14 DAY TRIAL // Sony has shared its initial reaction to last year's Xbox One price announcement of 499 USD/EUR, which made some of its executives start dancing in the aisles of the E3 2013 convention center.
E3 2013 was a huge turning point in the next-gen console war, as at the large event Sony and Microsoft confirmed the price points of their PS4 and Xbox One consoles. The PS4 had a 399 USD/EUR cost, while the Xbox One had a pricier 499 USD/EUR tag.
This led to a huge positive reaction from Sony executives and fans, and Head of Worldwide Studios boss Scott Rohde told ArsTechnica that people were dancing in the aisles of the convention halls and high-fiving each other upon hearing the price news from Microsoft.
"I'm not gonna lie. I remember exactly where I was," Rohde admitted. "We were in press conference rehearsals last year. We had a feeling they were going to come in at $499, but we weren't sure. So yeah, we were dancing in the aisles and high-fiving. It was great.
"Anyone that came in on an interview, it didn't matter what the question was, I could always just answer it with $399. It was the answer to every question."
However, at this year's E3 conference, Microsoft admitted its failure and released a 399 USD/EUR Xbox One that doesn’t include the Kinect peripheral.
Such a move had been anticipated by Sony, and Rohde says that the company is ready to compete with Microsoft in the future.
"I think that, to be truthful, we always assumed that eventually they'd have to release a SKU without a camera," he said. "So we were waiting for it to a degree, and we were ready for it."
The Sony executive emphasized that a $399/€399 price point was targeted right from when the PS4 entered pre-production in 2008, as the company learned its lesson after the lackluster debut of the expensive PS3.
"We wanted a machine in PlayStation 3 that was amazing, that could do everything, and completely misjudged how much the market could bear in terms of price point. Also, coming out a year late, it took us some catch up to get where we needed to be. But we're proud of where PS3 ended up and how it's still going strong today."
The PS4 and Xbox One now have the same price, so it's going to be interesting to see how sales figures will behave in the following months.