Microsoft On PS4 Sales: “This Is A Marathon, Not A Sprint”
By Erik Sugay
During this year’s Game Developers Conference, Microsoft executive Phil Harrison discussed the current generation console race.
“We’re 120 days into our platform lifecycle,” he stated in an interview with VentureBeat. “You know better than anyone that this is a marathon, not a sprint. We’re happy with our plan. We’re happy with the performances of our key franchises and key partnerships, most notably Titanfall in the last couple of weeks.”
Executives in the video game industry sure seem to like falling back on that quote when discussing sales. It holds especially true when they’re behind in that arena, coming from a decidedly underdog standpoint.
Last generation, when Nintendo took the world by storm with the motion-controlled Wii and touchscreen-enabled DS, Sony’s Nanako Kato used in a 2007 statement to the now defunct GamePro the very same idiom as the PlayStation 3 stumbled out of the gate.
Even more recently, John Koller, who handles all brand marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment America, said the exact same line to Games Industry International, in reference to the PlayStation Vita. It’s no secret that the handheld has struggled mightily for years.
For the PS3, that saying turned out fairly true. It took nearly the entire generation to catch up to the Xbox 360’s sales, although both HD consoles are still lagging behind the Wii by around 20 million units.
The point? History tells us that it’s still way too early in the current generation to start worrying about the health of a specific platform. Just be excited that blockbuster games are finally coming out for these new systems. Titanfall just released! It’s great!