Sony views Wii U release as opportunity to enter casual market

September 29, 2012

Sony has been flippant about the Wii U release before, and continues to do so, now calling it the perfect opportunity to take a chunk out of the casual market.

In an interview with CVG, managing director of Playstation UK Fergal Gara said that the casual market is “hugely important” for PS3, and that the transition between Wii and Wii U opens the door for Sony.

“If you look at the upcoming Christmas market, the Wii will be selling in very low volumes – it’s on its way out – and the Wii U will arrive, but it will bring in a relatively small number of early adopter consumers,” he said.

“We see ourselves well positioned for the casual market who won’t buy Wii U on day one. We’ve got a wow moment, we feel. I remember when people picked up the Wii controller for the first time, that was a big moment, it was a casual market breakthrough, but we thing we’ve got a casual market breakthrough as well with Wonderbook and the lowest priced PS3 yet.”

Gara does recognise Nintendo’s casual dominance, but points back to the PS2 for an example of Sony’s attempts to market to casual players.

“If you look at the casual market overall in the last few years, there’s no doubt that the kings of that market has been Nintendo, they have done a great job with a great product,” he said.

“If you look back even further, I think Sony has done a great job with the PS2 in the casual market with games like Singstar.”

Gara has big expectations for J.K. Rowling’s Wonderbook in the casual market, but also acknowledged the PS3’s core-gaming pedigree with talks of the AAA third-party titles of this year.

“Obviously we don’t want to forget about core gamers, and while we don’t have that big triple-A game this Christmas, we have a stronger alignment with Assassin’s Creed and FIFA. There will obviously be more to come.

“It would be wonderful to have one. I take huge confidence in what is coming down the line though. Of course we’d love to have a new triple-A game, but we have a great strategy for this holiday period.”

“We don’t have to talk to the same audience all the time. We have a stronger play on family this Christmas, and for the core games we will leverage third parties a bit more. I’m convinced we’ve got some great games coming out next year, such as The Last of Us and Beyond.”