14 DAY TRIAL // Sony has announced that it will introduce, on September 1, the PlayStation 3 Slim, a new console variant which is cooler, uses less energy, has a slicker profile and costs just 299 dollars, 100 less than the version that is now available.
Shortly after that, Microsoft announced that it was cutting the price of the Xbox 360 Elite by the same amount, while also taking the Pro version of the market and keeping the price of the Arcade model at 199 dollars. These changes, which will likely see a rise in the number of videogame consoles sold in the fall, also mean that the next generation of gaming devices is getting farther and farther away in the future.
This is what Rich Hilleman, who is the chief creative officer at Electronic Arts, believes and what he told an audience at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford. He is quoted as saying that “I expected we’ll see a PlayStation 3.5 before we see a PlayStation 4 and an Xbox 560 before we see an Xbox 720.” before adding that “The biggest shift is how fast packaged goods games are changing and going away.”
This means that there are less big name, AAA blockbuster videogames released as boxed products and that the revenue they bring is more limited as players diversify their buying options and pick up titles on Xbox Live, using the PlayStation Network or various digital distribution PC-based services like Steam or Impulse.
The major console manufacturers, which are videogame publishers as well, are seeing limited profits from the sales of hardware, mainly because of the price cuts but also because of the huge Research & Development costs that went into the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
These two trends mean that both Microsoft and Sony will be eager to prolong the life of the current generation of gaming consoles before introducing the next, a trend that is already clear in the development of Project Natal and the Sony wand.