Sony's New Promotion of PS3 for Blu-ray Movies

[PaulGo]

Victor Matsuda, VP of Sony's Blu-ray Disc Group, tells GameDaily BIZ that the PS3 has played a key role in the format's momentum and this holiday will be huge.

Posted by John Gaudiosi on Thursday, November 01, 2007

LOS ANGELES—The Blu-ray Disc Association held a two-day summit in Hollywood with Walt Disney Home Entertainment, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony and Panasonic to showcase new hardware and blockbuster movies being released for the format and trump the latest innovations from the new technology.

PlayStation 3 was a key part of the summit, as executives have focused on Sony's next generation console and the gamers and early adopters who have bought it when targeting their Blu-ray film releases for both new movies and catalog titles. So far, Blu-ray movies are outselling rival HD-DVD movies by a margin of 2 to 1, and that's mostly thanks to sales of PS3.

"When you compare PS3 to other Blu-ray player sales, you can only assume the PlayStation 3 has had a huge impact or else the 2 to 1 margin we have over HD-DVD wouldn't be there," said Victor Matsuda, vice president, Blu-ray Disc Group, Sony. "I think we always focus on how the numbers are doing on hardware and the emphasis tends to be on the traditional disc players only and the PlayStation, numbers-wise, has always been exponentially larger than the total number of disc players (for both PS2 and now PS3)."

Matsuda said the issue now becomes how many of those PS3 owners are using the console as a Blu-ray Disc device.

"The information we have is extremely positive," said Matsuda. "Because that question arises we do surveys on a regular basis and in the next few weeks we'll be releasing information on what percentage of people who buy a PS3 use it for Blu-ray Disc playback and with what frequency. It is very positive."

With hit movies like Cars, Ratatouille, The Simpsons Movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Ocean's 13, Spider-Man 3, and the Harry Potter films all slated for Blu-ray releases this fourth quarter, the format has over $1.5 billion in domestic box office revenue being released on the format. Sony will be doing its part, beyond the pack-in Spider-Man 3 BR-D disc with the $400 40 GB PS3, to promote the movie playing capabilities of its game console.

"Promoting the movies together with the PS3 is a big part of the corporate strategy for promoting Blu-ray Disc this fourth quarter," said Matsuda. "There's a big advertising spend that will focus on the convergence of the PS3 as a movie and game device...much more aggressive than it's been since launch."

Matsuda also said that packaging the remote control for movie playback in the console, something that's currently sold separately, might be something Sony will look at in the near future to boost the movie-playing aspect of the hardware.

Also looking ahead to the future, Matsuda said that the upcoming movie offerings through the PlayStation Network, Sony's digital delivery entertainment pipeline, prepares the company for the long-run when digital delivery becomes more mainstream

"Just working with the Sony Pictures people we know that's definitely another revenue source in the future," said Matsuda. "We're focusing on the packaged media business now while preparing for that next phase, as well."

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/ne...holiday/18377/