Sony: 3DS is just a DS update

Shuhei Yoshida, the head of Sony Worldwide Studios, has casually dismissed Nintendo’s efforts with the 3DS as the pre-E3 mud-slinging gets into full speed.

"When we were designing the NGP we had no idea what Nintendo was going to do," he told GamesIndustry. "Aside from the 3D stereoscopic display, they seem to be keeping the same theme that they had with the DS – it feels like an update of the DS to me.

"So what we’re trying to do, lots of choices that we made were so different from their choices. It’s kind of hard to compare the two, aside from the fact that both of them are dedicated gaming platforms.

"There’s no one clear competitor in terms of what NGP offers. NGP’s going to establish itself as the unique thing that people want to have. NGP cannot be placed against smartphones. You can’t make phone calls on it and it’s too big to fit into your pocket."

Yoshida also confessed that Sony does have on challenge in common with Nintendo – the rising popularity of the 59p app.

"The problem is the same. We are dealing with the same issue that Nintendo is," he added."It’s up to content publishers, including ourselves, to show people that this is worth 25 or 30 as opposed to 59p.

"You cannot release the same content that you put on the iPhone for a dollar on to NGP or some other consoles and expect people to pay 20 times that."