Absolutely NO PlayStation 3 Price Cuts... Yet

Peter Dille is senior vice president, Marketing and PLAYSTATION Network at SCEA (the playstation bit has got to be all upper-cased for some reason). He begins interviews with lines like, "This is our new fiscal year; we just finished our last one".

He also states quite clearly that, "Well, what I've said is that it's (the PS3) not going to drop in price today..."

So, there you have it. Why isn't going to cut in price? "We say this a lot and we joke about it, but if we could go door-to-door and talk to every consumer and explain to them, invariably they'd kind of, "Well, gosh! Why would I buy something else?" The conversation flips, and no longer is it a discussion about price being a concern; it becomes the value inherent in the device even at its $399 price point."

Right.

Here are some more gems from the interview at Gamasutra:

"(last year) we grew the PS3 base 40 percent..." That's, as Peter just told us, April 1 to March 31.

"We're not going to make a price move for PS3; we're not going to be packing five free games into a promotional strategy."

Simple. Straightforward. Thanks Peter.

"...a game like Flower or PixelJunk Eden... these games are profitable the day after we release them."

Again, understandable.

"...there's a lot of downloadable content on Live Arcade. A lot of it is older, kind of rehashed games that have been around on other platforms, and there's a role for those types of games...

"...back to Flower or flOw before that, these were games that were made specifically for the PS3, so they're made to show off a high-definition gaming experience that only the PS3 can offer."

Ouch! But nevertheless, he's got a point. But then things start going awry...

"The fact that every PlayStation 3 has a hard drive, and the DLC, our competition doesn't have that type of environment where every unit has a hard drive. Those types of differentiating factors are a big deal when we're talking about some of the co-marketing."

We'd like to see a little proof of that in the real world. Next...

"I think if you look at some other data more recently, and this goes back to the point of Sony providing development support. If you look at how Electronic Arts titles are indexed as one example on our platform, versus the Xbox 360 from last year to the previous year. We're seeing now EA Sports titles overindexing on PS3 vis-a-vis the install base."

Eh? 'Overindex'? According to the interviewer, this means, "selling more copies relatively (to the Xbox 360)". According to any other source we could find, it means nothing. So, the only logical thing we think that Peter Dille thinks that he means is that per 1,000 people who own a PS3 vs 1,000 people who own an Xbox 360, more EA Sports titles have been sold. At least that's what we think he might mean.

(That said, we couldn't find the damned word 'overindex' in any dictionary. It is, however, a word Peter likes to use around journalists. He uses it here: "With an installed base lead that's close to 3-1, if you're bragging about a 60-40 software split, it's clear evidence that the PlayStation 3 consumer is overindexing on GTA IV")

So, what else has Peter got? Well, the Xbox 360 is for core gamers. The Wii is doing a great job and "We had record revenues last year with seven billion dollars at retail." Given that Sony Corporation hasn't announced its 2008-2009 (Fiscal 2008) figures for revenues yet but has announced that it is expecting to make $85 billion for the entire company, this $7b figure sounds good.

And finally, exclusives: "I just don't know any other first-party that has that many exclusive titles going on."

That's got to be a good debating point.