Activision CEO Says Next-Gen Consoles Need To Hit $200 Price Point

Activision CEO Robert Kotick has said that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles must break the $200 price barrier before either of them can reach mass-market appeal.

In an interview with Reuters, Kotick said Sony's PlayStation 3 was a good system, but that Nintendo was setting a pricing standard with its massively successful Wii console. The Wii currently lists for $250, while the Xbox 360 from Microsoft starts at $280 and the lowest-priced PlayStation 3 model is $400.

Kotick said the price point for mass adoption was $199. "The Wii at its price point is now setting a standard and an expectation, and people say, well, the Wii is less complex technically. I don't think that really matters as much to the consumer," he added.

"In the next 24 months they all will need to be at that $199 price point, and you can imagine Nintendo will be down to the $129 price point over the next few years," he said.

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This commentary supremely retarded.

By this standard, Sony and M$ should have just price dropped their existing systems and added motion sensitivity to their controllers to achieve parity with Nintendo. Nintendo broke with the paradigm of graphics improvement by taking the original X-Box's tech-spec's and adding a new type of controller and calling it "Next Gen" when the only thing new, by any stretch, was the Wii-mote. It increased the accessibility of the system - basically expanding the market for the last generation's hardware, which is now at a supremely consumer-friendly price point. Pure genius on Nintendo's part, and I don't begrudge them that.

As a gamer who's comfortable with my X-box "S" controler & likes the graphics & A.I. upgrades that come with new consoles, Aiming for the "Mass-market" pricepoint from the get-go would have deprived me of much awesomeness such as Bioshock, Halo3, Dead Rising, Resistance - Fall of Man, Burnout, etc...

Aiming to sell a console solely to individuals who were willing to spend $200 for a go with the "intuitive" the Wii-mote functionality is exactly the reason "Hard Core" gamers hate the Wii when paired with the thought that it should be the dominate industry trend... As a gamer, I'd much prefer to see both hardware manufacturers and game developers focus on making masterpieces like Bioshock possible instead of giving me a new excuse to wank a Wii-mote in yet another party game.

I think you're missing his point. He's not talking about people like you - he said the systems need to reach that point if they want to achieve "mass market appeal." As much as we'd like to think otherwise, the hardcore gaming demographic isn't mass market. There's nothing suggesting Sony or Microsoft can't succeed by focusing on the hardcore, but it's pretty much a fact that they'll never reach extensive, big-time market penetration if they do.

Hobby-enthusiast who pay attention to industry news are the "Core-Market". The unspoken assumption here is that "Mass Market" appeal should be the goal.

The previous product life-cycle, prior to the Wii-paradigm, the hardware prices drop to "Mass-Market" levels a year or so before the introduction of the next-gen. of hardware, about the same time developers start to shift resources from previous-gen to next-gen titles.

The "Wee-paradim" is to take inexpensive, last-gen hardware and add a new joy-stick and call it a revolution *and* make it look like a bargain compared to the other offerings.

The problem with this approach is that the Hardware manufacturer's and developers have to choose between: (1) Make it inexpensive with a gimmick to arouse public interest, or (2) attempt to advance the hardware standards for better graphics/more complex A.I.

If we go with the first option, and follow Mr. Kotick's advice on price point & plan the next generation for "Mass Market Appeal", then we'll double the current product life cycle and give everyone a motion sensing gimmickry, and Nintendo gets a pass for being the 1st one smart enough to do it this time; while M$ & Sony switch between being the 1st to market w/low-quality hardware that has a massive library and the high-end machine.

I believe that until the Wii can show that the Wii-mote can sell 3rd party titles over the long term, that the Wii has *not* shown it has a superior market-paradigm, and Mr. Kotick's advice in the short term is encouraging a "race to the bottom" of hardware power to meet a price point that is artificially low due to Nintendo's Marketing Strategy to exchange for power for motion-sensitivity. See the removal of the "emotion engine" from the PS3 as an example...

So what you're saying is that the Wii hasn't stomped the guts out of the 360 and PS3 quite enough yet?

I think Robert Kotick is spot on with his advice, the market needs to move out of the graphical era and spend more money on the gameplay and overall production of the games to improve the rest of it, currently they are unbalancing games in graphical favor because they do not have a good storyline so hopefully it will still get sales. A game that doesn't follow with the pack (with the latest technology), appears as an outcast and we all hate it automatically no matter how good the storyline is, etc..

Heavy graphics also make it harder for the smaller developer companies to make games which is another reason we should stop worrying about the graphics, you only notice how good the game looks for about the first 5-7 minutes of gameplay and then its the story that takes over.

Consoles like the PS3 that spend too much money on the latest graphical processors are only for the people who don't go outside enough and define what they see from their 42" 1080p Widescreen LCDTV using a HDMI connection as reality.

Basically I like to save money, if there is a multi-platform game let's say Guitar Hero and I do not have a console, I'd buy a Wii to play the game on there instead of the X360, mainly because there is only the graphical difference, same storyline and gameplay except the console saves you hundreds of dollars.