This Christmas not critical, says Reeves

SCEE president David Reeves has dismissed suggestions that this holiday season will be the most critical one Sony faces in the fight to win the next-gen console battle.

In an interview with semi-official Sony blog Three Speech, Reeves said: "I think each peak is crucial to maximise what you can do, but I don't think this Christmas is necessarily the most critical one - I think that's going to be Christmas 08."

"I see this more as kind of like a tsunami — it starts small and gathers speed, and eventually, after four or five years, it will start to take you over."

Responding to criticism of the lack of a European price cut to match the recent US drop, Reeves defended SCEE's actions. "July is not really a gamers' month unless you get a big, big title," he said. "So we thought if we reduced the price, we'd annoy a lot of people."

"We did think about it, but we also felt that it wasn't doing that badly," Reeves continued. "In the US, they've been going for more than six months, so they took the decision that going down in price was a better thing to do than a value pack."

Reeves declined to comment on rumours that SCEE would announce a European price cut at Leipzig.

"We know exactly what weâre going to do and when we're going to do [it]," he said.

"We are confident but not arrogant about reaching a very, very good installed base on PS3, and having the same momentum that we had with the PS2. We're not putting our heads in the sand - we know it's not selling that well, but we know that it's selling according to the targets."