Sony Responds to Activision's Threats to Ditch Playstation

[Marine Mike]

Sony Responds to Activision's Threats to Ditch Playstation
By Brian Crecente, 11:00 AM on Fri Jun 19 2009, 2,527 views

Activision head honcho Bobby Kotick has been doing some saber rattling over at the giant publisher, saying that they may need to "stop supporting Sony" come 2010 or 2011. The folks at Playstation, though, don't seem phased.

"PlayStation has tremendous momentum coming out of E3, and we are seeing positive growth with more than 350 titles slated to hit across all our platforms, including many anticipated games from our publishing partners," said Playstation spokesman Patrick Seybold. "We enjoy healthy business relationships with and greatly value our publishing partners and are working closely with them to deliver the best entertainment experience."

Indeed Sony announced an impressive line-up of first and third-party PS3 and PSP titles at their annual retailer meet-up Destination Playstation and then spent a bulk of their E3 press conference whipping through triple-A title after triple-A title.

As interesting as it is to read about some publishing exec making vague threats, I'd be much more interested to learn what really prompted this. Perhaps we should be reading more into Kotick's comments in the same article about the royalties that Activision is having to pay out to Sony.

[GLaDOS]

Wow. Sony doesn't seem to care at all? Well, they just need to see what the F is going on, and think of what to do fast. Maybe that price drop may help.

[DonRSD]

Originally Posted by kotsedriver

Wow. Sony doesn't seem to care at all? Well, they just need to see what the F is going on, and think of what to do fast. Maybe that price drop may help.

a price drop for activision? lol

ps3 hasnt even scratched the surface yet, xbox is maxed out and lacking games.

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by DonRSD

a price drop for activision? lol

ps3 hasnt even scratched the surface yet, xbox is maxed out and lacking games.

I mean a price drop on the PlayStation 3.

[Pelican170]

Originally Posted by DonRSD

a price drop for activision? lol

ps3 hasnt even scratched the surface yet, xbox is maxed out and lacking games.

Yea, but most of the games seem to suck until the holiday season...

[saprano]

Yeah sony, dont let stupid companies like dumovision scare you, keep doing what your doing.

[pacificvibes]

WTF is up Activision's ass???

[Marine Mike]

Originally Posted by saprano

Yeah sony, dont let stupid companies like dumovision scare you, keep doing what your doing.

I prefer 'Lackofvision'

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by saprano

Yeah sony, dont let stupid companies like dumovision scare you, keep doing what your doing.

Companies like Activision have the rights to cut off support from Sony, due to unexpected or unfair promises. Don't blame Activision; Sony never did anything for now at E3 to attract the gaming consumer in terms of prices. This may have been why Activision wanted that price drop.

[pacificvibes]

Originally Posted by kotsedriver

Companies like Activision have the rights to cut off support from Sony, due to unexpected or unfair promises. Don't blame Activision; Sony never did anything for now at E3 to attract the gaming consumer in terms of prices. This may have been why Activision wanted that price drop.

But thats kinda selfish in a way isnt it? Because Sony didnt have a price cut, Act. will drop them? That may hurt them on the long run wont it?

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by pacificvibes

But thats kinda selfish in a way isnt it? Because Sony didnt have a price cut, Act. will drop them? That may hurt them on the long run wont it?

Well sales world worldwide have been slow recently (21 million shipped, compared to about 30.2 million on Xbox 360 and 50.1 on Wii), and there might be a chance that the slow sales might hurt Activision's sales financially. I mean, it is an expensive device to produce.

[ScarredLungs]

Originally Posted by pacificvibes

WTF is up Activision's ass???

an XBOX?

[luscious]

Why is Activision doing this? Is MS paying them money or something?

[shadows4545]

I better never see Bobby Kotick walking down a dark alley.

[pacificvibes]

Originally Posted by kotsedriver

Well sales world worldwide have been slow recently (21 million shipped, compared to about 30.2 million on Xbox 360 and 50.1 on Wii), and there might be a chance that the slow sales might hurt Activision's sales financially. I mean, it is an expensive device to produce.

Yea true. I dunno though, I guess we will have to wait and see what Acti. has to say about all this

[Rike255]

Originally Posted by kotsedriver

Companies like Activision have the rights to cut off support from Sony, due to unexpected or unfair promises. Don't blame Activision; Sony never did anything for now at E3 to attract the gaming consumer in terms of prices. This may have been why Activision wanted that price drop.

Sure they have the "right", it's their company they can do what they want.
However, Sony also has the "right" to not lower their prices.
You think it's fair or smart for Activision to essentially try and force Sony into taking many millions in losses due to an uneeded price cut? What Sony is saying in their response here is that they are NOT losing momentum and have a fantastic line-up coming to the PS3 so a price drop is entirely unnecessary. What businesses that you know of would take dramatic financial losses for no reason other then because another company told them to?

I'm all for a price drop from the consumer standpoint, but Activision needs to work on their business rather then attempting to work on others.

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by Rike255

Sure they have the "right", it's their company they can do what they want.
However, Sony also has the "right" to not lower their prices.
You think it's fair or smart for Activision to essentially try and force Sony into taking many millions in losses due to an uneeded price cut? What Sony is saying in their response here is that they are NOT losing momentum and have a fantastic line-up coming to the PS3 so a price drop is entirely unnecessary. What businesses that you know of would take dramatic financial losses for no reason other then because another company told them to?

I'm all for a price drop from the consumer standpoint, but Activision needs to work on their business rather then attempting to work on others.

But Sony's losing it for this console war. After about two generations of being the supreme victor from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sega, Sony's going to lose it for themselves this time? What a disappointment.

[Velmeran]

Originally Posted by kotsedriver

Well sales world worldwide have been slow recently (21 million shipped, compared to about 30.2 million on Xbox 360 and 50.1 on Wii), and there might be a chance that the slow sales might hurt Activision's sales financially. I mean, it is an expensive device to produce.

Has nothing to do with a slowed world economy, or the fact that the Wii is just now being launched in some regions of the world for the first time?

As mentioned in the other thread by myself and others, Activision needs to take a look in the mirror if they want to talk about pricing (seen the prices on all the GH games that at this point require very little new development, or how about Band Hero and it's MSRP of $199.99).

Maybe Sony should come out and tell Activision to price their games like everyone else in the market, and to quit having the same MSRP (or slightly cheaper MSRP) on the various GH games that are nothing but tiny expansion packs.

Originally Posted by kotsedriver

But Sony's losing it for this console war. After about two generations of being the supreme victor from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sega, Sony's going to lose it for themselves this time? What a disappointment.

Says who? M$ who has already maxed out their console and wants to jump to the next generation already? The only reason M$ enjoys the marketshare they have right now is because they released so much earlier with a vastly inferior product. This generation for this console is far from being over.

[PS3-Playb3yond]

They'll probably come to an agreement at some point. Besides, by 2010/2011 PS3 surely must come down in price.

[AikonEnt]

Originally Posted by pacificvibes

WTF is up Activision's ass???

M$ perhaps? Or it could be the other way round.