Last month, evil publisher Activision causedquite a stirwhen nefarious CEO Bobby Kotick hinted he might have to stop supporting the PS3 if a price drop didn’t come soon. This was essentially a threat, and a very large one coming from such a powerful and influential publisher. Sony, however,is Sony, which means they’re not taking the threat seriously — at least publicly.
“He certainly likes to make a lot of noise,”says Sony’s Howard Stringerof Kotick. “I lose money on every PlayStation I make.”
Stringer also attempts to downplay the nature of the threat: “He’s putting pressure on me and I’m putting pressure on him. That’s the nature of the business.”
Sony’s being nothing but pigheaded about the PS3 price, arrogantly acting like it’s still in charge of the game industry and calling all the shots, which simply isn’t the case anymore. It’s like watching a former rock n’ roll legend still screwing 18-year-olds and doing coke, blissfully unaware that he’s become less and less relevant and needs to buck his ideas up before his withered body gives out and dies.
While a lot of this is surely public bravado, I can’t help but feel that Sony is talking itself over a cliff. Perhaps it should just stop all its executives and PR people from talking, at least for the rest of the generation.
