PS4 Midnight Launch @ GAME
Image: GAME/Sony

Watch out, arrogant Sony is about. At least, that's what the armchair analysts will type on message boards in response to this headline – but that would be missing the point. In an interview with The Guardian, PlayStation boss Andrew House has suggested that the PlayStation 4's runaway success is good for the entire industry – and that's because it's restored the confidence in both publishers and developers.

"With this generation, we launched against a background of considerable media scepticism about the role of consoles overall," he said, pointing to the many articles which painted a bleak picture of the future for both PlayStation and Xbox. "People were saying that consoles were dead, and that mobiles and tablets were the only gaming platforms around. But what I see in the developer and publisher community is a sense of returned confidence."

Subscribe to Push Square on YouTube144k
Watch on YouTube

This, for House, is important, because confidence leads to creativity. "If developers are feeling confident that there's a fanbase that wants their content, then they will tend to take more creative risks. They will feel more comfortable about launching brand new intellectual properties, which I think is the life-blood of the industry." It's something that we're starting to see from Sony itself, with Dreams, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and WiLD around the corner.

The executive also tipped his hat towards Microsoft, describing the PS4's rivalry with the Xbox One as "healthy". He said: "I think since Phil Spencer took on leadership of [Microsoft's Xbox division], he has been very honest about their approach. He's been, in a very gentlemanly way, complimentary about us in the past. At the end of the day, there is a shared goal of great experiences for gamers." We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

[source theguardian.com]