Jack Buser Talks PlayStation First-Party, Goes On The Offensive

We're not sure it makes sense from a business point-of-view — sometimes you just have to bite your tongue — but it's certainly nice to hear some honesty from time-to-time.

It's possible — just possible — that Sony's Jack Buser may have taken that honesty too far, though. In a CES speech reported by IndustryGamers, the PlayStation Home executive offered a fairly brutal appraisal of the gaming landscape as a whole, talking up Sony's commitment to first-party, and giving a scathing evaluation of the company's competitors in the process.

“We have a 15 year heritage of investing very, very heavily in the PlayStation platform. We have actually invested more in our first-party studios than Nintendo and Microsoft combined,” Buser casually began. “We have a tremendous catalogue of game titles that are second to none out there, and now with PlayStation Suite and PlayStation Network the ability to deliver those experiences across so many devices and even potentially across third-party devices is an incredible competitive advantage.”

But it was on the subject of third-party content, that Buser really started to turn the screw.

"The PlayStation philosophy has always been about our third-party partners and our ability as a games industry to raise all boats together as partners. We’re not like some other game platforms that say ‘Hey! Put your game out here on the App Store and maybe you’ll be one of these 10 featured apps if we feel like it right now, and then the rest of you guys can all go out of business.’

“Or some other platform owners who are saying, ‘Look, we’re gonna make all the great games and if you guys can maybe make a great game on our platform, good luck but we’re not going to help you much.’ Or some other guys who say ‘Hey, we hand-picked you and we’re gonna shove a bunch of money in your pocket and the rest of you guys can all dial the 800 number and try to dial through to the front desk.’

“We’re all about our partners, our publishing partners, we always have been. If you talk to any game publisher out there, and you mention the word PlayStation, they are going to be very, very loyal to our brand.”

Phew, easy there Buser. We don't think we need to spell out which competitors in particular Buser is referring to. There's some truth to what he's saying though. Sony's always built extremely strong third-party relationships and it's pretty much defined the brand over the past three generations. We're just not sure he needed to go on the offensive quite so scathingly. No doubt there'll be a backlash to Buser's comments in the coming days.