14 DAY TRIAL // The development and large scale production of the PlayStation 3 was quite a big investment for Sony. Furthermore, up until very recently the company lost money with every sale of the console because the price of the device was smaller than the manufacture costs behind it. Software sales have alleviated this problem, but Sony seems to have learned its lesson, as Move will not be in the same situation as the PlayStation 3 at is launch.
In a recent interview with Develop, Shuhei Yoshida, the president Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, shed some light on this issue, saying that, “We are pricing Move as if we are launching a new platform. So because the install base of Move will help third party studios create games for it, we benefit by helping those third parties. But we are not losing money with each one we sell.”
It may be worth remembering that the PlayStation Move controller will be priced at its launch at 50 dollars by itself or 100 dollars bundled with Sports Champions and the PlayStation Eye. The navigation controller that is needed for the more hardcore experiences like SOCOM 4 or Killzone 3 that are planned for Move will be priced at 30 dollars. The PlayStation Eye camera, which is needed for the PlayStation Move to work, costs 40 dollars.
Yoshida also spoke with Develop about the low processing power that Move demands. Since Kaz Hirai took over as president of Sony Computer Entertainment, he allowed developers to work more closely with the hardware designers. One of the results of this collaborations, according to Yoshida is that Move is also innovative in terms of software, not only hardware, as it needs to use a small fraction of the Cell processor included in the PlayStation 3 to work. “So we are able to use sophisticated technology on the cameras and the sensors, but that with the combination of the computing power of the PS3, we can make the system really, really accurate and precise.”