Ubisoft Reckons The PS3 Faces An “Uphill Struggle” In The UK

Ubisoft’s British marketing boss Murray Pannel has stated his belief that the Playstation 3 faces an uphill struggle in the UK. However he did concede that the brand name still carries enormous weight throughout the region.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, the former Microsoft employee of six years said:

“So if I’m just looking at the UK specifically, we all know that Nintendo has done an amazing job, the 360 has solidified its position and is still doing well, and PlayStation I think would say themselves that they would have liked to have sold more hardware units.”

“Coming at it from a platform perspective, when I was at Xbox we never underestimated the power of the brand for PlayStation - despite the hiccups they had at launch, and the price particularly, there’s still a latent demand for that product. And if they can get their value proposition right in terms of pricing and online, and a software line-up that’s unbeatable, they’re still a force to be reckoned with.”

“But they will take a long time to even get their installed base up to that of the Xbox, let alone Nintendo’s level, so they’ve got an uphill struggle in the UK,” he continued.

“Obviously we support all platforms, and frankly, the more installed base you’ve got, the more games you can sell. So we’d rather have all the platform holders growing the IP as much as they can, so there are more people playing games that we can sell to.”

“That’s very much our hope, and we support all the platform holders where we can to push that, if that’s exclusive games, or specific games for specific platforms to help drive those to new audiences.”

He then continued to talk about the state of the economy and how he feels the games industry as a whole can grow once again in the coming year. With Sony’s platform currently the most expensive, there’s no doubt that the Playstation has a fight on its hands for supremacy. Alas, that system really is built to last.

http://www.pushsquare.com/3134/ubisoft-reckons-the-ps3-faces-an-uphill-struggle-in-the-uk/

Last time i checked Ubisoft made more money from PS3 then Xbox360, UK is not the only market around.

@ shanbcn

True.. but the statement is in refrence to the UK market. Not the World.

Wonder how long it will take for people to say "he worked for Microsoft, he must be a fanboy".

He makes a fair enough point, but I think a reasonable pricecut will have Sony right as rain in the UK. I know somebody who took advantage of a £250 bundle w/ inFamous at the weekend, so if they can just bring it down from £300 to sub-£250 things should get rolling.

That's interesting spin on a story that can be sumed up : we will produce games for all platforms as long as they sell :D