| Reasonable said: Some good responses here. I still feel the threat is more of a bluff than anything to get two things: 1) larger HD install base for core Activision titles, particularly the COD (and now MW) series). 2) try and get better royalty rates from Sony Looking at the main titles I don't see how Activision could make up for loss of PS3 sales with 360 sales (i.e. despite the huge appeal of the series I don't see a bunch of PS3 owners buying 360s to get MW2, etc.) They could divert resources to the Wii, but really, overall, that seems very risky to me. Success on the Wii is tricky for 3rd parties IMHO and requires the right mindset and games design. Selling MW2 on PS3 might be less profitable than on 360, but it surely will nonetheless be hugely profitable for Activision. I feel he wanted to get in now, before the title hits to leverage better royalties if he can and try and push Sony to lower price sooner. After MW2 sells (and assuming it sells like gangbusters on PS3 and as well as 360) such a threat as this would seem silly - ergo he has to get in now and pressure Sony up to the next big wave of Activision releases. If it was truly unprofitable on PS3, and he really felt the platform was dead, I doubt he'd bother with posturing: he'd just make the moves and leave the platform to its fate. His actions indicate he wants more PS3s (and via competition stimulous more 360s) sold, with higher sales of his SW on them. |
Or it could be that he has legitimate concerns about the viability of the PS3 over the long term ...
The more rapidly the sales of a system drop, and the longer it is allowed to sell at a particular sales level, the more difficult it will be for a console to return to its sales level and the less likely it becomes that they will recover. Now, suppose Activision-Blizzard forecast that without an immediate price reduction the PS3 would be outsold by the XBox 360 by 12 Million units in markets they were interested in by the end of 2010; and the lead Microsoft had in western markets jumped from (roughly) 12 Million to 24 Million units. Now also suppose that Microsoft has lower licencing fees and the their per-user revenue generated from downloadable content is higher, so Microsoft's 66% of sales would translate into 80% of gross revenue for the company ... Wouldn't you question the viability of supporting the PS3?
