James Lee 11:47 (BST)
24/10/2008

Dave Perry, CCO of Acclaim, has warned that Sony needs to develop new business models to combat competition from Nintendo and Microsoft or face "an incredibly tough time".

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, the former founder of Shiny Entertainment discussed Sony's move to slash its earnings forecast by 57 per cent, saying it needed to capitalise on the new opportunities afforded to the company by digital distribution on the PlayStation Portable 3000 and continue to develop new business models.

"Regardless of the position Sony is in right now, I think the lessons are all learned and they have great hardware," commented Perry. "I'm also very encouraged to see them open the digital distribution store for PSP."

"I guess that's the point, the PS3 hardware is there," he explained, "and there are plenty of opportunities for Sony to disrupt in other ways, via new business models. If they stick with status quo, it's going to be an incredibly tough time for them. Microsoft is ahead with their online strategy and Nintendo is ahead with sales."

"Besides great games, I think the lessons learned are that price and accessibility are key. So what are Sony doing about that every day now, and what new business models will they introduce on PS3? They are rapidly running out of time to make these decisions."

Perry went on to comment on the revised plans for E3, welcoming the changes but called for the event to engage with the public more.

"I was pretty outspoken about the loss of E3," Perry said. "The reason was that when I brought important people to the event, it delivered, they always came away saying 'Wow - I had no idea just how exciting this industry is'. We lost that when E3 became the watered down 'corridor' version."

He added: "There's very little innovation required here, it's completely clear what we need, and how we need it. I just hope it's not too late as shows like Comicon & Leipzig, now Cologne, have become serious competition."

"At the end of the day it's all about the honey pot they create, where if every publisher/developer goes, then everyone else goes. They were at the tipping point before, if they can get there again, I do believe they can get their mojo back and actually grow the show beyond what it was before."

"It should include consumers as the industry is changing, the direct relationship with the consumers will be everything in the next 20 years and they might as well get started!"

"There's no risk to this strategy as it's been demonstrated by other events, they just need to set the standard."