Sony’s David Reeves Fails Epicly Discussing PS3 Price
In general we appreciate the roles that are played by individuals who run major video game publishers and developers. Presidents, CEOs, heads of this, directors of that - they all do important things, and we understand that. There are, however, certain instances when one of these individuals says something that leads us to question what exactly he thought he was communicating and how it’s supposed to better his company. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, president of Sony Corporation Entertainment Europe, David Reeves, exhibited such an instance.
Before we dish the exact quote we want to set up some context, because we feel that’s important. You can also find the link to the entire article at the bottom of this article and we recommend you read it for yourself (another well conducted interview by GI, and a good read). This interview took place after SCEE’s press conference at the Leipzig ‘08 Games Convention. Seeing as how David Reeves heads up Sony’s European affairs, he was fittingly asked many question regardings Sony and the PS3’s presence in Europe, and other distinct non-American locales. He answered most of these fairly well and displayed an appropriate amount of awareness and vision for a man in his position, charged with the success of the PS3 in one of the world’s largest markets.
The interview touched on some interesting topics like price drops and exclusive titles (in short, no price drops, less exclusives), but nothing mind blowing. Then it goes way off course.
When asked about Shuhei Yoshida’s (president of Sony Worldwide Studios) comment that hardware drives sales more than pricing points, Reeves agreed with that sentiment. When asked if he thought that held true for Europe, he agreed once again, but then, for some reason we may never understand, we went off course to give some “background” for why he thought this.
The other thing is, as a bit of background, when you do focus groups with people, whether it’s in the UK or not, it’s amazing - not necessarily children, but an 11 or 12 year old boy, has in his mind… he picks up messages from everywhere. He wants a PS3 because of this game, or because of this particular feature. He doesn’t necessarily think of the price, he doesn’t really have a perception of it.
So he’ll say to his parents that he wants a PS3, but the parent says, “Ah, we can’t afford that, can we get you a Wii?” Parents don’t always think like that - if he wants a new bike and he gets an old bike, he’s not going to be very happy. So children don’t think about the price so much.
The press think about the price, that it’s got to come down. We have not announced a price drop, but we’ve got an 80GB instead of a 40GB - twice as many games - and there is a 160GB with EUR 70 worth of downloadable content.
Allow me to quickly and cleanly deconstruct this paltry and confused argument.
1.) If a parent feels the price of an item (a bike, a PS3, a giraffe…) is fair and reasonable to begin with, they would likely buy it for their child. Case closed. Wii vs. PS3, imaginary bikes, all of it is a moot point if the child wants something that the parent finds suitable and reasonably priced.
2.) If the price is not reasonable, thereby making the parent less likely to buy it, they don’t then immediately substitute a new item with a used one. In your “bike” analogy you compare two generic bikes distinguished by age. A parent who feels the PS3 is unreasonably priced and suggests a Wii to his child is suggesting an equally new item, that clearly costs less. The idea of one system being better than the other is purely subjective, unless of course one belittles their competition’s product to the equivalent of being a tired and worn version of their own, despite the fact that their competition has thoroughly held the lead in sales for the past several months.
3.) Eleven and twelve-year-old children generally don’t buy video game consoles - parents do.
4.) Children who play video games expand across a much broader demographic than “an 11 or 12 year old boy”. We’d love to see some additional results from these “focus groups” including sample sizes and demographics.
5.) The press (of which we don’t consider ourselves to be a part of) thinks about pricing points because it’s their responsibility to inform their readers (your potential customers) of issues such as pricing points and the information behind them. Information such as the initial production costs on the PS3 and that the system has had exorbitant costs from the start. Statements like yours in the GI interview show Sony continues to believe high production costs and high retail prices are a plan for success despite the fact that even with such high retail costs the system is still sold at a loss (unless you would care to release numbers which refute that).
Why do we care?
We care because gamers care, and because gamers are consumers. We understand that Sony is doing what they feel is best for their business, sure. But we respond to that by saying: it isn’t working. Furthermore, Sony makes themselves out to look unprofessional when they take shots at Nintendo after Nintendo has so thoroughly kicked their ass in handheld and home console sales that Sony will be spending all of the next fiscal year attempting to remove Mario’s firmly entrenched boot from their ass. Sony can take shots at Nintendo if they like, but the Nintendo has continued to dominate sales for a number of reasons, one of which is that they have an approach to production costs and pricing that is antithetical to Sony’s.
We honestly feel that a lower cost on the PS3 would benefit gamers, and furthermore we feel it would benefit Sony in the long run. We understand and respect that Sony feels differently, and as a world leader in consumer electronics, they have the right to do as they please with years of commercial success behind them. Nevertheless, we will take issue when they defend their moves with laughable logic.
Sony can do as they like, but when they explain themselves they had better do a better job than this.
Think about it, seriously.
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SCEE’s David Reeves [GamesIndustry]
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