Atari founder Bushnell on PS3

Charles Starrett • Nov 8, 2006 • Comments ()

Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, recently spoke about his views of the PlayStation 3 with Red Herring. He unfortunately isn't very kind to Sony on the subject of the PS3, claiming "Sony shot themselves in the foot."

Q: What about Sony’s PlayStation 3 Strategy?
A: I think Sony shot themselves in the foot… there is a high probability [they] will fail. The price point is probably unsustainable. For years and years Sony has been a very difficult company to deal with from a developer standpoint. They could get away with their arrogance and capriciousness because they had an installed base. They have also historically had horrible software tools. You compare that to the Xbox 360 with really great authoring tools [and] additional revenue streams from Xbox live… a first party developer would be an idiot to develop for Sony first and not the 360. People don’t buy hardware, they buy software.

Q: But what about Sony’s success with the PlayStation and PS2? They sold more than 100 million of each system.
A: It wasn’t anything brilliant that they did. With the PS and PS2 it was timing. They had the right pricing at the right time [and were] almost the accidental winner. It would not surprise me if a year from now they’ll be struggling to sell 1 million units. [Factoring in the PS3’s price], I think in the U.S. the number of early adopters you have is actually around 300,000.

Bushnell also discusses the changes at Atari, the gaming business in general, and also talks about a new touch-screen interface for his new chain of restaurants that features both on-screen menus and ordering, as well as games.