Guy Longworth is Sony’s newest senior vice president of PlayStation brand marketing. He’s responsible for the marketing behind all of Sony’s platforms, including PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Network, and of the newest member of the Sony gaming family, the PlayStation Vita. The Vita has been in production for four years leading up to today, and even though Longworth has only been with Sony for about four months, he's here to answer our questions about Sony’s latest handheld.

You said you’ve only been with Sony for a few months. Where were you before Sony?

My background is consumer products. I started my career with marketing with Proctor & Gamble, Kraft foods, and Kellogg's and since then I did a software consumer services start-up Internet business and I also ran a consumer electronics business. I have a wide range of experience across marketing and also the category.

Were you always interested in Sony? Do you like video games?

I was very much an arcade rat as a kid so when the opportunity to come and join the team here presented itself, it’s my dream job. I couldn’t be more excited. I wake up every day pinching myself that I’m lucky enough to have this opportunity and be part of this great team and this great company. When you think about PlayStation over the last 15 years, it’s been the most incredible success story. And my perspective is, over the next 15 years, our best days are ahead of us. I think we have a huge opportunity and Sony as a company is in a position where, I really think it’s got the opportunity to do some great stuff in the next five to ten years, and I couldn’t be more excited to be part of it.

When the PSP came out, the UMD disc was billed as like a new type of physical media. Was the Vita ever planned to use UMDs?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I am assuming we’re very happy with the new way of getting games through the memory sticks, or downloading them from the network. I think this is a better experience than a small disc, a small drive that you can download online.

Given the touch screen of the Vita, is Sony opening the doors to developers who have made iPhone or Android games? Will there be more options for free or cheaper games online?

We have a publishing process, so any developers who are interested in developing for us come and talk to us and we provide them with the tools and the access they require, so they have to do that.
[Sony already has the PlayStation Minis program in place that allows PSP and PlayStation 3 owners to download smaller games from smaller developers.]
Do you think we’ll ever see the prices of Minis going down? Maybe even free-to-play games on the Vita?

Well, it’s not impossible.
The 3DS came out and early adopters felt burned to a certain degree because the price dropped quickly. Is Sony worried about people interested in the Vita waiting for a price drop?

No, not at all. We’re very much focused on delivering an incredible experience for what we think is a terrific value. If you look at the combination of the platform we offer, an incredible piece of hardware which is very unique and different, to the software lineup we have and the apps and the opportunity to engage with all of your digital content online and the connectivity. We think we’ve got something that’s very unique and actually a terrific value for consumers.

When I checked the Vitas we have here in the office, PlayStation One Classics weren’t playable on the Vita. Is that something we could see in the future? Will we be able to play PSone Classics on the Vita?

Well, content is something we continually look at and we don’t have any announcements to make regarding that right now, but it’s something we continue to look at. There’s obviously a huge catalog of past content that we could bring at some stage to the Vita.

Read on to find about possible e-reader options, Call of Duty, and BioShock on the Vita.