Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida says Sony really only views Xbox as its main competitor outside Japan, despite the company’s immense respect for Nintendo’s unique positioning in the industry.
In a real Avengers-style crossover moment, Yoshida sat down with former Nintendo employees Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang for the latest episode of their Kit & Krysta podcast (timestamp), and Yoshida was asked how the higher ups at Sony view Nintendo as a competitor. His answer was essentially, they don’t, not outside Japan at least.
“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.”
Yoshida added that, at least during his time at Sony, PlayStation was happy to see Nintendo succeed because it meant more people were playing games, and that opened up the potential for PlayStation to take a cut of that market share.
“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,” said Yoshida. “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.”
Yoshida also noted that Sony’s perception of Xbox as its “primary competitor” applies to markets outside Japan, because, “In Japan, Nintendo is hugely strong and Xbox almost doesn’t exist.” Ellis and Yang both co-signed that statement, saying, “facts.”
Of course, none of this is going to be hugely surprising to even casual observers, but it’s really something else hearing it from a group of people with unique insights into the inner workings of both Sony and Nintendo, respectively.
With the Switch 2 specs not even rivaling the lightweight Xbox Series S on paper, and also by virtue of it being a handheld console, it doesn’t look like Nintendo’s aiming to shift its place in the market in this generation, which absolutely makes sense following the generational success of the OG Switch.
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