Sony Sets $59.99 Pricing on First-Party PS3 Game Titles

Third-party game pricing will be left up to individual publishers, but most titles are expected to retail for under $60, SCEA said. Activision and others already indicated they plan to charge $59.99 as well, after positive consumer reaction to that price for Xbox 360 games. New, AAA PS2 and Xbox games had typically cost $49.99. Asked why Sony decided to go with $59.99 pricing, an SCEA spokesman said only that “is an accepted cost for a next-generation game.”

The company also provided more details of its online strategy at the briefing, as well as its software launch slate (CED Oct 20 p3). Sony also said that “to further highlight the power of PS3’s [Blu-ray] player,” it decided to pack in with the first 500,000 PS3 systems shipped in N. America the Sony Pictures Entertainment movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby in that format. The movie won’t be sold separately in stores nationwide on Blu-ray until Dec. 12, Sony said. The company’s decision to include a movie with the PS3 followed Microsoft’s recent decision to include the Peter Jackson-directed movie remake King Kong on HD DVD with its upcoming HD DVD player for Xbox 360 (CED Sept 28 p1).

There was some confusion about the PS3 console shipment launch number late last week, possibly caused by the company’s announcement about the Blu-ray movie included with the first 500,000 units in N. America. But an SCEA spokesman said Fri. there was no change in the company’s revised PS3 launch shipment numbers announced last month. He said the company still plans to ship 400,000 units in N. America on day one of the launch there and 100,000 in Japan for the Nov. 11 launch there (CED Sept 8 p2). The spokesman said the Blu- ray movie will be included on the first 400,000 units shipping in N. America and an additional 100,000 units that will follow in the market. There are no plans to offer the movie with the console in Japan, he said.

Sony used demos of some of the 3 first-party and nineteen 3rd-party games available at PS3’s N. American launch to show off advantages of what SCEA CEO Kaz Hirai called “the most advanced computer entertainment system that’s ever been created.” He told reporters “the final boxed product is coming off the [production] line literally as we speak.”

A $70 million merchandising campaign backing the launch will feature 15,000 PlayStation retail kiosks with Sony Bravia monitors Oct. 26-Nov. 17, said SCEA Co-COO Jack Tretton. These “interactives” will provide a “direct portal to consumers” to get across the interactivity that’s of “paramount importance” in PS3, he said. The displays will offer game demos, videos and trailers, Tretton said. They can be updated by online download and can be customized to promotions of specific merchants, he said.

The “future-proof” PS3 will remain fully supported by Sony and developers and functional for users “even 10 years from now,” Hirai said. Tretton said the PS3 launch SKUs are “2 fully featured devices. We do not have a stripped-down core,” he said, emphasizing the hard drive built into both versions. It’s an advantage to Sony for content providers to be assured that all units will have this storage, Tretton said. This was one of a number of evident slaps at the competing Xbox 360, which wasn’t mentioned by name. Microsoft’s premium-priced console at $399.99 includes a 20GB detachable HDD but the $299.99 “core” SKU offers none. Sony is offering HDDs on both its PS3 SKUs: The $599 SKU with 60GB and $499 SKU with 20GB.

Blu-ray capability is “an extremely powerful” feature because of the 50GB capacity of the discs, Tretton said. The Sony Pictures movie tie-in shows Sony’s strength and breadth in giving “consumers what they really want,” Tretton said. A remote for the disc player will be $24.99 when it ships in Dec., Tretton said. SCE Worldwide Studios Pres. Phil Harrison emphasized the importance of Blu-ray “not just as a movie format but as a game format.”

Harrison also played up the Xmedia Bar in the PS3 interface: “This is a really integrated way of managing your media.” Video provides “the really powerful indication of what Cell [processors] and PlayStation can do,” he said. The system can manage downloaded and ripped music in addition to CDs and Super Audio CDs, Harrison said. Referring to the HD capability, he said: “This is the only way you'll ever want to share your photographs.” The operating system will be updated periodically to add functionality, Harrison said.

Remote play using a Sony PSP device is “a very powerful feature” as well, Harrison said. He showed a movie trailer starting on a PSP from the point it was paused on a PS3. This function can be used wirelessly at home and “very shortly” from “any hotspot in the entire world.”

The $49.99 wireless version of Sony’s Sixaxis PS3 controller shipping on day one has a 20-meter range and battery life over 30 hours per charge, Tretton said. SCEA said the PS3 can be turned on with the controller. The motion-sensing controller is an “updated” and “revolutionized” version of one used by more than 250 million consumers, he said. It needs no outside sensor and is “ready to go out of the box,” Tretton said. The controller, however, won’t include rumble technology like the company’s popular DualShock controllers for PS2 and PlayStation as Sony continues to battle haptic/rumble technology creator Immersion in court. Harrison called game action highly responsive to controller movements and said there’s a much greater range of motion than with traditional analog sticks. The wireless controller will be cross-merchandized with Sony PSPs and TV sets, he said. Also shipping on day one will be a $14.99 memory card adapter for transferring game saves from PlayStation and PS2 memory cards onto the PS3’s HDD. The company said the $24.99 Blu-ray remote will be “coming soon.”

Even the AC cord is a differentiator, Tretton said: It requires no external power source -- “no heavy brick… like some of our competitors” do. The PS3 is “extremely quiet,” at 22 dB, also avoiding a “complaint about some of our competitors,” Tretton said.

The Sony Online Store will offer free and paid material for PS3 and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) Pres. John Smedley predicted it will become “the world’s largest online gaming network.” Game downloads will range from old PlayStation titles to original PS3 games, Smedley said. A purchase will allow downloads of content to as many as 5 PS3s, he said. The system can accommodate movies and other future content forms, Smedley said. It will take credit cards and debits on PlayStation cards sold at retail, and it can handle micropayments, he said. Parents “can set an online allowance” for a child, Smedley said. Pricing for PS3 game downloads will be announced within 2 weeks, Harrison said, but he expects it to be $14.99 and under for first- party games. Sony said gamers will initially be able to download games from the first PlayStation console to PS3, but can only then be shifted to a PSP to be played. The SCEA spokesman said the company plans to make an emulation update available early next year allowing consumers to play PlayStation games on PS3, too. The PlayStation games are expected to cost $10 and less, he said.

The “exceptional lineup of 22 games” in “every genre and for every taste” will be available from the previously announced Nov. 17 launch through the holidays, Hirai said. The SCEA day one launch titles are Genji: Days of the Blade from Gaming Republic, NBA 07 from Sony’s San Diego studio and Resistance: Fall of Man from Insomniac Games. Third-party launch titles will include Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas from Ubisoft; Call of Duty 3, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Tony Hawk’s Project 8 from Activision; EA Sports Fight Night Round 3, Madden NFL 07, Need for Speed Carbon and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 from Electronic Arts (EA); The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion from Bethesda Softworks; F.E.A.R. from Vivendi Games; Full Auto 2: Battlelines and Sonic the Hedgehog from Sega; Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire and Ridge Racer 7 from Namco Bandai Games; NBA 2K7 from Take-Two Interactive’s 2K Sports; and Untold Legends Dark Kingdom from SOE. “This is the most robust” game lineup “of any console launch, Hirai claimed. But many of the titles are already available for other platforms and it wasn’t clear at our deadline how many will ship on day one of the launch. Separately, EA said it had 30 PS3 games in development now and will ship 8-10 “by late March” including Def Jam: Icon.

The power of the PS3’s Cell processors means “the development community does not have to sacrifice anything” in turning imagination into products, Tretton said. Insomniac CEO Ted Price, showing off weapons capabilities in Resistance, said “there’s so much going on” at once in the game, it couldn’t be done on any other technology platform.

PS3’s 1080p resolution capability is especially important for sports games, Harrison’s said. Those who experience the resolution will never go back to anything less, he said. NBA 07 is the “first sports game to have true 1080p, 60 frames per second functionality,” Harrison claimed. It means “so much more detail and reality on the players” -- including dripping sweat that increases as a game progresses -- “and the crowd as well,” he said.

But PS3s won’t come with HDMI cables, Sony confirmed. An SCEA spokesman said “the inclusion of the HDMI cable was cost prohibitive.” He said the consoles will, however, include component cables in the box. -- Louis Trager, Jeff Berman

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SCEA would neither confirm or deny it plans to ship a limited edition version of the PS2 “in the next few weeks” and, next year, new versions of the PSP including one with a HDD and a 2nd with no HDD but a significant amount of onboard flash memory. American Technology Research analyst P.J. McNealy said his “research” indicated Sony had such plans but an SCEA spokesman said it was only “speculation” and the company hadn’t announced anything on those fronts. McNealy said he expects the new PSPs will ship this spring at $199 or higher for the HDD model and $199 or lower for the flash memory unit.

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Hong Kong online retailer Lik-Sang.com is in more legal trouble over PSP sales in Europe. The company said it was informed Fri. that SCE Europe (SCEE) and SCE obtained a judgment in the High Court of London ruling PSP sales from the Lik-Sang.com web store to the U.K. and the European Economic Area (EEA) are illegal. It said a court hearing was held Oct. 9 at the High Court of London without its legal representatives attending or arguing. The retailer said it was “unclear at this point if this ruling will also affect exports of [PS3] and other PlayStation-branded items but added “Sony intends to obtain a U.K. injunction against Lik- Sang’s sales to the EEA” and threatened Lik-Sang.com recently to initiate a suit to prevent the sales of PS3 consoles to Europe. SCEE wasn’t immediately available for comment. The legal battle with Sony over Lik-Sang’s exporting activities started in Aug. 2005 when Sony complained about the sales of PSP systems to Europe and filed a suit in the High Court of Hong Kong, arguing Lik-Sang advertised the Sony products “in a dishonest manner” and “unlawfully interferes with Sony’s economical interests.” Lik-Sang.com was, at the time, selling PSPs to European consumers ahead of the system’s official launch there (CED Aug 9/05 p4). Sony also launched a separate suit against Lik-Sang.com in the U.K. for selling PSP consoles to customers in Europe and the U.K. and also for mirroring the freely available PSP user guides on their servers, alleging copyright infringement. Lik-Sang argued Fri. “Hong Kong’s laws are clear when it comes to parallel trade, and the company has no ties whatsoever with the U.K.” Although Lik-Sang contested the U.K.’s jurisdiction over the allegations, the judge ruled U.K. law should also apply to Hong Kong exporters. The retailer said it’s “currently exploring its legal options and analyzing the consequences” of the latest court ruling. Lik-Sang.com Mktg. Mgr. Pascal Clarysse said “fighting multiple lawsuits in different countries at the same time and paying high premiums to expensive lawyers is an overwhelming situation for a small company like Lik Sang.” He said “launching separate court actions with separate claims and different judges is completely unnecessary, except for the fact that it helps reaching one single target: Outspend Lik-Sang to death… and contrary to their claim, I don’t believe they are suffering ‘losses and damages’ through Lik-Sang’s activity.”

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SCEA made Media Manager for PSP software available that allows for the easy transfer of multimedia content to the handheld system. The software, developed by Sony Media Software, is available for download at $16.99 online. A packaged version is also being sold at $24.99 including a 6’ USB cable.