Activision CEO calls for sub-$200 home consoles

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By Stevie Smith Nov 29, 2007, 11:00 GMT

While the family-friendly low price of the motion-sensing Nintendo Wii continues to attract cross-demographic consumers, the CEO of third-party publisher Activision has said that Microsoft and Sony must significantly lower the price of their respective consoles if they want to successfully attain mass-market appeal.According to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, hardware prices attributed to the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 must fall to $199 USD over the course of the next two years if the videogame industry is to successfully shrug off its enthusiast persona within the marketplace. Currently, and following several price cuts, the lowest priced model of the PlayStation 3 console is $400 USD, while the cheapest Xbox 360 model is $280 USD. The single model of the Nintendo Wii is $250 USD, and has been at that set (profit-making) price ever since its retail release in November of 2006."The Wii at its price point is now setting a standard and an expectation, and people say, well, the Wii is less complex technically," commented Kotick to the Reuters news agency while attending the Reuters Media Summit in New York. "I don’t think that really matters as much to the consumer." Kotick went on to suggest that all the major players will need to hit the $199 USD price point over the next 24 months in order to achieve "mass adoption." However, in the case of the Wii, he offered that the console’s opening price of $250 could be down as low as $129 USD during that two-year period.Since its release a little over a year ago, the low price and instant accessibility of the Nintendo Wii has seen it quash the challenge of the PlayStation 3 (also released in November 2006) while also surpassing the total sales attributed to the two-year-old Xbox 360. Although Nintendo has often been criticised for its lack of third-party software support across hardware generations, Kotick outlines that, with the innovation on offer through the Wii, less is more and that Nintendo has rightly set the quality bar extremely high with the accomplishments of its system."We realized that, much like Nintendo, the pathway for success and the highest operating margin leverage on the Wii is a relatively small number of titles that really capitalize on capabilities of the hardware," said Kotick. "Some of our competitors are doing a lot more talking about how they’re organised than innovating for the Wii and if [publishers] are going to be successful they are going to have to step up to the level of innovation that Nintendo has proven themselves capable of."In related news Nintendo has revealed that it has achieved unprecedented U.S. sales during the recent Thanksgiving weekend. From November 18 through to November 24, the Japanese gaming giant sold more than 650,000 units of its dual screen DS handheld console, around 350,000 units of the Wii, and millions of software titles and console-specific accessories and peripherals.While Nintendo DS sales surpassed the old Thanksgiving record, set by the Game Boy Advance (600,000) in 2005, the Wii amassed its biggest week of sales since the console’s launch.

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LogicNov 29th, 2007 - 13:28:37

I dont think this guy is connected with reality, and has no idea what he is on about.
Having played all three more than i would like to admit they are all extremely good, and yes the wii is setting its own standards, because it's in a different ball game.
Anyone can understand the price difference based on hardware alone, and if you have played them im sure you will notice more so.
Name any other industry you do not have a varied price for different style/quality product. To me it seems like a backhand deal to fool consumers in to feeling ripped off over the xbox360 & ps3 price and nothing more.

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ChrisNov 29th, 2007 - 17:24:54

ohhhhh ACTIVISION CEO thinks they are too expensive, I guess when your a company that peddles out bad games like crappy weed, the whole market seems over priced. If every game was an activision, a $200 console is $199 too much

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