"It's like watching a former rock n' roll legend still screwing 18-year-olds and doing coke, blissfully unaware that he's become less and less relevant and needs to buck his ideas up before his withered body gives out and dies."

Truer words have never been spoken!

"Sony's being nothing but pigheaded about the PS3 price, arrogantly acting like it's still in charge of the game industry and calling all the shots"

While I'm not Sony's biggest fan, it's not them that's being pigheaded – it's Kotick. A price cut for Sony means a lot in lost profit, so you can understand why they're loath to lower the price. They will do it, certainly, but not now. Activision knows this; they know the price cut is coming, and yet Kotick felt the need to shout his mouth off, flop his balls on the table and make a threat that probably has no substance behind it whatsoever. Kotick just wanted to look good and in the process decided to kick Sony when they're down. It's pretty pathetic, in my opinion.

If I were Sony, I'd be really pissed at Kotick but also recognise the fact that it's just a power play and nothing personal. Regardless, it's kind of a dick move, whichever way you look at it.

If Activision stopped publishing on the PS3 it would be catastrophic ... for Sony. It would be an extremely large publisher going 360 exclusive. It would cripple the PS3 sales even if they later dropped the price. They would be losing CoD, Guitar Hero, etc.

While you may think lost sales, the truth is the PS3 market most likely overlaps with the 360 market and people who own both will jsut buy on their 360's. People who own 360's will have less of a reason to buy PS3's and the attach rate of titles to PS3's will drop, making it less of an incentive for other publishers to stick with them.

Activision is large enough to put the nail in the coffin.

This isn't just Activision, Tecmo Koei is saying the same thing as well.

Sony is clearly trailing behind in market saturation, and the high pricepoint of the console is only keeping more consumers at bay. Something needs to be done to make the PS3 more accessible or else the distance between the two consoles will be so great that it may affect multiplatform releases' quality or availability on the system altogether.

It's in Sony's best interest to improve every aspect of the PS3 (from price to functionality to software library) to make it more competitive in the marketplace.

Sony are hitting their sales targets for the PS3, why would they drop the price when there plan is going.....to plan??

Just because YOU can't afford one?

They will drop their price, but they will do it when they're ready, when their plan says they should, not before.

Sony are the long term horse in this race, they're currently selling at a loss, but hitting sales targets and supplying a superb product at what is, for such a top notch product, a reasonable price.

They are doing perfectly well in a different market to nintendo and Microsoft, the PS3 is in a different league.

Casual Gamer - Nintendo
General Gamer / Cheapskate Gamer / Welfare Kids - Microsoft
The Gamer that wants all the features, future proof hardware, blu-ray player etc etc - Sony.

It's as simple as that, it's not really a competition, they are designed for different people. If Activision think that the Prestige, well off gamer market is not enough for them to bother then fine, fuck them. They're only saying it because of making multiple sets of instruments, they'll still come crawling back when they want £50 wor Modern War 2, even if they don't want to bother giving us more guitar Hero - fuck them.

Xbox fanboys, like jim, seem to have forgotten that Blu-ray is the new film media, it's got it's foot in the door, and once this recession lifts it will take the place of DVDs, the PS3 is CHEAP for a blu-ray player and a top notch console.

You think if I wrote a letter to a Ferrari dealership and told them I wouldn't ever buy one of their cars, unless they dropped the price to the same as a Lexus, that they would bite?

...I sure would like to get a Ferrari at a discount.

"You think if I wrote a letter to a Ferrari dealership and told them I wouldn't ever buy one of their cars, unless they dropped the price to the same as a Lexus, that they would bite?"

Very well said Fantus - couldn't have said it better myself.

Too many people seem to be under the false impression that a PS3 and an Xbox are WORTH the same amount.

Some people want a Ferrari and are willing to spend to get one, others will settle for a Lexus. That's it, and that's all it is.

Hey somebody stole my Ferrari comparison!

@Fantus & Sexualchocolate
Are you done with your Sony worship? Because if you are maybe you could finally think a little bit and realise that your argument is stupid.

The Ferrari argument would only apply to this case if a consumer said he wouldn't buy a PS3. That's not the case here.

Activison ist one of the largest publishers in the world and they hold a hefty chunk of AAA-Titles to be released on both consoles. If their threat was in fact serious, Sony would have every right to panic. In fact they would have to. They would have to face the fact that now COD, Guiter Hero and everything else developped by Activision in the coming years would be console exclusive to the 360. That's even bigger than Square Enix abandoning the N64. And we know how well that console did after a blow like this.

To get back to your Ferrari argument, this would compare to all Amercian fuel stations agreeing to no longer sell fuel to Ferraris. That's the scope we're dealing with here. Stuff that could break an entire company's back. (OK not Sony's because they got all their other consumer electronics divisions, but it would mean a definite end to Sony Computer Entertainment.)

@ Dgschrei - Their argument is stupid, because it makes too much sense, right? Because it explains why.

You don't buy a console because there's an off-chance that a third party distributor will trip over itself and publish a decent title. You buy a console, because of the exclusives that will never, ever, hit PC. Which Sony has cornered the market on. You can have your Guitar Hero. I'll keep my Gran Turismo 5. The _only_ reason I bought a PS3, at the original price point, with backwards compatibility. You people just want shit for free, and to be honest, screw you. I support Sony's pricing fully.

"Fact is, Sony's done a hell of alot more to work with pricing, than Nintendo has. It's not Sony's fault that you people are poor. Get jobs, work for quality hardware, or shut up."

This is the best argument in the thread. Oh yeah, well you're poor! LMAO.


In truth, Sony is working hard this generation after taking some risks that didn't pay off as they were hoping. And calling out Kotick's statement as simply an attempt to put pressure on Sony is probably a good idea for Stringer... as long as Kotick (or another publisher) doesn't have the balls to follow through with the threat.

@dgschrei

Hey man, don't call me a fanboy. I just want a cheap Ferrari. :)

Seriously tho, I thought the whole point of people and publishers wanting Sony to drop the price of the PS3 was that so more people would buy PS3's. And there for, Activision could have more copies of their overrated games sold across all consoles.

I think the most important thing here is that Sony can't just give in and do what the publishers demand, when they demand it. It's a sign of weakness. And also, if Sony were to even give the slightest impression that they were going to drop the price, i'm willing to bet that you would see current PS3 sales drop like a rock. Because everyone would be waiting for the lower price. So Sony has to make damn sure that people understand that this is the price you pay. Until WE say otherwise.

At any rate. I'm not a fanboy. Unless we're talking about games in general, then i'm definitely a fanboy. :) And I like cheap Ferrari's.

Sony fanboy butthurt is pretty loud in here.

Yes, Sony did "a lot" to improve their pricing over the years, but they also were fucking assholes for putting the starting price at $600.

Sure, PS3 sales might be "meeting target sales figures", but I think we all know those figures were "readjusted" lower after it was clear that the PS3 wasn't selling as fast as first predicted. And it makes no sense for Sony to stick to a rigid plan and not adapt to the market, especially for a console that is supposed to last 10 years or more.

And Kotick is definitely being a dick by making a public comment like that, but it's pretty shrewd. That kind of comment could have been made privately to Sony and the message would have gotten across, but by making it public that greatly increases the pressure on Sony to drop the price. Kotick should try not to piss off his industry partners on a regular basis, but at the same time he does need to watch out for his ROI. It would be interesting to see what kind of return on investment Activision actually makes on the PS3, to see if Activision really is hurting by investing in PS3 games, or if they're just using their market share to bully Sony.

Detox just said WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH!

Here is a free tip for you, son. Sony and the PS3 are two completely different things. Criticism of one thing is not criticism of the other. I love the PS3, I hate the way Sony handles it. Learn the difference, be an adult, and get the fuck over it.

Just for the record, Mr. Sterling loves his PS3 and often holds it tightly and whispers sweet nothings into it's drive slot... Nothing he has stated desparages the PS3, but rather has pointed out the less than professional tit-for-tat going on between 2 company execs. Fanbois on both sides need to really read what is being written and quit trying to shoehorn an agenda into everyting they read.

"I love the PS3, I hate the way Sony handles it. Learn the difference, be an adult, and get the fuck over it."

I dunno, man. I hate your articles, and not because they present a viewpoint that I don't agree with. Your armchair economics grow old and tiresome. Sorry. I came to this site to escape this kind of fanboy bullshit, and you're by far the worst perpetrator. Most of the people who read Destructoid have probably either bought a ps3, or are resolved to *not* buying one, so why waste our time talking about this pricecut issue when nobody gives a flying fuck? Stirring up the bees nest is, indeed, a valid and worthwhile pass-time, but for fuck's sake, vary it up a little.

@ Dgschrei - Keep your call of Duty Modern warfare, I prefer to play 'real' games on my PC, like Crysis and Crysis Warhead. You morons seem not to get it. So, I'll explain it on a level that even children can understand.

Sony 1st parties, rarely if ever publish for PC
MS 1st parties, quite often do.

My PC stomps the dogshit out of the PS3 and 360.

Games for Windows Live = Free = Xbox Live

I like games, therefore, I buy the consoles that are relevant. The 360, is irrelevant, as every game published for said console, ends up on the PC, with vastly superior hardware scaling.

Your fanboy idiocy, merely prevents you from gaining access to a very stellar selection of exclusives. Whereas, I've got my Gaming Rig, and my PS3. Tough shit for you.

In conclusion, my Gaming Rig, costs about 4 times, what I paid for an original launch 60g. I'm not wrapped up and concerned over 'pricing'. I play games. I don't whine, piss and moan to the manfucturer.

Get over yourself.

The PS3 and Xbox elite are priced the same and are comparable units. If everyone wants a cheaper PS3, the only real option is for Sony to produce a crippled unit - but what do they drop? Do they drop blu-ray? Do the drop a HDD?
The standard Xbox is only $100 cheaper than a PS3... maybe they just need to better educate people as to what they get for that extra $100.00.

@ DGschrei - It's worth more than the 360, because it does more than the 360. The 360 is solely for games (and continues to fail at that, due to poor architecture. Complain about difficult of coding for the PS3 all you want...at least it doesn't overheat and meltdown on you, lol). Whereas, the components in my gaming rig, I hand picked, and put them all in myself. I know it's done professionally, and carefully.

And just so you're aware of the 'why's'....not that it doesn't take 3 seconds to look it up yourself. (I understand that as children, it's easier to sit around and rail against the unknown, whereas, when you grow older, you tend to not want to make yourself look like a dumbass for complaining about what you don't understand. That having been said, it's quite simple why the PS3 costs as much as it does to create.

2 Brand new technologies that are not yet commercially available, and therefore, have no competition to drive down the prices. Those two being, XDR RAM (The fastest RAM on the planet), and the Cell Processor. XDR is not available to the public, and is only made by Rambus, the Cell Processor, again, has 1 manufacturer, is not available to the public as such, noone's driving the prices down on it. Blu Ray, while still a major cost factor for manufacturing prices, is still going to cost a pretty penny, given that standalone BR players (not PC drives), still cost over $150, brand new. So, you think the Cell + XDR Ram + Blu Ray + the rest of the PS3's makeup (pieces parts, Wifi, cooling, etc...) are less than $400? Well, you'd be wrong, current estimates still show the PS3 manufacturing costs are at $449. This is from an idependant analysis by isuppli.com.

isnt it fairly concrete that there will be a price drop with the slim ps3 in the fall? so isnt sony just doing what they should? ie. dont hurt your current sales by announcing a price cut is coming soon.
and i think its kinda funny that game publishers are complaining about the price. of course, they want the price to be zero. they dont care if sony loses a trillion dollars a year. sony should be responding by saying that activision should sell its games for a loss. WOW should be free! Guitar Hero should be $1! Bobby K should stfu.

@Mornelithe
Disregarding the fact that Jim tought me to not react to people without avatar...

I have a bloody i7 System and the only thing that would need updating is the graphics card which I'll update from an ATI HD4770 once the DX11 cards arrive. So yeah my machine also cost a lot more than a PS3. Hell my soundcard alone set me back 140€ (Yeah I'm audiophile). So don't give me that shit with "real" games. Crytek's games may look absolutely fantastic but the gameplay is still mediocre. Also I like my multiplayer titles to run in 60fps, which bloody Crysis still can't do on full settings 2 years after it's release.

And no I'm not a fanboy. Yeah I bought a 360 during the time I had no decent gaming PC so what. I wanted to play Mass Effect, GTA and so on. And because I'm not a fanboy I also will not miss out on games on the PS3. I already know that I will buy a PS3 eventually. Once the bloody thing drops to 199€ it's going to be mine. There is no way in hell I'm going to spill out 400€ for such a gimped system. By the time the PS3 hits that price most of the exclusives will be available for 30€ or less too, so I'll save money twice and still get the same games.

@Mornelithe
Ok for one last time
My PC is handbuilt to and I know why that is good.
And now for the really important part. Your argument just is stupid.
Yeah IBM does not sell the Cell to consumers so the price won't drop. You know why they don't sell it to the public? Because the bloody thing won't run on Windows that's why. IBM doesn't have the X86-licencse so they can't build CPUs that work with Windows.
And again I don't care about the Bluray. That format was doomed from the beginning. Just as the HDDVD. The increase in capacity was just way to small for those formats to matter. Digital distribution is already more popular than the oh so wonderful Bluray. All disk formats up until now only were successful because they were very successful on the PC-Market. At their given time CD and DVD were a far cheaper long time storage solution than HDDs. Try that with a 25GB Bluray at 10 bucks, when an 640GB HDD will only set you back 50. Those formats are already dead. I for one will wait for this which actually promises to be attractive for use again.

Oh and just to destroy your argument completely. I'm nineteen. So the arbitrary "kids-bash" is totally worthless and only makes you seem ridicoulous.

I couldn't find where is Jim bashing the PS3...


if only console wars were won with fanboyism, Sony would have already won this generation and the next.

"Stirring up the bees nest is, indeed, a valid and worthwhile pass-time, but for fuck's sake, vary it up a little."

I don't understand this. I've written well over ten stories this week. This post is only one of them. Some of the stories are about Nintendo. Some about Microsoft. Some about Sony. I don't know how much more varied I can get, pal.

We are in an economic crisis, people have hardly enough money for food and are losing jobs left and right, and the PS3 fanboy's rationalization of their extremely overpriced piece of hardware is "lol job more"?
The only people I know who own PS3s have rich parents who either buy it for them or pay for 90% of their living expenses. While I'm sure nobody on here will admit to that, I know a good 10-12 ps3 owners and they are ALL like that. So yeah, maybe that argument works when your parents are footing your life bill, but for everybody else in the real world, $400 on a gaming system isn't worth it.
I will admit it is a little more justifiable than when it started; when the PS3 first came out we didn't know if it or HD-DVD would win. Can you imagine if you'd thrown $600 on the PS3 and HD-DVD had won out? And now, with digital distribution pretty much consuming everything, will Blu-Ray really be around as long as we think?
They need to price cut it. A price cut would mean more sales, which would mean more game sales. I honestly think they'll cut it around God of War 3's release, just to promote selling their first party title. As for now, I really can't see it's exclusives worth $100-$200 more than the Xbox's.
Sony really screwed up this time, but the weird thing is they are making no steps to recover. Like at all. They could easily pull themselves out of the pit they've dug, but they are too arrogant. Every year will be penultimate to the "year of the PS3," and it'll never come.