We've heard it before and now we're hearing it again: PlayStation is more than a piece of hardware, it's a service. With initiatives like PS Vita TV, Gaikai, and PlayStation Mobile, Sony's vision for gaming's future expands far beyond its upcoming next-gen box.
Sony’s Fergal Gara recently spoke with OPM on the future of PlayStation, saying:
Whether you take PlayStation Vita TV, or the Gaikai cloud gaming technology, there clearly is a strategy here to bring more PlayStation experiences here to more people in the ways they want it. We’re more about a brand and an ecosystem than we are about a box.
We see PlayStation as a brand, not just as a box. Going out to 2013 and probably more appropriately 2014, 15, 16, 17 you’ll see start to see PlayStation 4 as a brand and a service, as a set of services, a set of experiences.
For the foreseeable PlayStation 4 will be the pinnacle in terms of the highest possible experiences, the most powerful service we can offer. But we can offer many many more. The Gaikai acquisition, PlayStation Vita TV capability. There are lots of pieces here that all point to that direction really. Which is: PlayStation experiences on devices, some Sony devices and non-Sony devices in time as well.
In addition, Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada believes PlayStation 5 won't be a gaming box like we know it today. Instead, he believes Sony will roll out a cloud-centric service that will serve as the primary way to play games. "I think in the future things will be played on the service, rather than on the hardware. The cloud is often mentioned, and if cloud services progress, the time when only the name of the service will remain will come some day," he explained to Famitsu (via DS).
"The PS5 probably won’t have a main console, but just the screen and controller. So what remains will be just the name of the service. It could be named just 'PlayStation Network.' Steam is defined a platform, but it’s not a hardware platform. It’s the name of the service."
What do you think of this approach? Is the PlayStation brand destined to transcend the conventional console model? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
