While Sony has recently made its thoughts about how it sees competition from companies like Microsoft and Nintendo in the console market quite clear, former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida has revealed some more details about just how the company sees Nintendo internally. In an interview with former Nintendo employees Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang, Yoshida revealed that Nintendo’s consoles aren’t really seen as competition by PlayStation outside of Japan.
“Their perception of their competition is always Xbox,” said Yoshida. “They see Microsoft as being their competition, because Xbox is very similar performance hardware. You know, high-end console, mature games. And Nintendo is very different. Family friendly, games for everyone. Not about technologies, more about having fun with friends and families … So, inside Sony, even when they do a business analysis, Nintendo doesn’t show up even.”
According to Yoshida, one of the big differentiators for Nintendo in the console market when compared to PlayStation and Xbox is that Nintendo’s consoles tend to have more family friendly games. Through these titles, the company has also fostered a long-lasting fan base since the same players that played Mario when they were younger would grow up to play other games, like The Legend of Zelda or a title in the Metroid series. Yoshida also notes that some of these younger players branch out into other consoles like PlayStation and Xbox as well.
“Nintendo is bringing a younger audience into gaming, and some of them when they grow up, might graduate into more mature systems like PlayStation or Xbox,” Yoshida explained. “Of course, they have huge respect for what Nintendo does in terms of how Nintendo should be doing in the industry. We all felt like it’s great to have Nintendo to continue to be successful so that we can continue to grow the industry.”
However, he does admit that Sony only really sees Xbox as a “primary competitor” outside of Japan. Within the country, PlayStation tends to face more direct competition from Nintendo’s systems because “in Japan, Nintendo is hugely strong and Xbox almost doesn’t exist.”
During a recent business update, Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Hideaki Nishino spoke about the nature of competition in the console market, and how PlayStation is often pushed towards innovation thanks to Xbox.
“So, we think that competition in the business is healthy and pushes us to innovate,” said Nishino. “There are multiple participants who together drive the overall gaming industry, and while there are new engagement models being explored, we ultimately think this is a good thing. However, as I mentioned earlier, we are confident on our current strategy. There isn’t an urgent need for us to pivot, but we will continue to monitor play patterns appropriately as required.”
Nishino also spoke about not worry about the most recent console – the Nintendo Switch 2 – since it can’t offer the same kind of big screen immersive experiences that a PS5 could thanks to the latter’s more powerful hardware as well as some of the unique features of the DualSense controller.
