Industry Guest Post: Jonathan Pan is an Esports Instructor at the University of California, Irvine. He has over 13 years of experience in management, strategy, or business development roles across companies small and large. After serving as a Product Manager at Riot Games, he co-founded and served as CEO of Ember, an esports team. He has also delivered one of the most viewed TEDx talks on esports.
In Part 1 we looked at mobile, a framework for analysis and Nintendo's esports strategy. Today we continue with Sony.
SONY
Sony doesn’t have a first-party game like Super Smash Bros or Splatoon 2 that they can build a competitive ecosystem around just yet. In the meantime, Sony’s esports strategy appears to be positioning itself around the most popular console franchise, Call of Duty, while making improvements in input devices and enabling tournament participation directly from the PlayStation 4 (PS4).
The Call of Duty franchise is widely acknowledged as one of the most recognizable esports to mainstream audiences. Starting in 2015, PS4 owners started getting timed exclusivity for Call of Duty DLCs. The Call of Duty World League, which started in 2016, is played on PS4. Sony announced in March that they will reorganize in an effort to focus more on first-party games. If this effort yields first-party games with esports potential, they may shift their esports strategy.
On the input device front, Sony has partnered with Razer and Nacon to create two pro controllers: the Razer Raiju and the Nacon Revolution. There are two reasons for creating these:
First, console competitive gamers have needs that are more unique than the average console gamer. For example, Call of of Dutyplayers put their hand in a shape of claw in order to hit circle (crouch), move the right stick to aim and R2 to shoot all at the same time. However, pro controllers have input buttons on the back, so this allows them to map circle (crouch) to the back, so they can hold the controller normally without straining their hand.
Second, there is pressure from Microsoft and unlicensed third-party manufacturers such as Cinch and SCUF, who are modding PlayStation controllers. This helped push PlayStation to license pro controllers to stay competitive and to show an understanding of the competitive community’s needs.
On the platform services front, PS4 players can play in ESL tournaments directly from their PS4.
Tomorrow will continue with Microsoft's esports efforts.