Andrew House - Part Two

I think we were always fairly clear, as far back as the original announcements, that this wasn't a replacement for the current PSP-3000 offering, and that it sits alongside that and packaged media. It's additive to the business.

The early sales numbers that we've seen bear that out - I don't think there's been a huge amount of cannibalisation, and I think those sales have come in and lifted overall PSP sales.

It's clearly demonstrated that there is a consumer out there, and it's validated that proposition in moving more towards a digital download as a preferred means of getting content.

I think that it's part and parcel of the way that the industry is going to have to shift and respond as more of our content becomes available for download or digitally, and I'll get on to putting that in context in a second - but I think it just puts new demands on us in terms of how we think about the concept of merchandising, how we get people to browse, how we get people to sample.

Those are things still at a nascent stage in our industry, and there's an absolute necessity to work in tandem with our traditional retail partners in making that happen as well. Make no mistake, when you're looking at PS3 games and you're seeing the shift in the sheer size of the data that's becoming available, the packaged media business is not going away any time soon.

I think there's been an overstatement there potentially, and then a backlash to that - but I don't think we were really responsible for that overstatement, so we're not really part and parcel of the backlash, if that makes sense.

It has its place for those consumers - it comes back to offering people options, and it was the right option for us to offer.

There's been sufficient distribution for the product at retail for consumers to be able to find it where they need to - I don't think that's particularly been part of the challenge. In some senses, if the question comes down to consumer pricing, it's the same argument we've often had around PS3: If we are able to deliver something at a cheaper price, would we see a much swifter uptake in the marketplace? Quite probably.

But we're in a responsible business mould and we have to put products out there at the price that we think they're worth.

No, I think they'll continue in parallel - as long as consumers continue to embrace the existing PSP and packaged medium, then it's a pillar for our business.

I don't think I'd hazard a guess at this point, but it may be a while.