Peter Moore Dismisses Threat of Pricey PS3

The Sony vs. Microsoft pre-next gen war of words continued this week. In an interview in Famitsu magazine, Xbox Worldwide Marketing chief Peter Moore suggested that the PS3’s high price point will make it unable to compete with the Xbox 360, even in its home territory of Japan.

Rumours said to emanate from Wal-Mart employees are pricing the 360 at $300 dollars. And while there have been figures bandied around for the PS3 – for which no release date has yet been announced – you’ll remember the increasingly barmy Ken Kuturagi’s comments that aspiring owners would ‘have to work hard for their PS3’. And earlier this week, the nVidia camp compared its own pricing strategies for top-end graphics cards with Sony’s for the PS3, boosting speculation once again that Sony is not keen to sell the machine at much of a loss, if any at all. The decision to go with the cutting edge Blu-Ray disc format alone will push up production costs, though it seems that the machine will not come with a hard drive, a component that made the current Xbox more costly for Microsoft to manufacture. With the PSP also a very expensive toy, the niche ‘hardcore’ market is what Sony has its sights set on for the coming generation.

Moore stopped short of revealing a release price for the 360. But he said that Microsoft’s goal with the Xbox 360 is to expand the gamer population, and that one way of doing this is to make the machine affordable to more households. Something, he maintains, that the PS3 will not be. Conceding, that the Xbox had fared poorly in Japan, he pointed to Microsoft’s commitment to supplying titles for the ever-RPG-hungry Japanese consumers next generation, with big names like Hironobu Sakaguchi, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, and Yoshiki Okamoto exclusively signed to foster interest in the console.

It’s no secret that the Japanese have very deep pockets when it comes to consumer electronics, and a proven brand loyalty to Sony this generation. We wouldn’t like to speculate on just how expensive the PS3 would have to be, and how cheap the 360, to turn this around. But in Europe the Xbox has built a name for itself this generation, and it’s hard to see how Sony could hope to compete with a relatively cheap Xbox released months ahead of the PS3, especially if the PS3 takes its time getting here like the PSP has. And let’s not forget there’s a third player in the home console market, too.

PS3; an expensive, graphics focused, elitist console? The only comparison we can think to draw is that of the Neo Geo MVS. And, when we were at school, we didn’t know of anyone with a Neo Geo (except our friend's sister's boyfriend's friend's friend's brother from Hong Kong). Is PS3 ownership destined to be the stuff of playground legend? Let us know what you think.