Japanese gamers flocked to a special exhibition in Tokyo at the weekend for their first look at the Sony PlayStation 2. Widely accepted as the best games console produced so far, it will go on sale on March 4 for less than 40,000 yen (about £250). And it's expected to sell a million units on the first day.
But British gamers had different questions, such as: How long will I have to wait? How much will it cost in the UK? And will it really run my old PlayStation games?
I went to Sony's offices just off Oxford Street in the centre of London to ask the two men responsible for coming up with the answers: Ray Maguire, UK managing director of Sony Computer Entertainment, the games division, and his director of marketing, Alan Welsman. And while they were still working on the details, the direction was clear.
"Ken Kutaragi, the inventor of the PlayStation, has this dream of computer entertainment," says Maguire, "the device in the front room as the conduit for all forms of entertainment. That's the long-term vision. When there's an infrastructure which can support that, that's what we'll have. The PlayStation 2 is the first product in realising that dream: it has all the connectivity you need for just about all digital inputs and outputs. It will be presented as the world's best games machine, but in time, as the cable infrastructure gets into people's houses, we'll utilise that network in putting other forms of computer entertainment in front of consumers."
As Kutaragi puts it: "What we are aiming for is a world of digital entertainment that transcends games. PlayStations will undoubtedly be connected to televisions in the home. We are consciously aiming to integrate games, movies, and music. Add to this a network, and in five or six years, when PlayStation 3 comes out, the door will open to a completely new world."
The missing word is "convergence". A lot of companies are predicting a world where games, music and films will all be purchased and downloaded from the internet, rather than delivered on compact discs. But if it turns out that people want to download content from Sony Music and Sony Pictures and Sony websites to their Sony PlayStations, which are plugged into their Sony television sets and Sony hi-fis, I won't be a bit surprised.
To begin with, of course, the PlayStation 2 is based on a DVD drive, so it can be used as a movie player, and a CD audio player, as well as a games console. This should broaden the market and attract older consumers, not just the ones who have grown up with games.
It has a Sony i.Link high-speed connection compatible with an industry standard called 1394, which can be used to connect a hard disc drive or a digital video camera. It also has a standard PCMCIA card slot for adding a modem. Unlike Sega's Dreamcast console, the PlayStation 2 doesn't come with one.
"If you specified a modem today," says Maguire, "it would soon be out of date. You should be able to specify the kind of connection you want. We'll be able to use technology as technology advances outside our control." In the future, the company may need to support cable, ADSL telephone connections and other types of link, not just dial-up modems.
At the same time, the PlayStation 2 looks backwards: it will still play games written for the original version. Console buyers are used to dumping their expensive games when a next-generation machine appears, but backwards compatibility is part of Sony's attempt not just to dominate one generation of games machines - as Atari, Nintendo and Sega have done - but to dominate successive generations.
"In reality, [compatibility] shouldn't even be a consideration," says Welsman. "You should be able to use your old software on your new machine. It's a great thing to show respect for the consumers who've ploughed money into the first one. We're very keen not to lose our core support, and we're very mindful that, as you and others have said, nobody's ever done it twice. The backwards compatibility shows how we're thinking about our core audience.
"The last thing we need is a multimedia machine that no one understands."
The company also wants to maintain sales of the PlayStation, rather than replace it immediately with the PlayStation 2. Gamers will be encouraged to buy the original knowing they will still be able to play their games when they upgrade to the more expensive model. (Apparently all but 15 third- party games which didn't follow the design rules will run.) And as Maguire points out, PlayStation sales are booming in places like Eastern Europe "where prices have come down to a more affordable level".
Price and delivery dates for the PlayStation 2 are more difficult. "In the autumn" is the company line. "It will depend on demand in Japan and how many machines are needed to feed that market," says Maguire, "and on the yields in the chip factories.
"There are so many factors it will be quite late in the day before we've got any idea of the actual release date, price or numbers. But everyone within this office would like to see it no more than the price of the PlayStation when it was launched here: that's what they've done in Japan. A hundred times the machine at the same price."
At £299.99, the PlayStation 2 could be considered cheap, since it's based on two massive custom chips that could cost £300 on their own. However, the games industry has a razor-and-blades business model, where the consoles are sold at the lowest possible price to create a market for profitable games.
Maguire even argues that allowing competitors to make rival versions of the PlayStation 2 - which Sega tried with its Saturn console - would lead to higher prices. "They'd have to make a profit out of it as well, so the price to the consumer would have to be higher. If we look after this ourselves, the hardware price to the consumer can be as low as possible," he says.
But if there's no money in hardware, why not sell consoles directly to the public, and cut out the retail and distribution overheads and profits?
For a second, Maguire's office falls strangely silent. The retail trade, especially the independent dealers, played a big part in the success of the PlayStation, which has now shipped more than 5 million units in the UK, and more than 70 million world wide.
"We're thinking about all routes to market right now," says Maguire. "The PlayStation is sold direct in Japan, and our competitors also sell direct in this country as well. I think it's a natural evolution."
Selling direct could also make it simpler to cope with supply problems, given that there's already huge demand for the product. "The hype is extraordinary, but the reality is that we firmly believe we have to earn every single unit out there," Maguire says firmly.
They certainly had to work their socks off when the first PlayStation came out. Then, Sony had no track record in the games business, which was dominated by Sega's MegaDrive.
Now, it should be easy. Sony is the market leader, and the PlayStation had more than 70% of the console games software market in January, on independent ChartTrack figures - roughly 10 times as many as its nearest competitor.
However, Sony Computer Entertainment achieved its initial success by operating as a start-up company, an independent republic. With the PlayStation 2 destined to become the focal point for a wide range of Sony products, won't that independence be lost?
"In fact it's the other way around," Maguire replies. "As SCE grows and produces more value to the corporation, we become more independent spirited. We have to have that single focus: presenting our product in the way that consumers want it. I'd hate things to get normalised across the group. Everyone that works in the building - and for Alan and me, that goes back to 1993 - has got the same passion now for the PlayStation 2 launch as we had for the PlayStation 1. We're just going to go for it."
