Sony: PS3 was on "life support"

"Two years ago PlayStation was on life support," Stringer said during The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital Conference on Wednesday.

Lofty development costs for the console were nearly "catastrophic" for his company, he said.

But he says everything is fine and dandy now with PS3, following improved sales and a win in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray format war.

He said he's "very pleased" with the console's performance, and is optimistic that games will begin to take more advantage of the PS3's processing power.

Stringer said as early as January this year that PS3 was "out of the woods" after a rough launch, hindered by a high retail price tag, stiff competition from Xbox 360, and a slim games lineup.

As for the movie format war, Stringer said that if HD-DVD would've won, a reference to "Betamax 2" would've been engraved on his tombstone.

He also denied that Blu-ray won because Sony paid movie studios the most money. "We were not in the check-writing competition," he said.

The future of Blu-ray is promising, even in the face of digital downloads, according to Stringer, who said that consumers will take a long time to move away from physical media to purely digital.

Courtesy of Next Generation

May 29, 2008

Latest in PlayStation
Rise of the Ronin's photo mode offers some wonderful shots
On the heels of Rise of the Ronin's PC launch, its director says there's a "significant" amount of Japanese Switch gamers: "I am closely watching how this will change with the release of Switch 2"
Dino Crisis 2 art showing a young woman and man back-to-back amid tall green grass, both with their weapons drawn
Dino Crisis gets a fresh trademark filing by Capcom, but it might not mean the 26-year-old survival horror franchise will get a new installment like fans expect
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Dark Souls 2 fans remind Death Stranding 2 director Hideo Kojima that he won’t be taking the DS2 acronym that easily
Minecraft Diamond Armor
Minecraft Pocket Edition got its name because one of its devs was a big "Nintendo nerd" who wanted to pay homage to the Game Boy Pocket
Death Stranding 2
Hideo Kojima says Death Stranding's themes of connection came about because "I thought I lost everything when I became alone nine years ago"
Monster Hunter Wilds trailer screenshot showing a young woman with long blonde hair tied back into a ponytail smiling slightly, pumping her left fist in the air
Monster Hunter Wilds' infamously confusing menus spare no player, not even Gemma's voice actor herself: "This is honestly what I’m struggling with the most"
Latest in News
inZOI Character Studio screenshot showing a young woman with short black/pink hair, black cat-like ears, and a black blouse with a bowtie
The creator of upcoming life sim Inzoi says he was "recklessly brave to even think about creating a game of this scale"
Rise of the Ronin
A year after its PS5 launch, Rise of the Ronin debuts on PC to "Mixed" reviews and performance complaints: "Stuttering on a 4090 is just... no"
Rise of the Ronin's photo mode offers some wonderful shots
On the heels of Rise of the Ronin's PC launch, its director says there's a "significant" amount of Japanese Switch gamers: "I am closely watching how this will change with the release of Switch 2"
Stardew Valley Castle Village mod
Stardew Valley Expanded creator is building an "even more ambitious" mod with a whole new city and "dungeons inspired by The Legend of Zelda"
Dino Crisis 2 art showing a young woman and man back-to-back amid tall green grass, both with their weapons drawn
Dino Crisis gets a fresh trademark filing by Capcom, but it might not mean the 26-year-old survival horror franchise will get a new installment like fans expect
Cujo
Netflix is making a brand new adaptation of Cujo, the infamous Stephen King book about a killer dog