Dille: Sony 'Confident' In PlayStation 3 Plans For 2009

Author: by Staff, Christian Nutt

Sony's Peter Dille has commented that Sony is "confident in their plan" on PlayStation 3 strategy and pricing for 2009, as part of an in-depth new Gamasutra interview on the state of Sony's game products. When asked by Gamasutra, the Sony exec clearly couldn't make any specific comment on the current $399 pricing of the PlayStation 3 console, and the possibility of a price cut. However, he did try to give an indication of where the company is going on the PS3 this year, commenting: "I can tell you we just made a [price reduction] move on day one of our fiscal year on PlayStation 2. We're not making any announcements, but we've got what we believe is a great plan for the year. We've talked about this next year being the most aggressive marketing year in PlayStation's history. It clearly falls into the "we can't comment on rumor and speculation," but we're confident in our plan, and we'll just leave it at that." When quizzed about some third-party developers coming out and saying they would like to see a price reduction, with the sentiment not just confined to consumers and analysts, Dille commented as follows: "We have a big event every year called Destination PlayStation. All the third-parties attend; all the retailers attend. We don't have the press there for a reason -- because we want to be very candid in our plans and not have sort of the implication of having the PR aspects to those conversations. When we lay out the plans to those folks there -- I think it might be fair to say that some people came into Destination PlayStation curious about what our plans were. I think they all left really fired up about the year ahead because, once they understood what our plans were, we didn't hear any of that grousing that you're talking about -- certainly not from the folks that attended. And I was quoted as saying recently that third-parties want our hardware to be free. We understand that; we have a business to run, and they have a business to run. As I said earlier, we were marching to a mantra to be profitable, which meant we weren't going to be cutting the price of the PS3 last year, and going forward we'll have a different plight." The full interview with Dille is now available on Gamasutra, including a plethora of extra information on Sony's strategies for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and PSP this year.