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.  

Well like its been said before, price drops are not gonna be announced months in advanced - cause that would kill sales.

So when any company says there is no price drop, never believe it :P

well, see, putting the price down on the PS3 effectively shows that Sony believe that it is struggling. Apart from the fact that Sony is already losing loads for each console, Sony is too arrogant to lower the price imo.

 I wouldnt say they are too arrogant to drop the price, dropping the price would seem a bit odd half a year after release.  It would also maybe show than sony are getting worried about sales.

It would also annoy alot of people who have spent the money on ps3s already

Yeah I've always thought dropping the price now is a mistake. It makes your system look like its in trouble. And he's right its only part of the motivation to buy the system. Why lower the price now when the games aren't even here to help sell it. I think they need to see if it's big exclusives will change the path it's on this christmas and evaluate in january if a price drop needs to be made by March 2008. No way it'll be sooner then that. Honestly any sooner and the hit they'd be taking on the hardware wouldn't even justify it. And seriously with the way it's selling now they'd have to at the very least take off a hundred bucks to make a difference. a 100 bucks extra of pure loss on each of those system means all those people would have to buy at 5-10 more games during the systems lifespan to break even on those particular systems, and I wouldn't bet on that happening if these people sole reason for buying a ps3 was a price drop.

Sony really needs to get games out, a small price drop with some very good games at the same time should help. Right now I think Sony is doing the right thing. The system may not be selling loads - but it is selling.

Any price cut in 2007 would probably be the result of third-party pressure caused by low sales. My numbers are somewhat arbitrary but I suspect that if the PS3 dropped below 10,000 Units per week in Japan or 100,000 units per month in North America third party publishers would likely put (serious) presure on Sony to "do something"; about the only "somethings" they could do is drop the price or start massive pack-in deals.

With their second quarter release list I think we may very well see the ps3 hit those levels.

Its not a feasible option for Sony atm, they still believe that sales will go up with this price. When i said arrogant, i meant that they're not willing to give in as it would be bad for them for many reasons: 1. It would piss off people who ahd bought a PS3 for the full price 2. It would show that Sony acknowledge that their system is selling badly 3. Sony would lose even more than they are atm

They could start to bundle it with even more stuff.... remote, hdmi-cable, memorycard adaptor, wireless hedphones, etc.