The price point for Sony’s PS3 is starting to get developers a little jittery, with EA’s Peter Moore and Media Molecule’s Alex Evans wishing for snips.
The corporate giant is still resistant to the idea, opting for profitability over increasing their installed base right now. Sony have had to make huge cost cutting decisions, losing 16,000 jobs.
”Everybody in the development community would love for the PS3 to be free, so they could just sell razor blades,” said SCEA’s Peter Dille.
Peter Moore told Bloomberg that ”Sony obviously still has a ways to go with their pricing,” believing they’ll cut the price eventually.
Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans tells Gamasutra it’s a necessary measure to expand beyond the PS3’s core audience, who already own the console.
”They’ve had all these, you know, SingStars and the EyeToy games. They’ve had their casual gaming audience on the PS2, and they have to translate that over to PS3 now,” explained Evans.
”As they do that, I’ll be very happy with that, because that’s how I see PS3 growing. That’s why I’m kind of comfortable with it for now… As soon as they drop their price, ho ho ho.”
”I shouldn’t say that, but it’s true,” he adds.
Janco Parnters’ analyst Mike Hickey says if they ”can’t meaningfully increase their install base, then you will likely see a capital reallocation.” Meaning Sony will continue to come under increasing pressure from publishers to reduce their price point.
”The publishers need the PS3 install base to grow in order for most of these games to be profitable. It’s an easy equation for them, but it’s very different from the one that Sony has to take on.” Hickey expects a drop of $50 to $100 on the PS3 during the next two months.
Fingers crossed it’ll happen around the release of Sucker Punch’s PS3 exclusive – inFamous – releasing this June.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
