Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, recently rattled his decently sized saber by threatening to pull support of the PS3 if there isn't an improvement in hardware sales. While it certainly wasn't something that Sony took lightly internally, Sony Group CEO Howard Stringer was somewhat dismissive of the comments by Kotick saying he just likes to make noise.
BioWare Co-founder Greg Zeschuk came out in Sony's defense, saying, "I think it's silly to be saying you're not going to support Sony. The brand itself is still huge and there are millions of [users] out there."
Now, Mark Rein has come out and added another descriptor to Kotick's talk. "That was a weird comment," said the Epic Vice President to Eurogamer.
"People talk about, 'The Wii has run away with this generation.' I don't think that's true. Nintendo's made a lot of money and the software developers on that platform are scratching for seconds," said Rein. "Microsoft is clearly a big market for third-party games. PS3 has a smaller installed base, but it's still millions of users. I'm sure Bobby still sold three, four, five million copies of Modern Warfare.
"I think he's just frustrated in that he hasn't sold seven or eight million [of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare], like he has on 360," Rein continued. "The truth is Sony has had a difficult year and I think they had to do what they had to do to try to be profitable. They have their own financial issues to solve and lowering the price of the console would probably have made their situation worse. They will get around to it in their own good time. If you're willing to look at this as a long-term play, they're going to be just fine."
In another part of the generally amusing interview, Rein backed up Cliff Bleszinski's recent statement that Gears of War wouldn't really work out using Microsoft's Natal. "Our games are really designed for the controller experience," said Rein. "They're very twitchy. I'm not a hundred percent sure there's a good fit there, or that there even needs to be."
Regardless of what outsiders say about Sony's pricing policy, they've demonstrated they're working on nobody's schedule but their own.
2 Comments
July 23, 2009
On Kotick: Honestly, I still can't believe he actually said that. I've been following the industry for a decent amount of time, and I've never really heard of the head of a major player like Activision Blizzard coming out with such blunt remarks about hardware company and their business strategy. Is there much precedence there?
On Natal: I guess I'm still just not convinced with this technology. Sure, it looks like it runs well in the demos, but I'm afraid at how it will translate into a real-world gaming experience. I can just imagine the frustration gamers will incur with less than stellar functionality. Images of people overcome with wrath waving their arms wildly and cursing at a television screen come to mind.
July 28, 2009
I agree. Sony will lower the price when they're ready. I said the same thing I think in 2008 when Greenburg made a statement about being surprised ps3 hasn't lowered it's price. Isn't ps3 still selling at a loss? Anyway a price or cut slim is probably coming this year but I wouldn't be shocked if neither came this year either But with Uncharted scheduled for October 13th and if Amazon's latest message about Ratchet is right then that'll hit October 27th. So they must have some big games planned for November (Singstar MJ & EyePet?) and if it is GT5 (though not my cup of Tea) then a $300 price tag would probably (and hopefully) bring some big software and Hardware sales for them.