Sony has flirted with the idea of digital distribution quite a bit over the last few years, releasing full games like Warhawk and SOCOM: Confrontation over the PlayStation Network, and of course releasing the all-digital PSPgo. But according to Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai, don’t take this as an indication that they expect a digital-only future to arrive anytime soon. In fact, he believes it’s still over a decade away.
“We do business in parts of the world where network infrastructure isn’t as robust as one would hope,” Hirai said to MCV. “There’s always going to be requirement for a business of our size and scope to have a physical medium. To think everything will be downloaded in two years, three years or even ten years from now is taking it a little bit to the extreme.”
It’s a bit of a surprising stance, considering Sony is the only platform holder to have already released hardware that was download-only with the PSPgo — although, perhaps it was their experience with that handheld that led Hirai to this conclusion in the first place? In any case, we can take this to mean the next PlayStation console — whether it comes in two, three, or ten years — probably will still be using discs.
