Jack Tretton celebrates his first full year as the CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America where he has helped improve the PlayStation brand in various ways. In some fractions, Tretton believes that more could have been done, primarily in regards to the marketing of the PS3.
In a move that might send Tretton towards the contradiction corner, he emphasized the notion that they did not do a quality job at educating the consumers about the various features of the PS3 hardware.
“We are on our fourth platform introduction, and this business is never easy. There is always formidable competition. There is always education that needs to go on with consumers. But the honest answer is that while we knew price would be a challenge for the PS3, we underestimated the education process and the fact that there is a lot of information for consumers to absorb about PS3 given its advanced technology. This will be an ongoing challenge, but we think we’ve made great strides over the past year.”
By saying that they underestimated the consumer education process, this contradicts what Tretton said just a few days earlier when he mentioned, “But I think the challenge of educating consumers on the technology is something that — I don’t know that we underestimated, but it remains a formidable goal.”
Sony has made some recent moves by acquiring a new advertising agency to handle the PlayStation brands. Through this, hopefully the PlayStation 3 will receive a better rounded marketing campaign that hits on all aspects of the hardware, not just games. Furthermore he stated that the PSN services is find just the way it is, and that it does not need to exaggerate to compete with Xbox Live and promised that Home will be “like nothing seen before”.