Blu-Ray cost 'non-existent' says Harrison
Sony's Phil Harrison has stated that the decision to include Blu-ray functionality in PlayStation 3 has not burdened the console with 'unnecessary cost' - but there are still no plans to cut the price of the console in PAL territories.
Sony's Phil Harrison has insisted the decision to include Blu-ray functionality in the PlayStation 3 has not burdened the console with 'unnecessary cost'.
Speaking to US magazine GamePro, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios said that the cost of including the new technology is 'non-existent', and that it is essential to the development of next-gen software.
"There's this sort of misunderstanding that the Blu-ray disc player for movies is somehow burdening the console with unnecessary cost," said Harrison.
"That is completely not true. We put our Blu-ray disc functionality in the console purely from a game design point of view."
"Once we had that storage capacity on Blu-ray disc, adding the movie playback functionality was extremely cost-effective, [the cost] is actually non-existent," added Harrison.
The PlayStation 3 is due to launch in the US and Japan in November, with a European launch next March.