The title to this article may sound arrogant to some and it’s a good reason as to why a lot of gamers have fell out of love with the company who has dominated the gaming industry over the course of the last 15 years (roughly). Unfortunately for them, it’s the truth. However, the fact that Sony has decided to be the one to come out and say it in an interview with Gamasutra may be the wrong way to come out and say it.
Sony’s senior director of PlayStation Network at SCEA, Susan Panico, has expressed her belief that Sony legitimized gaming as a form of entertainment over the years when no other company was able to make that type of push against society.
“I think what’s important is that gaming is the heart and soul of the company, and it’s what we do really well,” she said. “But what we’ve learned over the years… What we did as PlayStation, if you go back 15 years ago, we legitimized [gaming] as a form of entertainment.”
“It’s not a hobby; it’s a broader form of entertainment. But what we’ve learned over the past 15 years is that we have to provide other forms of entertainment to the consumer: movies, comics, music, what have you.”
Of course, people are free to disagree with her sentiments and beliefs, but the fact of the matter is, if PlayStation had not been sold as a console over 275,000,000 times, gaming wouldn’t be as far as it is today in terms of societal acceptance.
Are you one of the people who agree or disagree?
I agree i had a SuperNintendo but i never got into gaming until PlayStation came along. So it’s not arrogance its a fact. Many of us did not get into gaming until Sony came along.
They legitimized gaming as entertainment. Nintendo still hasn’t done this to this day. The Wii is still unable to play DVD’s yet the X360 and PS3 are miles ahead thanks to Sony constantly raising the bar by entertainment standards.
I don’t know about legitimizing it, but they do do gaming the best these days/
The Playstation change the gaming/entertainment world and made it the culture it is today. Before, gaming was targeted to kids but the Playstation made gaming “not just for kids” and attracted a new audience to gaming. It also made gaming “cool”. If you disagree with that statement you are either too young to understand the impact the Playstation had to the gaming world or got into gaming very late. Like the article states “if PlayStation had not been sold as a console over 275,000,000 times, gaming wouldn’t be as far as it is today in terms of societal acceptance”. She’s right on the money with that statement.
So Nintendo coming in and saving the industry from a video game crash had nothing to do with it? Okay… :p
I also don’t agree with the comments above. How does legitimizing gameplay involve other forms of entertainment like movies? They’re totally unrelated and one should not rely on the other when it comes to a console. Sure it’s a more complete package but it’s totally irrelevant when it comes to actual game performance of a console.
Legitimized gaming with the PS1, DVD gaming and media with the PS2, and of course Blu ray with the PS3.
PS4….?
to a point they did….but i got into gaming when i was but a wee lad with the SNES and Genesis
so yeah, they did bring in quite a lot of people tho