http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/11535/1/
Phil Harrison: PS3 price drop is not even on the radar
By Mike Bantick
Monday, 23 April 2007
A recent interview with Sony supremo Phil Harrison indicates that it is all smooth sailing for the PlayStation 3. Sure there have been PR hiccups along the way, but all is okay now and the PS3 is here for the long term.
The Slashdot interview with Phil Harrison President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios gives some usual company line answers to most of the questions posed by Slashdot readers.
Along the way however Harrison is asked about his thoughts on Homebrew applications and the PS3, given that the Play Station Portable platform has had many a firmware led crackdown on user developed content, it is surprising that Harrison is more open to the idea on the Sony flagship entertainment hub.
“I fully support the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone. We were one of the first companies to recognize this in 1996 with Net Yaroze on PS1” he said.
Acknowledging that today’s gaming platforms are difficult to use as a learning tool by those interested in designing games for a living, Harrison went on; “Now, those industry doors are largely closed by the nature of the video game systems themselves being closed. So, if we can make certain aspects of PS3 open to the independent game development community, we will do our industry a service by providing opportunities for the next generation of creative and technical talent.”
During the interview Harrsion also touches on the embarrassing PR mistakes of recent history, acknowledging that looking back on some of the incidents makes him “cringe”.
On a positive note Harrison believes Sony’s investment in making the Blu-ray drive a focus of the PS3 hardware will pay off Sony and the consumer in the long run; “Next generation game design demands the capacity of Blu-ray. Once we'd adopted BD as a game format, there was little incremental cost to support BD as a movie format. Given that the majority of BD movies are now using dual layer (50GB) discs, we're seeing the importance of the higher BD capacity much earlier in the life of the format compared to DVD. First and foremost, I believe it was the right decision for PlayStation 3 to use BD for games”
But, don’t expect a price drop in the PS3 soon; “Probably no surprise to hear that we've no plans to drop the price but it's also no surprise to anyone reading this that core to our business plan is growing the installed base of hardware. But price is only one part of the motivation to purchase a system” Harrison said.
