It turns out that I'm not the only one that was wondering why Sony hadn't dropped the price of the PS3 to coincide with the release of the new slimmer and lighter PS3 model announced at Tokyo Game Show, and why they weren't releasing the 12GB model in North America. Tech site Engadget sat down with John Koller, SCEA's VP of marketing, handhelds, and home consoles (oh my!), and asked those same burning questions.
Although I don't think Koller is insisting that consumers would prefer not to have a price drop, his response to Engadget makes it seem like Sony's customers would prefer to have content over more money in their pockets.
There's no price drop formally, but the thing that's been happening in the market over the last year or so is that there's been so many retail price promotions, and so many different gift card offers and all those things, being done by all of us (Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony), that we've heard from our consumer, 'Enough with all these weird price moves. What we really want is content and games and value…
I don't know if there was more to that quote that wasn't published in the interview, but he can't honestly think that anyone would rather pay more money than they have to for anything.
As for the 12GB model and why it's not releasing int he United States, Koller believes that North American consumers are more "digitally inclined", and need larger HDD sizes to utilize content.
While that's probably a true statement, giving consumers the option would allow them to test that theory, and sell some more consoles to boot.
There you have it. No price drop, and it doesn't sound like one is coming any time soon—what with all these consumers complaining about "weird price moves" and all. I mean, who wants to save money anyway?
