Nolan Bushnell, fundador de Atari y considerado como uno de los padres de la industria del videojuego, ha criticado duramente la próxima consola de sobremesa de Sony, PlayStation 3.
Al final de una entrevista publicada en Red Herring, es preguntado sobre la industria del videojuego, sobre la que confiesa seguir con interés tanto Wii como Xbox Live.
Al ser preguntado qué pasa con Sony y PS3 responde que Sony se 'ha pegado un tiro en el pie' y que hay una alta probabilidad de que fallen. Critica el precio y la dificultad de desarrollar para Sony, por sus herramientas y por su arrogancia y caprichos, algo que, según él, antes se soportaba por la base de usuarios que tenían.
Para terminar ha dicho que un estudio sería idiota si desarrollase primero para PS3 y no Xbox 360, y que el éxito de PSX y PS2 se debe más a la suerte, al momento y al precio adecuado que al buen hacer de Sony, 'ganador por accidente'.
Q: Let’s change direction for a bit. What areas of the game industry are you following?
A: I’m very curious and interested in the Nintendo Wii. I think it may expand the market beyond the hardcore [18- to 24-year old]. Xbox Live is interesting because it potentially becomes the platform for the living room.
Q: What do you think of Atari? It’s much different from the company you founded in 1971.
A: It really isn’t a part of today’s gaming world in any meaningful way. They lost the cachet of being a leading technology company in the games space.
Q: What about Sony’s PlayStation 3 Strategy?
A: I think Sony shot themselves in the foot… there is a high probability [they] will fail. The price point is probably unsustainable. For years and years Sony has been a very difficult company to deal with from a developer standpoint. They could get away with their arrogance and capriciousness because they had an installed base. They have also historically had horrible software tools. You compare that to the Xbox 360 with really great authoring tools [and] additional revenue streams from Xbox live… a first party developer would be an idiot to develop for Sony first and not the 360. People don’t buy hardware, they buy software.
Q: But what about Sony’s success with the PlayStation and PS2? They sold more than 100 million of each system.
A: It wasn’t anything brilliant that they did. With the PS and PS2 it was timing. They had the right pricing at the right time [and were] almost the accidental winner. It would not surprise me if a year from now they’ll be struggling to sell 1 million units. [Factoring in the PS3’s price], I think in the U.S. the number of early adopters you have is actually around 300,000.