Kenji Matsubara, CEO of the Japanese publisher Koei Tecmo, has stated in an interview with computerandvideogames.com that the company would greatly welcome a price cut of the Playstation 3. While he admits that he lacks a clear view of Sony’s cost-structure for the console, he asks Sony representatives to “Please lower the price” at every meeting.
Despite the fact that Sony has introduced new high-end technologies with the Playstation 3 and therefore has high manufacturing costs, Matsubara says that he would expect a boost in the Playstation 3 market as a whole if the price was lowered. He also added that “from a publisher’s point of view we would welcome a price cut for PS3, and we are waiting”.
The statement is striking, not only because the Japanese rarely voice such feelings concerning other Japanese firms, but also because it was only recently that publisher Activision Blizzard stated that they would consider to stop publishing Playstation 3 games if the price would not be lowered.
The high price of Sony’s console has always drawn much criticism, especially when compared to the price of its main competitor. But it was not untill recently that publishers and developers started to voice concerns as well, as they widely claim that the high price harms their ability to sell enough games on the platform, which is claimed to be rather expensive to develop games for.
Though Sony has never shown any indication it intends to drop the price of the Playstation 3, it seems unlikely that the firm will be able to withstand pressure from its third party developers for a continued time.