Who could have guessed back in 2013 when the PS4 arrived that Sony would launch not one, but two brand new consoles within three years.

The PS4 Pro marks the first time that Sony or any other console manufacturer has launched a brand new version of a console mid-cycle – beating Microsoft's Xbox Project Scorpio to the punch by a full year.

And from what Sony boss Andrew House has said, Xbox definitely isn't playing nice anymore – the competition is very much back on.

Related: PS4 Pro vs PS4 Slim – Skinny or 4K?

But it's not just PS4 Pro and the Slim that are giving Sony a particularly strong end of year – there's PlayStation VR to consider too.

So on the dawn of Sony's big Christmas, Digital Spy sat down with House, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, to chat all things PlayStation.

Related: PS4 Slim vs PS4 – Should you upgrade?

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In 2013 we were sat in Tokyo leading up to the launch of PS4, and at the time industry experts and analysts were saying that it and the Xbox One would probably be the last console box of their kind.

Now three years later we're sitting here looking at two new, more powerful console boxes – what's happened?

Well – this one [points to PS4 Slim] is not more powerful, that one [points to PS4 Pro] is.

… the other more powerful one being Xbox's Project Scorpio, to come!

Ah – sorry, I live in my own world! It's important to point out that it's not a new generation. It's an industry first to innovate in this way within the lifecycle.

I've paraphrased the old quote and said that "rumours of the demise of the console have been greatly exaggerated," and that's been borne out in the last three years. I think it's just that consumers – thankfully for us – have shown a tremendous appetite for very immersive, high-end, high-production-value gaming experiences that are what we do best on the console – and to a degree on the PC as well.

You said in New York at the PlayStation Meeting that the Pro was primarily aimed at gamers who would normally defect to a PC…

… I don't think I said that – I think that's been rather misconstrued. I think what I said was – there are two primary audiences that we see for PlayStation 4 Pro.

The question you pose is, "Are you the sort of player that absolutely wants the very best in terms of graphical experiences on the games that you play?" If the answer to that is "yes", then I think PlayStation 4 Pro is worthy of consideration.

By extension, what I was suggesting is that players answering "yes" to that question inherently do tend to gravitate towards the PC, and perhaps do so at a certain point within the console lifecycle.

The other question I would pose is, "Are you in the market for, or have you already purchased a brand new high-end television that's 4K or HDR compatible?" If the answer to that question is "yes", then this is going to be a great device to deliver content for that television in a landscape where that content is a bit thin on the ground right now.

So, it was more an adjunct audience that comes out of that, rather than primarily targeting them.

Is it possible for the console industry to try and keep up with PCs – they're so easily upgradeable, and consoles aren't. Is it a viable strategy to try to keep up with that arms race?

I don't think that's the primary goal. PlayStation 4 Pro came out of a confluence of thinking about a few things. To a certain degree it came from our content partners who had suggested that the last console cycle had – if anything – been a little bit too long, and who also were asking us whether it was possible to innovate within the lifecycle in order for them to further innovate on content – which I think is great, I think it's healthy and it's good for everyone. So that was one of the thoughts.

The second was that we were influenced by seeing what has occurred in the mobile industry, and just the ability – or the willingness – for consumers to trade up an upgrade based on very tangible new benefits. So it was applying that thinking and saying: "Does console innovation have to happen only once every 6 or 7 years?"

However, that has to be balanced with a whole set of other thoughts – which I think is the key to answering your question – which is that we very much don't want to sacrifice the core benefits of what has made the console great.

To me, that means having a stable platform and a unified community of players. The ability for developers to know that it's the same experience for every player that's out there. Hence, PlayStation 4 Pro's benefits are very much in the graphical space and not to do with changing gameplay or creating new game content that would somehow divide or split that player community.

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Which is something you've said has to happen – that games have to be playable on both. How viable is that in the long term? Apple used to go down that route, and even they have found it hard to maintain that. Now cutting-edge games tend to only work on newer Apple devices. At some point you're going to have to let developers develop exclusively for the Pro, aren't you?

I think that we do have a somewhat slightly different structure in that we're working with developers but we're also working with large scale publishers who – certainly in all of our conversations around Pro when we first introduced the concept – were very vocal on the same topic, that we mustn't create a two-tiered universe around the players.

So I think there's a kind of shared intent there amongst publisher and platform holder which gives me a fairly good degree of confidence that we'll be able to keep that.

If the Pro is a roaring success – which obviously you hope it will be – is that going to lead to a one- or two-year hardware cycle where you'll keep updating console boxes?

I think it's far too early to answer that question; obviously we haven't launched the product yet. Also, one of the reasons I gave earlier was that there happened to be this major sense of upgrade in display technologies that had occurred on that occasion – I'm not sure that you can guarantee that that's going to be a given condition if I look out further.

Crystal Ball territory …

Uh-oh!

Could you ever envisage a PlayStation that would have upgradable components?

It's very tough for me to envisage that at this point.

The PS4 Pro's lack of 4K Blu-ray drive has been well documented and obviously the reasons for that are very valid, so does this mark the start of a strategic push from Sony towards a digital-only future?

No, I don't think one should read into it that way. If you look at our current business, we see very stable sales of packaged media when it comes to games.

On the other hand, when I look at other ways people are using their PS4 – video content is absolutely the number two use of people's time on the console. But it is 5:1 in favour of streaming video versus packaged media. We looked at that and said that's probably where we should place our emphasis.

But I don't think you should extrapolate out from that to say that's now going to change our philosophy around other areas of the business.

Will the PS4 Pro support Sony's Ultra Streaming service?

I think that's a 'to be determined' at this point.

Obviously with the new machine there's a lot of talk of 4K, HDR – how much do you think the average consumer really understands the benefits of those innovations?

I think that the industry probably needs to take more time not just in explaining the benefits, but showing what those benefits are. One of the reasons we elected to pursue PS4 Pro is that 4K and HDR in particular are a natural for games – it's very easy for most people to be able to see a demonstrable difference between those two technologies.

That being said – you phrased the question around the "average user" – we did call it PlayStation 4 Pro… so I think it's inherent in the name – I'm not being facetious, honestly!

We are targeting this towards someone who is probably pretty knowledgeable and committed in the kind of entertainment they want.

A more cynical person might suggest there was also the benefit of stimulating the 4K TV market in which Sony obviously has a vested interest. Is there any validation in that point view?

That's a damned if I do, damned if I don't question. Because if I say "no", then I'm accused of not being "One Sony" and standing full square with my colleagues. If I say "yes" then I'm accused of cynical play.

I don't think it's at all been a major factor in influencing our decision. And the reason is if you talk to analysts, I think they'll verify this – the fact is the 4K shift is already happening. Panel costs and so on will reach a point in the very near future where 4K TVs are the same cost or cheaper to make than a 2K television. So whether we bring out this device or not, that movement is already happening as part of that industry.

"4K Gaming" is quite a loose and nebulous term that's quite open to interpretation. Are we going to see native 4K gaming on the PS4 Pro or will the majority of it be upscaled?

I would say the majority will be upscaled – at least based on the game portfolio I have seen to date.

Does that make it feel like a misleading term?

No, I don't think so. I think that whatever the term is, it's a question of whether people see a demonstrable difference in the game experience or not, rather than the term we use to apply to it.

I think that's what people are looking for and they'll make their judgement as to whether that's working for them or not.

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Xbox's response to the announcement last week was interesting, certain execs took to social media to "fire shots" at the two consoles, and they put out a press release about the relative capabilities of the Xbox One S and the Slim and the Pro. What did you make of their response?

I thought it was quite intriguing given that we'd seen a year of stories about "a new and different Microsoft" in terms of their attitude towards the competition.

It's like the new and gentler politics we've got back home that lasted a couple of…

That was rather short lived, wasn't it?

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If I can move onto PSVR, we are now less than 30 days away from the launch. Do you still feel like we're standing on the verge of a new chapter in gaming, as you described it at GDC earlier this year?

Yes I do, I think it's very much a different medium than what we've seen before – it's certainly borne out for me by a number of the demos that I've played. It's a heightened level of excitement. It's a different sense of immersion and jokingly I'd say – if you can get that from a cynical person who's been in the industry for 20 years, then there's got to be something pretty exciting there!

However I keep pointing out that this is very, very early days and there is an awful lot more work to be done around controller interface, around understanding what true sense of presence is and isn't. But I think that the exciting thing and the reason I like the games industry is that we learn very quickly and reiterate very quickly from that.

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The PSVR announcements at E3 where brilliant, there was a lot of AAA IP like Star Wars, Batman, Final Fantasy, you've since announced Call of Duty. But, they're all – at the moment – tie in experiences rather than full-blown games.

Why have you and the developers and publishing partners chosen to go down that route?

First off – not dodging it – I think that's a question for the publishers in question rather than ourselves.

I think that we are putting our best foot forward with full-on games experiences whether they be on the initial disc, or with games likes RIGS and Farpoint. You've pointed out a number of experiences that are coming from the larger publishers, but within the context of around 50 titles – I would say a large majority of which are developed from the ground up VR games.

Details of non-gaming PSVR experiences and uses are still very thin on the ground. Are there any other non-gaming uses of PSVR that you're able to talk about?

What we've also been working on – The Walk being one example of this – is where you've taken a movie IP and developed a kind of promotional VR experience around it. The reason that this is going to take time is a very practical one.

If you look at games, the tool chain and expertise already exist to create very good VR experiences. If you look at any kind of live action content, the fact is that those tools do not exist at a professional level right now.

So I think there are two things that are required that we are very hard at work on, in order to get really good non-game experiences working in other forms of entertainment.

One is – number one to get creative minds in those industries excited about the potential, and start thinking about how they want to tell stories within VR. But more practically is to work with sister divisions within Sony any start to fill in the gaps in that tool chain around things as simple as content capture from professional level 360 degree cameras, editing, processing that can then be put in the hands of great visual creators in order work on that.

All of that is very exciting and something we are hard at work at, but it will definitely take more time than clearly the road to market in the games space.

What does success look like for PlayStation VR?

It looks like establishing a bridgehead with an enthusiastic audience that wants to embrace new forms of gaming.

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