Ubisoft’s Yves Guillemot and Electronic Arts’ Frank Gibeau have both heaped praise on Sony’s decision to lower the cost of the PlayStation 3, believing the price drop will ultimately make the platform a far more attractive investment for mass-market consumers.
Speaking during an interview with GI.biz this week, Guillemot commented, "It’s exceptional news, actually. I think the machine is a great machine, with the Blu-ray,” adding, "I’m happy that they were able to move to that [price point], particularly in the UK."
The electronics giant announced Tuesday that the price of PS3 would fall to 299 EUR in Europe and £249 GBP in the UK, effective immediately. A hardware revision in the form of the PS3 Slim will follow in September.
Guillemot’s comments were echoed by Gibeau, who stated: "I think it’s awesome," "It’s an old line, but it still rings true for us: ‘We make the ammunition for the hardware wars’. So the lowest priced hardware possible is a good thing for us. We want to see as big and broad a base as possible, and the Sony hardware is a good piece of equipment."
"It’s also going to be a smaller machine, and I think this will help Sony and the whole industry – because everybody will react, and so we’ll be able to see it come to the mass market," said Guillemot on the PS3 Slim.
Gibeau chipped in again, believing the new price point will help publishers reach out to new consumers, particularly in European territories: "Getting into that price point is just going to expand the market for us, especially in Europe. We have a lot of PS3 games, we’re a good supporter of Sony, we believe in the platform. We’ve got a lot of PSP games coming, and frankly we also support the PlayStation Network with direct-to-consumer releases,” he said.
“So we’re strong, committed partners of Sony and I’m extremely excited about the Slim – I think it looks great. And the price point will be hot."
Finally, Gibeau concluded that lower prices ultimately equate to a longer hardware cycle, meaning companies can focus their efforts on current hardware without having to invest in new technology.
"The good news is that we still have a lot of price points to go yet – Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony – which points to a longer cycle for hardware this time around. And again, for us it’s great, because we don’t have to go out and build a whole new set of engines for next-gen," said Gibeau.