Interview with May El-Husseiny, Sony Gulf Marketing Manager
Posted by Encroyable.com | Wii | Posted on February 9th, 2010
May El Husseiny is the Marketing Manager at PlayStation division, Sony Gulf FZE (pictured right). The PS division responsible for the distribution, marketing and sales of PS3, PS2, PSP, and PSN software and hardware across the GCC, Levant and North African markets. May joined Sony Gulf late 2007, and since then has been hard at work to make the PlayStation logo be recognized in every household! Q. Must have been a busy week for you with FIWC event just finished. What’s your overall impression about the tournament? Yes, it was most certainly a busy week for us, but thoroughly enjoyable. We saw people fly in from various part of the region as well as crowds come in directly to register. The tournament is the largest football gaming tournament and every year it becomes more popular and competitive. Q. Of all the games on the PS3 lineup, you’ve picked FIFA 10, and there must be a good reason for that, correct? FIFA 10 is the top best selling football title from EA sports, and adds more to the existing great features of the previous FIFA 09. It is combined with authentic club and league licenses, and continues to set the benchmark as the most complete simulation of football. Let’s not forget that football is a hugely popular sport with a vast fan span. Everyone loves football and support their own much loved teams. Why not give them the chance to play for their teams and compete virtually. Q. Only 128 contestants were allowed to participate in FIWC UAE feeder event. This must have frustrated some gamers. Why wasn’t the registration open to everyone? We have limited time and capacity at the stand. We also need to be able to keep it controlled and at an even number of participants. All gamers from different countries within the region were treated equally and had the same set of rules and regulations. FIFA fans who were unable to participate in the live event still have the chance to participate online in the second phase of FIWC2010 online competition. All they have to do is register directly inside the retail version of EA’s FIFA10 on PS3. Competition will run up until 31st of March 2010. Q. Are you planning to have other public competitions in the near future? We are currently running another competition for SingStar on PlayStation3 in Festival City, and will continue to bring the fun and entertainment to the public in as many ways as we can. So watch this space for more events! Q. Do you have any plans for price reduction of PS3 or PSP go in the region? In August 2009, we reduced the PS3 80GB price from AED 1699 to AED1299. Then, in September, we introduced the PS3 120GB for AED1299 followed by PS3 250GB in October for AED1499 with 1 new game or 2 platinum games. As for PSPgo, we launched it in October 2009 for AED999. Currently, we have no plans to further reduce prices for either hardware. Q. What first party games from Sony can we look forward to in 2010? We have an exciting game line-up coming this quarter: - MAG which launched last week. - Heavy Rain and White Knight Chronicles launching end of February - God of War 3 Launching in March Q. Everyone is excited about the PS3 motion sensor, any date set for its launch in the region? Round figure for its price tag? The Motion Controller will become available worldwide in fall 2010. It will be offered with an exciting and varied line-up of software titles that will deliver the new entertainment experience to PS3 users. We will continue to work to have a comprehensive portfolio of attractive and innovative games for the Motion Controller, not only from SCE Worldwide Studios but also from the third party developers and publishers. More information about the new controller will be announced soon. Q. We’ve seen the demo for EyePet during Games 09 and we were wowed but then it was launched 3 months ago with not much buzz and marketing activities around it as we expected.. why’s that? On the contrary, EyePet was launched in this region with quite a buzz! We held several retail activities in different countries around the region to demonstrate the functionality of the game and the PlayStation Eye. The response that we received was overwhelming as it proved to be the perfect family game for the season. Q. In terms of sales figures, what’s the best selling PS3 game, and which Arabian country has the most sold PS3 units? The best selling PS3 game is Pro Evolution Soccer. Saudi Arabia is single largest PS3 market in the region. Q. Does the PS3 enjoy the same growth rate that the old PS2 enjoyed in our region? Yes and are actually higher than PS2 over the same period.
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Interview with May El-Husseiny, Sony Gulf Marketing Manager
