GamePro Q&A: 5 Questions for Phil Harrison (page 2 of 2)

GP: Speaking of Ken Kutaragi, he was quoted in an interview with PC Watch magazine a few months ago speaking about possible hardware upgrades for the PS3, such as a better video card, maybe more RAM or a Blu-ray burner? Is that a direction that Sony is interested in pursuing with the PS3, making it more of a consumer personal computer?

PH: Definitely from a software point of view, PlayStation 3 will grow over time, just as we've made upgrades available for the PSP to add functionality. I can't comment on the hardware strategy, but whatever we do, if we do it, when we do it, the key thing is going to be maintaining the existing library of games. So, nobody need worry that they're going to be left behind.

[Time's up: Harrison's assistant asks me to wrap up the interview. But, in an amusing twist, Harrison takes a keen interest in what he calls "the questions reporters don't ask." He actually slides this reporter's notebook across the table and begins skimming over its contents!

Luckily, Harrison grants me one more question, and it's a doozy, one that GamePro community members echo again and again in our forums.]

GP: What do you say to gamers who don't care about Blu-ray movies but would rather have a cheaper console?

PH: That's a great question. I can understand that. There's this sort of misunderstanding that the Blu-ray disc player for movies is somehow burdening the console with unnecessary cost. That is completely not true. We put our Blu-ray Disc functionality in the console purely from a game design point of view. Once we had that storage capacity on Blu-ray Disc, adding the movie playback functionality was extremely cost-effective, [the cost] is actually non-existent.

So games like Resistance which, as a launch title, is up to 20-something gigabytes already. And that's day one -- think about four years, six years from now. We'll be pushing the 50 gigabyte limit with dual-layer Blu-ray very quickly. So we absolutely need it as game designers, and in that regard, the consumer is getting the movie functionality effectively for free.

[Final thoughts on the interview: Harrison is an extremely charming guy (and tall, at six feet seven inches!). I liked him immediately. In contrast to his somewhat stiff public speaking style, he's very sharp, straightforward, and engaging in a one-on-one conversation. It was a great interview, and he's clearly a key asset for Sony Computer Entertainment.]

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