Friday, June 9, 2017

US senator Bernie Sanders on socialism and Donald Trump - Financial Times

US senator Bernie Sanders on socialism and Donald Trump

Over cakes in Dublin, he talks about the GOP, the left, and why Trump is ‘actually quite smart’
A Sunday quiet reigns at the Irish president’s vast white mansion in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Outside the pad, where British viceroys once lived, a couple of presidential aides, beautifully dressed soldiers and I stand waiting for US Senator Bernie Sanders to arrive. There is gentle Irish banter. Cows watch from the meadow opposite. It’s relaxing. Since my taxi motored through the presidential gates, nobody has asked me for ID or put me through a scanner or even patted me down.

Sanders’ car pulls up (brilliantly, his Irish driver is called Bernie Saunders) and the senator clambers out, his shoulders hunched, his suit crumpled, his strands of white hair unkempt, not the standard American politician with Botox and a hair transplant. Today he is tieless, too: he has been assured that Irish president Michael D Higgins won’t mind. The tiny Higgins appears, dispensing handshakes and hugs.

Sanders is the most popular current politician in the US, according to a Harvard-Harris survey in April for American political website The Hill. Many polls suggest that the 75-year-old independent leftwing Senator from Vermont would have beaten Donald Trump in last year’s US election, if only he had got past Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. For all the talk about rightwing populism, “Bernie” has become the cult hero of an equally surprising new-old international movement: socialism. Dublin, where he will kick off the Dalkey Book Festival, is the last leg of a European tour where he has been speaking to (or yelling at) packed crowds.

Inside Higgins’ mansion, Sanders settles into a sofa from Versailles (a gift from some French president), and listens to a group of locals lecture him on Ireland’s oligarchy, income divides and corporate-controlled media. “These issues, they are in all countries,” he observes.

Afterwards Higgins comes out to wave us off like a kindly grandfather. But traffic into central Dublin is terrible. It is decided that our two cars need an official escort. A chatty policeman shows up on a motorbike, turns on his sirens, and zigzags us through traffic jams, imperiously waving away stray cars. It’s magic. I sit alone on the back seat of my car, watching Dubliners at bus stops, British stag and hen parties, and a priest in a dog collar scrutinise me, wondering who this superstar might be. It’s a taste of Sanders’ new life.

****

On arrival at the Westbury Hotel, though, a packed lobby ignores Sanders. Chinese tourists have clearly not yet “felt the Bern”, and I see only one local turn in half-recognition. Sanders drops his bags in his room, then joins me in the hotel restaurant, Wilde, where we have a table at the back shielded by curtains. A log fire is burning — a bit much for June, even in a country without a summer.

“Tea would be wonderful,” Sanders tells the waiter. He means the drink, not the meal. Eating doesn’t seem to have occurred to him so, to jolly things along, I order us plates of cakes and fruit. I have been warned that Sanders hates anything so trivial as talking about himself, or looking back, or discussing whether he will run for president in 2020, aged 79. What he likes is talking policy. So I plunge in.

He said after last year’s election that if Trump was sincere about his campaign promises to help the working class, Sanders was willing to work with him. Is it now clear that Trump wasn’t — ?

“Yes, I think it is very clear,” interrupts that famous throwback Brooklyn accent, product of cramped, rent-controlled apartment 2C on East 26th Street. “During his campaign, Trump said some very interesting things. Unfortunately his policies have been diametrically in opposition to what he said. I think essentially he lied on almost every major issue. And the clearest examples are the two major proposals in the last month, the healthcare proposal and, even worse, the budget.”

Staring into the middle distance, he recites the litany: the Republican healthcare plan, already passed by the US House of Representatives, would throw 23m people off health insurance. Trump’s proposed budget, says Sanders, “is the most outrageous transfer of wealth from working people to the top 1 per cent that we have ever seen. It’s a budget that’s not going to go anyplace.”

Sanders considers the Republican party the creature of billionaire donors such as the industrialist Koch brothers. Does he think Trump is an ignoramus who simply wandered into that set-up?

“No, I think Trump is actually quite smart — in his own way and for his own reasons. He may not know a lot about foreign policy or healthcare, but he is not a dumb man by any means. I think what Trump is doing is filling the agenda of people like the Koch brothers: essentially doing away with every major programme passed since Franklin D Roosevelt that would help working people, the elderly, children, the sick and the poor, and at the same time providing massive tax breaks to the rich and large corporations. In this budget, Trump did not propose cuts to social security [the American retirement programme], but I have zero doubt that will be coming down the pike.”

Sanders considers today’s Republicans an “extreme right” party. In the past, he says, “centre-right” Republicans such as Dwight D Eisenhower competed with conservative Republicans. “What you have now are, in a sense, rightwing Republicans competing with extreme rightwing Republicans.” Still, he adds: “A lot of Republicans in the House and Senate are not indecent human beings.”

Such as who?

“I don’t want to get into names. I’ll get them into trouble. You see people like John McCain speaking out on this or that issue.”

When I mention that many Europeans see Trump’s US as a rogue state, Sanders gets so excited that he spills his tea. Mopping distractedly, he cautions: “What I would say to our European friends is not to confuse Donald Trump with the people of the United States.” And here Sanders gets to the essence of his self-understanding: that he himself, far from being a radical leftist, speaks for the American silent majority. He believes his socialism is mainstream.

“Here’s what I think is going on. If you were to tell Americans that if you are 70 and the doctor diagnoses you with cancer, that there should not be a healthcare programme to protect you, 90 per cent of people say, ‘You’re out of your mind, you want to get rid of Medicare? What are you talking about? You want to get rid of federal aid to education? That’s nonsense.’ ” He thinks Republicans can win elections only through massive spending on campaigns that highlight personality rather than issues.

His own campaign was different: “We started off with no political organisation. None. I don’t believe I knew one person in the state of Iowa.” When I remark that the notion of a self-described socialist winning the White House initially seemed insane, he cuts me off: “It was not insane.”

Was there a moment when he thought he might actually win? “Well, you go and you speak to 25,000, 30,000 people and you think it’s real. One of the beautiful things is we would literally read in the newspapers about rallies and events and activities taking place in the state that we had zero to do with. I wish I could tell you it was a brilliant campaign organising all this. It wasn’t. It was a lot of spontaneous activities, which was, in retrospect, quite extraordinary.”

Sanders gets to Europe regularly. His 82-year-old brother Larry has lived in Oxford since the 1960s and this week stood, with Sanders’ endorsement, as a Green candidate in the UK’s parliamentary elections. When I suggest that Europe has done better than the US at providing his desired welfare state, Sanders agrees: “One of the reasons I’m here is, America has an extraordinary history and there’s a whole lot that we do that is very good. I’m proud of that. But in essence . . . ”

Just then two waiters arrive laden with cakes and fruit. “Oh my God, you think that’s enough food?” marvels Sanders. “As long as the Financial Times is paying! Simon, do you want some of this? Jam and butter and . . . ”

I say the presidential campaign was disgusting, tawdry and stupid. Sanders is delighted: ‘Take what you said, give it to me and put quotes around it’
Then he almost instantly forgets the food, and resumes talking nonstop. “Many Americans simply do not know that the social welfare system in America is so much weaker than in Europe. It has to do a lot with corporate media, has a lot to do with a two-party system which doesn’t really ask hard questions. Do you know how much it costs to go to university here, where we sit right now? It’s free. Do you think people in the US know that? People will be going, ‘Oh, Bernie, you’re radical.’ No. Much of what I propose is already in existence in many countries.”

So Europe helped shape his beliefs? “Yes. Europe and my belief that every person is entitled to basic human rights.”

I place the cake platter in front of him, in vain: the revolution doesn’t stop for tea. Despite Trump, Sanders describes the US moving his way: the millions on the streets protesting against the president, the California state senate voting last week for a single-payer universal healthcare system, New York’s decision to scrap tuition fees for less well-off students at state universities, and the overwhelming support he got from America’s under-40s in the Democratic primaries. “The younger generation in America is the least prejudiced in terms of race, gender, homophobia. It is a very open generation, a bright generation, a generation that I believe is prepared to think big and not just nibble around the edges.” It feels trivial to interrupt by asking him to pass the jam, so I pick off bits of plain scone with my left hand while fixing my gaze on him.

Sanders wants the “clearly failing” Democratic party to move left in response to the popular mood. The trend is international, he adds. He sees the British and French socialists Jeremy Corbyn and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (not to mention Pope Francis) as soulmates.

He is aching to run off but before I release him, I ask him why — as someone who’s been running for office for 40 years and must have a healthy ego — he’s so reluctant to talk about himself. “Year after year after year, there is more discussion about what I call political gossip, or personality. You know, ‘Let’s talk about Donald Trump and his life, about Hillary Clinton and her life’, rather than, ‘Gee, why are we the only major country not to have healthcare for all?’ I’m not running for dictator. I have ideas and I want to disseminate those ideas.”

I say the presidential campaign was mostly disgusting, tawdry and stupid. Sanders is delighted: “Take what you said, give it to me and put quotes around it.” He continues: “This is not a personality contest. Give you an example. George W Bush, who I did not know well, bumped into him now and then in the nature of things, happens to be a very nice guy. He’s funny, I don’t think he’s mean-spirited. His wife is I think a very decent person. Very nice daughters. He was one of the worst presidents in the history of America.

“Sometimes nice people do terrible, terrible things. And sometimes people who are not so nice — LBJ [President Lyndon B Johnson], my God, he was brutish in many ways, right? Yet he was one of the most progressive presidents in history.”



The waiters remove our delicious food almost untouched. Then Sanders and I cross the lobby to a room where two Irish genealogists are waiting with his ancestral chart, something the festival organisers used to lure his wife Jane (and thus Sanders himself) to Ireland. I tease him: “This is when you find out you’re not Jewish.” He guffaws: “This could be the moment of a lifetime.” His father was a Polish-Jewish paint salesman, his mother a Jewish New Yorker, their marriage often tense over lack of money. We walk in as a genealogist hands Jane (born O’Meara) an ancient donkey’s shoe unearthed on her ancestral Irish farmstead. Sanders beams: he knows what this means to her. Now it’s his turn. He sits down at the table where the mammoth chart is spread out. Instantly he points to the photograph identified as his mother and objects: “This is my mother’s sister.”

Jane intervenes: “No, it’s your mom.”

Sanders compromises: “She is very beautiful. I have not seen that photograph. This may be something I didn’t see.”

He scans the other pictures: “Uncle Sol — Uncle Willie we called him — lived in the same house that I did. Max — the only one in the family who actually made some money.”

He studies a photo of the large ancestral house in Slopnice, Poland, and a picture of the SS Lapland, the ship in which his father Eli sailed from Belgium to the US in 1921. The genealogist recites the fate of the relatives who stayed in Slopnice: “The Nazis came and your father’s half-brother was shot in the town square, in 1941.”

“Yep,” says Sanders.

The genealogist continues: “And his 11-year-old daughter Elena was killed as well.” He trails off awkwardly: “So every family has its story to tell.”

Sanders tells us that he and his brother went to meet the mayor of Slopnice, whose father remembered being at school with Elena. “The father said, ‘She was a beautiful little girl and she didn’t look Jewish. But they took her anyway.’ ”

Sanders rejects the American tradition in which every candidate must recount (or make up) some mawkish autobiographical creation myth, but here is his, unbidden. Born the year his father’s family was murdered, he grew up knowing that government mattered. Mentally, he never inhabited the consumerist postwar US in which Trump grew up. By 1963, Sanders was being dragged off by police after demonstrating against school segregation in Chicago. (Despite this, during the Democratic primaries some Clinton supporters accused him of not caring enough about black rights.)

His sense of purpose can make him exhausting company, Jane tells me later. “During the campaign, every three weeks he took a day off. Possibly. Or at least half a day. He’ll walk in after a long day and the grandkids will say, ‘Grandpa, can we play baseball?’ He’ll say, ‘Give me a minute’, and it will be literally a minute and he will be out playing baseball for over an hour.”

That evening Sanders speaks at a Dublin theatre. Here is a reversal of history: a wealthy Irish crowd, many of whose forebears emigrated to the US to escape poverty, has come to hear about poor Americans without health insurance. The 2,200 tickets sold out online in two minutes. For two hours, Sanders bellows facts about rich and poor. The standing ovations keep coming. Afterwards, at a late dinner, he interrogates his hosts about the Irish university funding system.

Simon Kuper is an FT columnist.

Who is Christopher Wray? Trump’s F.B.I. Pick - New York Times


Who is Christopher Wray? Trump’s F.B.I. Pick

WASHINGTON — Christopher A. Wray was the government’s top criminal prosecutor in 2004 when the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, and the deputy attorney general, James B. Comey, threatened to quit the Bush administration over a controversial surveillance program. He offered to join their protest.

Now, with President Trump’s selection of Mr. Wray on Wednesday to be the director of the F.B.I., all three men will be central figures in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election that has rocked the Trump administration. Mr. Mueller is leading the investigation into Russian influence — and the inquiry led Mr. Trump to fire Mr. Comey.

In choosing Mr. Wray, the president is calling on a veteran Washington lawyer who is more low key and deliberative than either Mr. Mueller or Mr. Comey but will remain independent, friends and former colleagues say.

“He’s not flashy. He’s not showy. He’s understated,” said J. Michael Luttig, a former judge who hired Mr. Wray as a law clerk in 1992. Mr. Luttig, who said he counted Mr. Comey and Mr. Mueller as friends, said Mr. Wray would bring a more subtle management style to the F.B.I.

Continue reading the main story
Calling Mr. Wray a “man of impeccable credentials,” Mr. Trump revealed his choice in an early-morning tweet on the eve of a congressional hearing in which Mr. Comey was to testify about what he interpreted as improper attempts by Mr. Trump to pressure him.

Mr. Wray is a safe, mainstream pick from a president who at one point was considering politicians for a job that has historically been kept outside partisanship. A former assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, Mr. Wray is likely to assuage the fears of F.B.I. agents who worried that Mr. Trump would try to weaken or politicize the agency.

Those who know Mr. Wray say his willingness to quit the Justice Department more than a decade ago as a matter of principle showed he would brush back attempts at political interference and try to protect the bureau’s independence.

Questions on that willingness are certain to come up at his Senate confirmation hearing. Mr. Trump has repeatedly interjected himself into criminal justice matters in ways that previous presidents have avoided. His dismissal of Mr. Comey has been criticized as an effort to obstruct the F.B.I.’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s campaign and possible collusion with Russia.

Mr. Mueller is now acting as the Justice Department’s special counsel overseeing the investigation. He and Mr. Wray respect each other, Mr. Luttig said, predicting they would work well together.

If confirmed, Mr. Wray will have to balance fighting terrorism with trying to root out public corruption and confronting Russian and Chinese espionage at the nation’s top law enforcement organization, which has evolved into a major part of the national security apparatus. He would lead about 35,000 people at an agency where many are seeking a calming presence after nearly a year of turmoil.

“He’ll have a strong emphasis on creating and nurturing the trust of every F.B.I. agent,” said Joe D. Whitley, a former senior Justice Department official who has known Mr. Wray for years.

Mr. Wray is a familiar figure in Washington; he took a top job with the Justice Department in the spring of 2001, playing a pivotal role in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by overseeing operations.

Mr. Wray is likely to face questions at his confirmation hearing about what he knew about C.I.A. abuses in the years after the attacks and how the Justice Department responded to them.




According to government documents since made public, he was made aware in February 2004 of the death of a C.I.A. detainee in Iraq that had been ruled a homicide and whose case was referred to the Justice Department.

Months later, Mr. Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had learned about the death from media reports and was not aware of a criminal referral from the Pentagon or the F.B.I., but did not say whether he knew of one from the C.I.A. That prompted Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, a Democrat, to accuse Mr. Wray of giving “less than a complete and truthful answer.”

Mr. Wray went on to serve as head of the criminal division from 2003 to 2005, directing efforts to deal with corporate fraud scandals and political investigations. Chris Swecker, the former head of the F.B.I. criminal investigations division, said Mr. Wray was unafraid to pursue sensitive corruption cases that included prosecutions of the disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the former Representatives Randy Cunningham and William J. Jefferson.

After leaving for private practice at the law firm King & Spalding, Mr. Wray represented Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a former Justice Department colleague, in the so-called Bridgegate scandal over a politically motivated scheme to cause traffic jams. Two former aides to Mr. Christie, an ally of Mr. Trump, were found guilty and sentenced to prison; the governor was not charged.

That Mr. Wray’s political skills were honed in the crucible of scandal gave him an edge over the other finalist, John S. Pistole, a former deputy director of the F.B.I. and head of the Transportation Security Administration, administration officials said. Mr. Wray had managed to soothe and counsel the volatile Mr. Christie.

The American Civil Liberties Union voiced concerns on Wednesday about Mr. Wray’s nomination, citing his oversight role after the Sept. 11 attacks and his work for Mr. Christie, which “makes us question his ability to lead the F.B.I. with the independence, evenhanded judgment and commitment to the rule of law that the agency deserves,” the organization said in a statement.

The A.C.L.U. also called on senators to vigorously question Mr. Wray about what he knew, as the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, about abuses of detainees in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay.

Mr. Wray graduated in 1989 from Yale University, where he met his future wife, Helen, in his freshman dormitory. Her family once owned the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Mr. Wray rowed crew in high school and college, said Andrew C. Hruska, his law partner and friend since childhood.

“His willingness to put in a tremendous amount of effort toward a team goal really personifies Chris,” Mr. Hruska said.

He earned his law degree in 1992 from Yale Law School. After clerking for Mr. Luttig, Mr. Wray moved to Atlanta and joined the office of the United States attorney there.

While Mr. Wray does not have a reputation as a partisan operative, he has donated consistently to Republican candidates. Over the past decade, he has contributed at least $35,000 to Republican candidates or committees, according to Federal Election Commission data. He did not do so during the 2016 election, but he has donated to Republican presidential nominees, including $2,300 to support Senator John McCain of Arizona in 2008 and $7,500 to Mitt Romney in 2012.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a Democrat who serves on the Judiciary Committee, said he was approaching Mr. Wray’s choice with caution.

“Above all, he will need to show his commitment to protecting the bureau’s independence,” Mr. Whitehouse said.

Mr. Wray will not tolerate meddling, his friends say.

“He certainly understands the appropriate norms that exist between the Justice Department, F.B.I. and White House,” said John C. Richter, a fellow lawyer at King & Spalding who was a former federal prosecutor in Atlanta.

Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed reporting from Washington, and Glenn Thrush from Cincinnati.

Everything Sony Told Us About the Future of PlayStation - TIME


Posted: 05 Jun 2017 06:00 AM PDT

Pull your gaze from Nintendo’s bedazzling Switch for a moment and consider Sony’s now widespread PlayStation 4. Console sales have in general outperformed the most buoyant analyst and pundit prognostications. Not merely because of Nintendo’s overnight dark horse, or its scarce as hen’s teeth NES Classic. Sony’s PlayStation 4 is having some belt-notching moments of its own.
Sony now says its flagship games platform has sold-through—meaning to buyers and not just stores—close to 60 million units worldwide since its launch in November 2013. That, according to Sony global game development boss Shawn Layden, is the fastest pace set by any PlayStation, life-to-date, including the all-time industry record holder PlayStation 2.

“As you’ll recall, last year we performed the daredevil stunt of launching three new pieces of hardware in 60 days. Probably won’t do that again,” quips Layden during a sit-down with TIME. He’s talking about the $399 PlayStation 4 Pro (a souped up PlayStation 4 that outputs way snazzier graphics), PlayStation VR (a $399 virtual reality headset that couples with the PlayStation 4 for wraparound alt-reality experiences) and a slimmer, sleeker $299 version of the baseline PlayStation 4. All three arrived last fall, and Sony says sales have been booming.
PlayStation VR now boasts more than one million units sold worldwide, up from about 900,000 in February 2017. According to Sony, it’s been sold out from day one. “We don’t see it as a fad, it’s a brand new medium, not only for gaming entertainment, but non-gaming entertainment,” says Layden. And of every five PlayStation 4s Sony sells, Layden says one is a PlayStation 4 Pro, a laudable achievement given its $100 price premium, enthusiast target demographic and the nascency of the 4K television market (where it’s real allure lies).
“It is way ahead of our expectations,” adds Sony global sales chief Jim Ryan. “As with PSVR, and I suppose in forecasting these things we haven’t done a very good job, the product is in desperately short supply. So that’s one-in-five under severe constraint.”
“All of the rumors of the demise of the console are very much premature,” says Layden. “In fact if you’re watching [sales tracker] NPD for PS4 and Xbox One sales, you put those together and console gaming has never been as big and vibrant as it is right now. And that’s just here in the States.” Zip across the pond, and the story tilts further in Sony’s favor. “It’s been pleasing that in North America, we’ve been 2-to-1 against Xbox,” says Ryan. “But in Europe, it’s really been fortress PlayStation by at least 3-to-1 in unit sales.”
“It’s also the breadth of type of games,” he continues. “And once you get up in the heady heights of 100 million units, you’re talking of a different audience altogether, where having this range of stuff like Detroit: Become Human and FIFA and Call of Duty and Star Wars, it makes the job a whole lot easier.”
Layden says the Japanese publishers are also coming back, listing off recent games like Resident Evil 7NiohNier: AutomataPersona 5 and Final Fantasy XV as examples. “That’s super important for us,” he says. “I think a lot of Japanese developers lost their way chasing the mobile games yen, if you will, but they’re coming back to console in a major way. And speaking of, we’ll have some big announcements at E3 in that precise vein.”
This notion of mid-console refreshes—an enthusiast-angled limbering act you could argue Nintendo pioneered with its perennial Game Boy, DS and 3DS revamps—has a flip side. The PS4 Pro’s power has been effectively slaved to the baseline PlayStation 4. Games on the PS4 Pro, while graphically sharper and lusher, must be functionally identical to the experience as had on the standard model. It’s a leave-no-consumer-behind mentality that’s so far been echoed by the competition: Microsoft’s revved up PS4 Pro rival, codenamed Project Scorpio and due later this year, will likewise observe gameplay parity with the Xbox One.
“Because the games need to play on both Pro and standard PS4, there can’t be a radical departure between the two experiences,” says Layden. “But I think we’ve hit a happy medium by enriching the visual experience, and developers enjoy having that extra oomph while knowing they’re making games that play well on all 60 million PlayStation 4s. I guess we’re trying to have our cake and eat it too.”
Would Sony back away from that requirement if sales leveled off down the line? “Today, my answer is that we’re going to stay the course,” says Layden. “There’s still a lot of juice to squeeze out of the PlayStation 4 platform, full stop. So ensuring PlayStation 4 games play on both consoles is our winning formula right now.”
Another winning-so-far formula few saw coming is Nintendo’s notion of a games console you can play anywhere you like, shifting from your hands to your TV in seconds. In 2005, Sony began its own foray into handheld gaming with a device it dubbed the PlayStation Portable. The PSP sold in excess of 80 million units, and in 2012, a followup dubbed the PS Vita arrived—a contemporaneously mighty mobile, but one that sold a fraction as many units. In light of what Nintendo seems to be illustrating, that there is appetite for a consumer device that preserves the higher-end console experience on the go, would Sony ever revisit a once formidable bailiwick?
Layden calls the Switch “a great success for Nintendo” and admits that “it’s definitely what that fanbase has been waiting for.” But he sees the system as less a rival than a complementary traveler, claiming that Switch sales have had no discernible impact on the sell-through for PlayStation 4. “When you look at our numbers, I think it shows that a lot of gamers are a two-console family,” he adds. “And quite often those two consoles are PlayStation and Nintendo sitting side-by-side.”
Layden says Sony still views the Vita as a viable development platform: Though new Western releases have slowed to a trickle, he notes games are still being made for it in Japan. But for now, a Vita successor isn’t in the cards. “To be honest, the Vita just didn’t reach critical mass in the U.S. or Western Europe,” he says. “I don’t know if it was that it was more technology people had to carry around, or more things to charge, or whether their phone or tablet were taking care of that. But once the content slowed in that pipeline, it became hard to keep the Vita as a going concern.”
Another concern occasionally raised by PlayStation devotees involves the company’s once-ubiquitous PlayStation 2. While Sony has in recent years devoted resources to bringing a handful of popular older titles to the PlayStation 4, the better part of that library is lost to time. For now, it seems that’s where it’ll remain. “When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much,” says Ryan. “That, and I was at a Gran Turismo event recently where they had PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 games, and the PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?”
By contrast, the company says it intends to double down on things people do want to playnamely the explosive eSports phenomenon. “It’s a subject that is occupying us quite a lot these days, and something we’re looking at very carefully,” says Ryan. “We’re trying to find precisely what the role of the platform holder is in that value chain. Seeing how we can actually make the whole eSports thing bigger, better, different and bespoke to PlayStation is something you’re going to be hearing quite a lot about in the next year or two.”
Speaking of broadening its messaging to a growing competitive elite, Sony says it’s aware some have made noises about a boutique version of the company’s acclaimed DualShock 4 controller in the vein of Microsoft’s own Xbox One Elite gamepad. “The idea of a premium interface in exactly the same manner as we now have a premium console has a lot of logic to it, and there are such products already available in the market from third parties,” says Ryan. “But it’s definitely something we continue to look at.”
To questions about where other technologies like PlayStation VR go from here, Layden stresses virtual reality’s non-gaming possibilities. “We have Hollywood luminaries and TV show runners, places like the Smithsonian and [NASA’s] Jet Propulsion Laboratory looking into what the technology can do for them. And recently you may have seen Vince Gilligan, the show runner for Breaking Bad, has leaked some information that we’re working together, which we are, in bringing a Breaking Bad experience to virtual reality.” What exactly is that going to be? “I have no idea, but Vince has shown that he can deliver,” says Layden.
Sony doubtless intends to push its phase one VR ideas as far as the market will bear, but the pressure to iterate is fierce. “Technology cycles are shortening, and there’s no reason to expect VR to be any exception to that,” says Ryan. “If we have aspirations to take this into a mass market space, clearly things will need to happen to the form factor, whether it’s wireless or a lighter headset or all of these things.”
“The key is advancing the technology without stepping off the platform,” adds Layden. “We want to make sure we have a target platform developers can grow against. We’ll find ways to bump it up, whether that’s through the physical design of the product, which needs tweaks, of course, as everything does. But we also want to make sure we’re firmly grounded in PlayStation 4, so people don’t think they need something else to drive the experience.”
As for the experience awaiting PlayStation buffs when the curtain lifts on Sony’s E3 media event, live streaming from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall (online as well as in select theaters) next Monday, June 12, Layden says to think of it less as a press conference than a software showcase.
“The crowd will only have to suffer I think in aggregate 90 seconds of me,” he jokes. “And in the middle will be all the games.”