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E3: Hirai Defends PlayStation 3 Launch Price

Talking to financial website CNN Money, Sony's Kaz Hirai has defended the $499 and $599 dual price point for Sony's PlayStation 3 launch, describing the pricing as "a good value for consumers".

Simon Carless, Blogger

May 11, 2006

1 Min Read
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Talking to financial website CNN Money, Sony's Kaz Hirai has defended the $499 and $599 dual price point for Sony's PlayStation 3 launch, describing the pricing as "a good value for consumers". Hirai, who is president and chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment America, continued, countering negative buzz that immediately followed the PS3 pricing announcement: "I think when you look at what we put into the box – Cell, Blu-Ray, backwards compatibility, the ability to go online - I think it's a very compelling package." Elsewhere in the interview, Hirai pronounced himself confident that Sony would be able to meet the launch numbers it has announced of 2 million PS3s available at November 2006 launch, and 4 million by the end of the year. He gave a not so subtle dig to Microsoft's launch chip yield issues by commenting: "Most of the PlayStation 3's core components are manufactured in-house. The decision to give the go order comes when we're getting good yields... we're not at the mercy of someone else." Finally, the SCEA CEO addressed the differences between the two PlayStation 3 models, something not explicitly spelled out during Sony's pre-E3 press conference, but later revealed in specification sheets. He particularly commented of the lack of Memory Stick reader, Wi-Fi card and HDMI output on the lower-priced model: "We felt that if you want to save something on your Memory Stick, most people have those readers on their PC, which is easily adaptable to the PlayStation 3 with a USB cord," said Hirai. "The only difference is HDMI – and at this point, I don't think many people's TV's have that."

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About the Author

Simon Carless

Blogger

Simon Carless is the founder of the GameDiscoverCo agency and creator of the popular GameDiscoverCo game discoverability newsletter. He consults with a number of PC/console publishers and developers, and was previously most known for his role helping to shape the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Conference for many years.

He is also an investor and advisor to UK indie game publisher No More Robots (Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw), a previous publisher and editor-in-chief at both Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine, and sits on the board of the Video Game History Foundation.

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