Phil Harrison, Sony VP of SCEE, said he doesn't view the Nintendo DS as competition in an interview with MCV in response to his company's release of its PSP handheld in Europe next week.
"The idea of a handheld rivalry with Nintendo is an irrelevance," said Harrison. "Those formats don't appear in our planning. It's not a fair comparison; not fair on them, I should stress. That sounds arrogant, maybe, but it's the truth. With the DS, it's fair to say that Nintendo stepped out of the technical race and went for a feature differentiation with the touch screen," Harrison continued. "But I fear that it won't have a lasting impact beyond that of a gimmick - so the long-lasting appeal of the platform is at peril as a direct result of that."
In Europe, Nintendo has already sold over 1.3 million Nintendo DS units and 15 million Game Boy Advance units. According to Nintendo's European president Satoru Shibata, the company expects a 50 percent growth in its handheld business in Europe this year. He sees the company selling over three million units of the Nintendo DS across Europe by the end of 2005.
"The idea of a handheld rivalry with Nintendo is an irrelevance," said Harrison. "Those formats don't appear in our planning. It's not a fair comparison; not fair on them, I should stress. That sounds arrogant, maybe, but it's the truth. With the DS, it's fair to say that Nintendo stepped out of the technical race and went for a feature differentiation with the touch screen," Harrison continued. "But I fear that it won't have a lasting impact beyond that of a gimmick - so the long-lasting appeal of the platform is at peril as a direct result of that."
In Europe, Nintendo has already sold over 1.3 million Nintendo DS units and 15 million Game Boy Advance units. According to Nintendo's European president Satoru Shibata, the company expects a 50 percent growth in its handheld business in Europe this year. He sees the company selling over three million units of the Nintendo DS across Europe by the end of 2005.