Sony: ‘We have to do better in UK’

With and RRP of 199, PS3 is primed for the mass market boom seen by its predecessors.And the better price will help Sony beef up its UK market share, according to SCEE head Jim Ryan.

Speaking to MCV at Gamescom last week, the new SCEE president and CEO told us that the fresh bargain price for PS3 – which can already be found for 179 at some retailers – can set it on course to outsell the competition.

This is something we have been planning for a while,” said Ryan. Getting to 199 is fantastic in the UK. It’s a real milestone. UK is one of the territories where we have to do better.

Whether you approach the UK from the perspective of our momentum, or the perspective of the competitive landscape, for us the UK is more like US than continental Europe. If you look across the PAL territory, where typically we outsell our competitors by around 50 per cent on a weekly basis, it’s inverted in the UK.

That is something we want to address.”

Ryan refused to shirk the blame for PS3’s weaker UK performance on the current state of the economy or retail’s own struggles.It’s somewhat the case but I wouldn’t seek to lay it all at the door of those problems. We have similarly challenged economies in other territories in the world where our business is particularly vibrant.”

Historically previous Sony PlayStation home consoles have hit a mass market turning point once they went below the 200 mark, Ryan added.

History has shown us that once you get to 199 you hit lift off. We can do some serious business and this kick-starts that. Getting to 199 was a defining moment for the PSone and PS2 – this will be no different.

PS2 across our territory went well over 50m units. We’re at 22m on PS3. So there’s lots of life in that still to come.”