Activision CEO Hoping For $200 PS3, 360 By '09

Gamespot reports on comments made by Activision CEO Bobby Kotick at this week's Reuters Media Summit in NYC; the publishing veteran feels strongly that deep price cuts are needed in the next two years to ensure that this generation of consoles reaches a truly mass market audience. For comparison: "The original Xbox dropped to the sub-$200 range six months after debuting at $299 in November 2001. The PlayStation 2, which also retailed for $299 when it launched in 2000, fell below $200 in May 2002, and subsequently has sold more than 120 million units as of its seventh anniversary in October. Nintendo's ill-fated last-generation console, the GameCube, was originally listed at $199 when it first went on sale in November 2001, though that price was cut to $150 by May 2002."

Ill-fated?

[Orange Crush]

Granted, the Nintendo GameCube wasn't the most popular console last time around. But it sold reasonably well and made Nintendo a tidy profit. I'd hardly call it "ill-fated."

Sony and Microsoft would like...

[Anonymous Coward]

Activision games to be listed for under $10.

Re:Ill-fated?

[DDLKermit007]

Indeed...for an ill-fated console Nintendo sure made a ton of money while MS never got into the black, and as to if Sony ever got into the black is still up for debate. All the sources I know though point to that the PS2 never did make an overall profit. When it comes down to who will be around when investors want to ax divisions that aren't making money Nintendo will be the only one who doesn't have to worry.

Wishful thinking.

[Boogaroo]

Lemme see...Head of company only responsible for making profits off software expects hardware manufacturers(MS/Sony) to take even larger losses on their hardware just to make the software companies happy. Yeah, that'll happen any day now.

There's a point where the loss might be a justifiable risk and MS/Sony bean counters have already worked that dollar figure out. Activision's, or any other software vendor's most sincere wish for a price cut isn't going to make a bit of difference when the managers at Microsoft or Sony have meetings to determine when to make that choice. Trying to put pressure on the console makers by making this a press release just makes Activision look dumb.

Re:would buy then

[LKM]

I own a PS3. I use it for playing games. It cost 600 bucks.

It doesn't matter that the PS3 also does all this other crap, it's still 600 bucks for a console used for playing games.