Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg News

I sat down with Jack Tretton, president and chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America, to discuss the company’s focus on gaming consoles, as well as mobile gaming and the barrage of hacking attacks on Sony in recent months. The following is an edited version of our conversation:

Sony has been hacked repeatedly over the past two months. What are you doing to prevent more data breaches?

We have been ever vigilant with everything that has been happening. If you read the newspaper, you realize that there are companies being bombarded with people trying to hack them all the time. Yet, this was a real wakeup call we had to go through. Now we feel our systems are more secure that they have ever been.

Did you permanently lose any customers from the attack?

We have over 90 percent of our customers back right now — more than 70 million people. We expect you’ll see an influx of new people as new games come out this year.

Some hackers say Sony wants to deter customers from modifying the PlayStation3. Is that true?

No, there’s a real misnomer there, we embrace independent game development; if you call that hacking, then we embrace that. We give people tools that let them create new experiences. What I don’t think we are in support of is someone trying to hack our device to pirate software and possibly collapse the platform.

What are you doing to protect customers after the wave of recent attacks?

We have assigned a new position of chief information security officer. We’ve created this role to really centralize our security efforts around the entire company.

Do you know who attacked Sony?

No. We still have no insights into who attacked us.

What else are you doing to protect people’s data?

I’m not a security expert so I have other people working on this. We are doing everything we can to protect our customers.

How has Sony focused on mobile gaming?

PlayStation Vita launches at the end of the year. Our goal going back to 2004 with the original PlayStation Portable was to give people a full console experience in a mobile device. To do this with Vita, we’ve added two cameras, one in the front, one in the rear, that will enable augmented reality-style gaming. We’ve also added GPS to the device.

What will you do with GPS in a PlayStationPortable?

We are going to create some location-based games, and we plan to connect people with gamers in their immediate vicinity. It’s a feature we call “near.”

Can we expect mobile gaming to really become augmented?

Yes. You’ll see a tremendous amount off this in the near future, where the real world moves into the gaming experience, including your surroundings.

How do you expect gaming to transform over the next few years?

When we first got into this business, it was 12- to 17-year-old boys who were the target audience. This is a very narrow demographic. Now we’re seeing a lot of closet gamers who would never have played before. The entire gaming environment is growing for consumers in numerous ways.

Do you worry that the iPod Touch or iPad will steal customers away from the PlayStationPortable?

No. The great thing about gamers is that they have tremendous influence over what they want to play. If their parents say I’m getting you an iPad and that’s your device, but their friends are playing a dedicated console like a PSP, then the kids will find a way to get a PSP.

Would you ever make a game for the iOS platform?

No, I don’t think that’s something we would ever consider. When you’ve invested millions upon billions of dollars into developing the system — as we have with PlayStation — you really want to put your resources behind that platform.

Sony is a believer in 3-D gaming. Will consumers embrace this?

I’m completely sold on it. Steven Spielberg recently told me that 3-D offers him a new palette to work with when making movies. Gamers are also leading this charge by playing games that are 3-D enabled. You’re really going to see it explode now as more affordable 3-D monitors come out. We are launching a 3-D TV in the fall that will cost $500.

Do you think Sony missed the boat with mobile?

We have a partnership called Sony Ericsson that puts out smartphones. We also have a product called PlayStation Suite that works on select Android phones. Through Android phones, and the PlayStation tie-ins, we think that we will accomplish our goal.

Does Sony have any plans to offer new tablets?

Sony is coming out with two tablets this year that will be Google Android devices. Right now, the relationship with these tablets is exclusively with Android. Google has been a good partner to us and we have a mutual interest in this space.

So who is your biggest competitor?

I think it is people’s spare time. There are only 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week. You have to be very, very nimble as a device and game maker, and you have to offer a very rich experience for customers.