That was the message from Sony Computer Entertainment group CEO Kaz Hirai at his Tokyo Game Show keynote address Thursday morning, as he attempted to show the assembled press that Sony has righted its course with the embattled game player.
"As the fundamental point of our system, I think it is still a game machine," Hirai said. "We want people to first enjoy it for the possibility of interactive games. If we pursue too many directions, people will keep asking us, 'What is PlayStation'?"
The tone of the speech was a dramatic turnaround from the TGS keynote given last year by Hirai's predecessor Ken Kutaragi. Kutaragi spent his time discussing grandiose ideas about the future of networked computing and very little talking about games. But Hirai showed video trailers and demonstrations of the different PlayStation game products in development, and spent comparatively little time talking about non-gaming applications of PS3.
But outside of announcing the DualShock 3 controller, Hirai made no announcements of new products -- certainly nothing that would by itself represent a change in PlayStation 3's fortunes in Japan, where it is being outsold about three-to-one by the Wii.
About Nintendo and Wii, Hirai said: "We belong to the same industry, and I think we seem to be aiming at different targets. Whatever the industry in question, there is no way that just one company can have everything.
In lieu of any megaton-bomb announcements for gamers, Hirai instead addressed the business community and talked about sharing more of SCE's game assets and know-how with third parties, and then pointed to the recent launch of the Final Fantasy Crisis Core PSP package as an example of how Sony will help third parties market their PlayStation games going forward.
