Ben-DutkaSony introduced the price drop on the 60GB PS3 model right before E3 last month, but then turned around and announced the 80GB replacement model…which, of course, would retail at the 60GB's original price tag of $599. Once again, consumers began to wonder when/if we'd see a price drop on the new system, and Sony said they'd "reevaluate the market" once it was firmly entrenched and the 60GB had been phased out.
But in an interview with Eurogamer, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's David Reeves said they currently have no plans to cut the price of the 80GB PS3, but as a form of compensation and consolation, they'd be introducing new bundles in the near future.
"What we're going to allow, and it doesn't need an announcement, is simply that we'll probably put out more hard bundles than the Starter Pack," Reeves said. "We're not making any pricing announcements at Games Convention at all. There's none. And we don't have any plans in that regard. We're really happy with the way that things are going for the PAL business. We really are. It's on track."
As for why we heard of no new games for the PS3 during Sony's press conference at the Games Convention 2007 in Leipzig yesterday, Reeves said it's because Sony wants consumers "focused on five or six games." And it doesn't take a genius to figure out what those titles might be, despite our disappointment that we saw no new software at GC 2007.
"We're not going to try and overload – I'm not trying to escape the question, I'm just saying we're not going to overload the consumer with too many new ones," he said. "It's important to get a window so that someone's played a game and they're ready for the next one, because they don't have huge wallets and they can't go out and buy five games at 59 Euros all the time. So we're trying to do pillar titles every month."
Given all the great games coming out before the end of the year, we certainly understand this viewpoint. Even so, it would've been nice to see some previously unannounced software get unveiled in Leipzig, right? And if Reeves is serious about this "focusing on five or six titles" theory, than we probably won't see anything new at the Tokyo Game Show next month, either. But hey, at the very least, we should get another close look at those "five or six."
