Sony rules out PS3 price cut
SCEE CEO House denies PSP2 rumours, says focus remains on current systems
A new interview with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) CEO and CFO Andrew House has seen him deny rumours of a PSP2 and bat off suggestions that a PlayStation 3 price cut is imminent.
Speaking to website VG247, directly after the Sony pre-E3 conference, House was clear cut on the potential of any hardware price cuts: "I would say that we would have announced that today if we had plans to do so in the immediate future."
A successor to the PSP2 has been rumoured for some time, and despite unveiling a new marketing campaign for the PSP at their press conference, Sony announced only one new game (Patapon 3) that had previously not been confirmed.
Rumours of PSP2 hardware being unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show in the autumn have continued, but House commented simply that there were, "No plans to discuss anything around next generation right now. I think it’s important that we keep our focus on building great content for the great devices we have out now."
Questioned on why PSP sales continue to disappoint outside of Japan he indicated two intended methods for reinvigorating sales for the format.
"One is a continued stream of good exclusive content – including that from first-party which we continue to work very hard on. But I think another important strand was something we announced fairly recently: the PSP Essentials line", said House.
"I think it’s important at this point in the life cycle to show a broad range of consumers that this is a really good value proposition, and having a whole set of really good, proven quality titles available at $9.99 is really a powerful message," he added.
House also admitted that Sony may have "underestimated" the importance of packaged games for the download-only PSP Go, and that customers had more of an attachment to their old games than expected.