a Nintendo exec bashing the PS3 or the XBOX360. I don’t think it exists. The most that anyone ever says from Nintendo is that they respect the competition, but they decided to go in a different way. Nintendo sees the future of gaming.
July 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
“Niche” means that the Wii is not a mainstream thing, which is true, because as a wii owner i can tell you, the big games dont come out for it. 90% of the commercials i see for games that i would like to own, dont come out on the wii. The wii is better suited for multiplayer, while the toher systems are better for core games, who will play alone a lot of the time. So, i dont totally disagree with the guy calling the wii a “niche” system.