The PlayStation 4 from Sony will be released on Nov. 15, one week ahead of the Xbox One on Nov. 22. Though there's massive hype surrounding the PlayStation 4, Sony Worldwide Studio head Shuhei Yoshida told Games Industry that in the United States Sony is still the underdog compared to Microsoft and that the company is still trying to take over the top spot.
"We never took them lightly. Especially in the States, we are the challenger - we're trying to compete with them. Some of the messaging that they stumbled on just gave us more chances to compete with them in the States. Other markets are very different - in Europe, we have a larger market share and in Japan, we have a much longer history of being here. Being consistent and persistent helps; the legacy and people's associations with the brand, their memories of having a great time before," said Yoshida.
While Sony has taken some pretty hard shots at their chief rival in the past, Yoshida stated he had nothing but respect for the people behind the Xbox One. Sony had previously made a video for E3 mocking the Xbox One's byzantine used game policy, as well as jabbing Microsoft for its policy reversal at Gamescom. Yoshida, however, applauded the engineers who prepared the Xbox One and made that transition possible:
"We know they're very smart people. It's great that they were able to quickly realise that some of the things they were doing were not popular, and were able to make really quick decisions to change some of those things - even things that their engineering group must have spent a lot of time preparing before the launch. It must have been a very tough time for them. That shows how smart they are, and it shows their dedication to making Xbox One successful."
Despite the talent and Microsoft and Sony's underdog status, the executive believes the PlayStation 4 delivers a solid video game experience along with the bells and whistles that users expect from next-gen consoles:
"We continue to say what we've been saying since February...PS4 is really designed for consumers and focused on how people want to play games. At the same time, we've really made sure that it's hardware which game developers will enjoy making games on. We want consumers to look at how much fun it is to use this system, not just for playing games but for finding out about games and sharing the experience with other people."