Harrison worries about Sony and MS focus on core gamers

Having spent more than a decade at PlayStation, as well as time at both Atari and Microsoft, Phil Harrison is one of the most well travelled executives in the games industry. We sat down for a chat with him at Gamelab to learn more about his views on the medium as a whole, on his latest investment in the AR/VR space, on Brexit and more.

One of the more interesting subjects was Harrison's view on his former employers Microsoft and Sony and how they may be limiting themselves by going after the same market.

"I think Sony has done a very good job in making PlayStation 4 very popular around the world," says Harrison when asked to compare PS4 with the PlayStation models he was part of bringing to the world. "What I wonder about, and maybe a worry about a little bit is: Are both Microsoft and Sony growing the market? Are they building and investing in the content and broadening the experience to bring in more players. It looks to me from their public announcement at least that they are increasingly for the same kind of core, hardcore gamer. Whereas the Nintendo Switch has the opportunity to play to the wider audience. So it's going to be really interesting to see how the market dynamics play out over the next three or four years in console."

The conversation covered a lot of different bases including what Harrison feels gaming should focus on next (meaningful content), his philosophies on investing in the industry and much more.