Stringer again dismisses PS3 price cut talk

Sony Corporation president Sir Howard Stringer has again poured cold water on talk of a price cut for its flagship PlayStation 3 console, resisting pressure from a number of publishers - most notably Activision.

Talking to Reuters in the build-up to a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, Stringer shrugged off the comments from Activision's CEO, Robert Kotick, who previously questioned whether or not the third party publishing giant would "support the console" in 2010 and 2011.

"He likes to make a lot of noise," said Stringer of Kotick's comments. "He's putting pressure on me and I'm putting pressure on him. That's the nature of business."

And when asked if it was logical in the current conditions to keep prices at their current market-high levels, he responded: "I (would) lose money on every PlayStation I make - how's that for logic?"

He was, however, more positive on the prospects for economic recovery, admitting that while the market wasn't yet booming there was perhaps cause for hope.

"I see green shoots but it's a very light shade of green," he said, adding: "It's very hard to tell whether this is just a minor trough on the way to recovery or a trough on the way to a trough."

Rumours of a pricing announcement at either gamescom or TGS this year have, as ever, been rife, with analysts pointing at some elements of Sony's financial guidance for this fiscal year as a sign that the price will come down in the second half of the calendar year.