Tretton on BC and other things

[jman8]

Borkachev said:

Bladeneo said:
Of course BC was a financial decision..."still selling PS2 software to PS2 customers", basically saying they want as many people buying PS2's as possible, so to do that they take away the only other option to play PS2 games, a BC PS3. Purely financial.

 

Except it makes absolutely no sense. If they can get someone to buy a PS3 instead of a PS2 (which backwards compatibility does), then they open up the possibility of that person buying software for both systems instead of just one, and greatly increase their profit potential from that sale in the future. Because of course, PS2 software sales will dry up in a couple years, while PS3 sales will begin to bloom. There's no reason at all for Sony to prefer a PS2 sale to a PS3, unless they're looking at the ultra short term -- and if they're afraid of losing a couple bucks on the initial PS3 sale, then they shouldn't be in this business to begin with.

The original quote makes no sense as written either:

Hardware / software for backwards compat wasn't all that expensive. ... but we're selling PS2 software to PS2 customers, and selling PS3 software to PS3 consumers."

What difference does it make who's buying the software, or what console it's for? Their cut is the same regardless.

None of this adds up. Either there's another reason they're not telling us, or they really are clueless. Jack does make it sound like he was overruled on this one...

They sell PS2s at a profit vs selling PS3s at a loss. That's why they don't want people buying PS3s instead of PS2s. They want the PS2 to live on as a viable hardware seller for as long as possible.