"They have to cut the price," says exasperated Activision CEO
The CEO of Activision - the largest third-party games software publisher in the world - has threatened that his company "might have to stop supporting Sony" unless the cost of the PlayStation 3 is soon reduced.
"I'm getting concerned about Sony; 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. Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStation," Activision CEO Bobby Kotick told The Times.
"They have to cut the price, because if they don't, the attach rates are likely to slow," he added. "If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony. When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support the console — and the PSP too."
Dystopian future for PS3
So, in Kotick's currently rather dystopian view of PlayStation's future, unless Sony can reduce the cost of the hardware to the consumer and boost sales considerably over the next twelve months, there is a likelihood that PlayStation gamers will stop seeing annual refreshes of their favourite Activision gaming series such as Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk and more in 2011 and beyond.
Activision currently has a market value of $16 billion (£10 billion). Guitar Hero alone grossed more than $1 billion last year.
"It was as big as Titanic [the film] with better margins," boasts Kotick.Via The Times
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