After Sony's press conference at last week's show, I sat down with Managing Director of Sony Computer Entertainment in Australia Michael Ephraim to talk it out.
Do you think Aussies are going to embrace VR?
Ephraim: So I’ll put the question to you. When you tried it, did you want one?
I did, but after a few demos. It took me a few demos to be convinced.
Right. So I think our biggest challenge will be to get people demoing VR. Because there’s no way to sell VR until you’ve tried it. That’s the big take out of the whole VR thing. You can watch over the shoulder, you can read articles, but – and I mean this genuinely – everybody that I know who has tried PlayStation VR has taken off their headset with a smile, and said “wow”. So you’ve got to try it. That’s the challenge. With that said, I don’t think Australians are any different from anyone else. If there’s new innovation and it’s entertaining, they’re gonna want it. So with that said, how do you get people to demo PlayStation VR en masse?
Honestly, it’s going to be a challenge. We have retail partners, we have media, and shows, and events. There’s always been Westfield events. But word of mouth is a strong tool, too. You demo to 1000, and they’re going to tell 100,000 people that they had this amazing experience, and those people are going to want to have that experience too. But we don’t have the exact answer. We’re working on plans, obviously, but I think – look. Already before launch there’s so much hype, but it’s going to be here for a while. We don’t have to sell a million units during launch period. It will be a build. As Shuhei [Yoshida] said, there are a lot of publishers and devs developing for it. And there will be titles coming to VR that people will know, like GT Sport, for example, which will have a VR component. But as for en masse? It’s something we’ve got to work on.
Could we see a resurgence of the in-store demo?
Our retail partners are going to be critical, let’s face it. Our retail partners, events and demonstrations, our business partners that we work with are external from the games industry. But, and I’m just picking an analogy, we could work with our third party logistics partner and have VR there for all their 5000 staff nationally to try. We’re going to have to pollinate this thing in many different ways, but retail is obviously front-facing. Our key retailers that we deal with, that’s 1000 plus shop fronts. Can we get VR into each and every one of them? It will definitely be our intention to have VR in the top stores of each of those chains at least. All of that’s got to be worked out. You mentioned before that there are so many familiar franchises under the PlayStation banner. Is that the key factor that differentiates PlayStation VR from its competitors?
Well I mean, there are the established developers and franchises, but then look at Rigs, that’s a new franchise. And god, Until Dawn in VR – imagine playing Until Dawn in VR. Have you played The Kitchen demo? Playing Until Dawn VR is going to make The Kitchen demo look like Disneyland! Like some kindergarden class. I mean yes, we have the existing franchises, but there will be so many other unique and new things to attract people. And then of course, there’s the fact that the PlayStation 4 is very familiar already. There are millions and millions of PlayStations in homes. There are already PlayStation owners who can’t wait for this. So I think that’s an advancage that we have. We’re giving PlayStation owners another way to play.
Obviously there’s been no word on a specific release date for PlayStation VR. But when it does launch, is the plan to launch at the same time in all territories?
I really can’t comment. We always try to launch everything globally but there are all kinds of factors that come into play. Production, etc etc. We’ve had formats where we’ve launched globally, and there have been some formats where we’ve staggered the launch. Time will tell. Why is now the right time for VR?
I think Bill Gates once said, and I love this quote, he said “technology never happens as fast as people think, but when it happens, it happens bigger.” So – VR has been around, but there have been so many things that have had to be worked through. Technology, cost, all these factors. We heard about a lot of technology years ago in its incubation stage; VR had that stage a couple of decades ago, to develop into what PlayStation VR is.
At the moment PlayStation VR – and all VR hardware, really – is being pitched as a living room device. Do you think it will ever hold any appeal to an older age bracket?
VR in general is going to have so many different applications. As VR becomes established, it’s going to be used in so many different ways. Medicine, real estate, movies. But you know, for your parents, for people in their 70s, the experience is so unique that you get sucked into it. You look at other technologies that are more simple, and let’s give credit where credit’s due with the Nintendo Wii, it brought in a ton of older people, because it was so fun and so different. So I tink VR can attract an incredible range of people. It’s that different. It’s that exciting. I don’t even think that the content needs to be that specific to different age groups.
The experience itself – being in a complete environment, where you’re in that environment – nobody has ever experienced that before this. Lucy O'Brien is Entertainment Editor at IGN’s AU office. Follow her ramblings on Twitter.