Sony likes to see Nintendo do well, ex-PlayStation boss says

Sony's PlayStation executives have 'huge respect' for Nintendo and enjoy seeing the company do well, former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida says.

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In the FTC v Microsoft trial, the Federal Trade Commission isolated PlayStation and Xbox and took Nintendo out of its analysis. The rationale was simple: PlayStation and Xbox are more alike to each other than they are to Nintendo. This narrowing allowed regulators to better define a "relevant market" (in this case, high-powered games consoles), but on the surface it felt like a big mistake to remove Nintendo from the Big 3.

Apparently, Sony does something similar. Sony too removes Nintendo from its competitive analysis, but only for markets abroad. Domestically in Japan, Sony very much sees Nintendo as a competitor, but still feels that it's important to see Nintendo do well. As we've learned in our coverage of the FTC v Microsoft court case, all of the Big 3 are synergistically and mutually inter-connected in a kind of symbiosis with one another, and the aphorism "a rising tide lifts all boats" rings true here.

In a recent interview with former Nintendo employees Kit and Krysta, former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida explains how Sony sees Nintendo:

"There's a huge respect for what Nintendo does, and in terms of what Nintendo should be doing in the industry. We all felt that it's great to have Nintendo continue to be successful so that we can grow the industry, you know, a 'continue to grow the industry together' kind of feeling," Yoshida said.

Below we have a quick transcript of Yoshida's words, which paint an important picture of how Sony views its competitors in both Japan and other parts of the world:

"Sony, even when they do business analysis, Nintendo doesn't show up even. There's a competition market share between PlayStation and Xbox, and some they don't include Nintendo.

"Not that they ignoring Nintendo, but that they do not necessarily feel Nintendo is competition because Nintendo is covering a different audience and in a bigger scale. Nintendo is bringing a young audience into gaming, and some of them when they grow up might graduate into more mature systems like PlayStation or Xbox.

"There's a huge respect for what Nintendo does, and in terms of what Nintendo should be doing in the industry. We all felt that it's great to have Nintendo continue to be successful so that we can grow the industry, you know, a 'continue to grow the industry together' kind of feeling.

"I think, except for one market, it's Japan. Nintendo is hugely strong and Xbox almost doesn't exist, you know, it's very hard to see--where is Xbox? Even though the PC gaming is becoming a bit more more popular in Japan, it's all about Nintendo versus Sony.

"The PlayStation people working in Japan see Nintendo clearly as competition, but outside Japan, PlayStation people clearly see Xbox as a primary competition."