Activision CEO Warns Sony That the PS3 Needs a Price Cut 149
Bobby Kotick, President and CEO of Activision, one of the largest game companies in the world, has come out with a none-too-subtle warning to Sony that they need to seriously consider a price drop on the Playstation 3. Rumors have been circulating for months that such a drop was forthcoming, but Sony has staunchly denied that they had any plans to drop prices, Kotick said, "The PlayStation 3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don't make it easy for me to support the platform. It's expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better. ... They have to cut the price, because if they don't, the attach rates [the number of games each console owner buys] are likely to slow. If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony." While it's unlikely that Activision would follow through with such a threat, it definitely adds to the pressure Sony is feeling to lower the PS3's price. Sony issued a brief response which said nothing of consequence.
attach rate info is wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
High console price doesn't lead to a low attach rate. It leads to many other problems, but it doesn't lead to a low attach rate.
I think the problem in question is that the high price keeps the console sales down which means there are fewer owners for Activision to sell copies of their games to.
Attach rate is the number of games sold per console sold, not total number of games sold for a particular platform.
Re:What % of people will buy with lower prices? (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, if you just want casual games, gaming consoles aren't for you anyways.
This doesn't make sense to me. Gaming consoles *are* for the casual gamer. I always thought PCs were for the hardcore gamers.
Lots of products are overly expensive.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Come to think of it, the iPhone is almost as expensive as the PS3 (if not more so).
Pass or fail is more than about price.
Who needs the price cut? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nintendo does. In the eastern european countries.
I've been to an electronics store recently, and just out of curiosity, checked the prices. Back when Wii was announced at $200, I had hoped to buy one. Now I can say FUCK YOU NINTENDO.
PS3: 1450PLN = 445USD
XBOX360: 850PLN = 260USD
WII: 1250PLN = 384USD
That's about half of an average salary too. Bastards really need to pull heads out of their asses and cut the crap with "double the price for Europe" politics.
Re:When planning on lowering prices, best to shut (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. As I said, Sony execs aren't dumb. They leak info that helps them.
Osbourne effect:
company: Next generation models are going to be faster, cheaper, and better!
consumers: We should definitely wait for the next one.
Reverse Osbourne effect:
company: Next generation models are going to slower and less featureful!
consumers: Oh shit! We better get while the getting's good.
Re:What % of people will buy with lower prices? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a misconception originally promoted by some to feel more elitist, I guess, and nowadays mostly to point fingers at consoles and yell "they dumb down our games!"
There are also "hardcore" (as you put it...whatever that means) games for consoles. And there was more of them in the past. As is the case for the PC.
Simply an effect of marginalizing early and "mid" adopters, now that both types of platforms have became much more mainstream.
Also, thank MS for bringing them so close together that it's "obvious" for publishers to aim games for both. Which means: the need to be compromise on both platforms, cutting out things that work great on one, but are not really doable on the other. "Jack of all trades..." and all that...
Re:Politics wouldn't have anything to do with it,? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bzzt. Try again.
Nobody outside /. cares about the fact that Sony is part of the MPAA and RIAA.
Sales are down because just about everyone that's willing to buy one at $399 has already done so. Sony is just playing chicken with the fence-sitters, because they know they can get more money if they wait it out.
Personally I plan to buy one the minute it goes under $350, and I don't care how long it takes. Longer just means more good+cheap games in the greatest hits collection.
Re:Developing for Cell Processors . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
The majority of the cost of writing a game is in media creation, not programming. Media = textures, videos, 3D objects and animations, maps, structures, music, sound effects, etc.
The media can be reused across different platforms - typically 360, PS3 and PC. A Wii version might use scaled down versions of the same media.
On top of that, you usually develop a game on top of a game engine, so if you re-use that engine across titles, the per-platform development cost goes down even further.
The PS3 has plenty of games, many of then unique to its platform. Its sales rate is the same as the 360 across the world, and if you exclude the USA it's outselling the 360. The 360 does have a year's headstart on its side, hence its 7m extra sales. Most game developers have got the hang of the PS3's hardware to the point where the games are now no worse than the 360, with promises of more improvements to come.
If anything, this entire article says more about the standard of programmers at Activision.
However I do think a price drop on the PS3 hardware would benefit everyone. I do suspect that they're creating a slim-line version using 45nm components. This is when the sales will take off (as with the PS2 slim), especially if GT5 launches at the same time. Right now Sony must be making a profit on the hardware, given how much the price of BluRay drives has dropped.
backwards compatibility (Score:1, Insightful)
Forget price cuts. Without backwards compatibility, I and most PS fans have zero reason to buy a PS3. I can say, their blatant disregard for their established customer base destroys all confidence that they can satisfy me as a customer.
Re:Inferior IP = Inferior Sales, lets blame someon (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been playing FPS on both consoles and PCs for a long time and while I'll play the games that have what I want, the mouse/keyboard is miles above either.
Saying one stick is better than another for an FPS is like bragging your bigwheel is faster than a tricycle.
Re:When planning on lowering prices, best to shut (Score:3, Insightful)
Increased, both of them.
Now, over the last decade, what has the number of doping tests in cykling done?
Right, they have increased. This proves that both global warming AND CO2 level is caused by doping tests.
Correlation is not causation.
Re:When planning on lowering prices, best to shut (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people are just so anti-microsoft that they cant see past their bias. the PS3 is seriously overpriced, sure its more expensive to make but obviously people dont think the features are worth it or it would sell better. Dont blame the masses because they wont support the silly overpriced black box of your dreams.
maybe sony should lobby congress to spread the wealth of the playstation and force rich people to buy them for poor people. This seems to be what american economy is based on now.
Re:Politics wouldn't have anything to do with it,? (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? Which young children? Who were their parents, friends of yours? Or, did you over hear this in a playground? Were their parents perhaps rabid anti-copyright people who hate the **AA and all their members? Or, are they your children?
Your anecdote is too vague to be of any value. In fact, here is a refutation of your anecdote: my 18yo nephew saved up his money to buy a PS3.
Re:attach rate info is wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a tip Xest, if you feel personally attacked when someone else says something nice about their favorite console (even incorrectly), you are a fanboy.
Why is sony in a tough spot? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because Microsoft says they are? PS2 + ps3 combined still outsells the 360, month over month in the US. The Ps3 alone doesn't, but they still sell the Ps2 and there are still games coming out for the Ps2.
Across the globe, Sony isn't doing bad at all. Sure, I think they really would have liked to be outselling the 360 with the PS3 alone at this moment, but alas, it didn't happen. Big deal, they keep on selling the ps2 and look, it still works. Not everyone looks at the US as the center of the world: the rest of the world also counts, hell, in south america for example, all next-gen consoles are simply too expensive for the majority of the people.
Sony makes money for activision, so why should activision drop sony? It makes them money. So dropping the platform would LOSE them money, so they won't do that. Sony also knows that and I'm pretty sure they don't even pay attention to this nonsense.
The problem is more, like your comment, that a certain group of people think sony is in a tough spot and really on the brim to keel over and keep on repeating that whenever they can. That's the real problem for sony at the moment. Not activision's CEO whining about some licenses he has to pay for (which prices he knew up front).
Though Sony has the solution for this in-house: their own large group of 1st and 2nd party studios. The games they're creating and will create in the coming 2 years are going to make Sony enough money and will sell enough consoles that people who keep on repeating that they're in a tough spot and ready to keel over are not believed anymore.
In that light, MS has bigger problems. But that's an umpopular statement in gaming world with the large group of very vocal 360 followers online. ;)