Tretton: “We want quality,” not casual consumers for Vita; Software sales vital

Jack Tretton, president of SCEA, has told Forbes in an interview that he wants quality consumers who buy a lot of software, instead of casual ones who keep it in the closet after two months.

It sort of feels like an indirect dig at Nintendo, but who knows.

“If you buy my competitor’s device over mine, that is disappointing,” he said.

“If you buy either of our devices and you put it in the closet two months later I would rather you had bought my competitor’s, because you are not making money on the hardware.”

He also said that software sales are extremely vital for Vita, and he wants consumers who buy a lot of software for their systems.

“If you are going to buy a device and you are going to use 24 hours a week over a number of years then that is the ideal consumer that I want,” he said.

“It is not the casual consumer that bought it because their friends had it and never did anything with it. It is the person who stayed engaged –and that’s going to be our challenge on Vita.

“It is not just selling them on February 22nd, and not just selling them in the first year, but making sure that the people that show up at midnight tonight and buy a Vita are buying software for it five years from now,” he added

“It’s that quality consumer, as opposed to quantity, if I had to choose.”

Software sales do matter, but hardware sales are extremely important as well, and personally I feel $250 is a slight bottleneck for them.

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