Kotick: Hardware price cuts are coming

Echoing analysts predictions yesterday that Sony and Microsoft are preparing hardware price cuts, Activision boss Bobby Kotick has claimed that such a move is pending.

We’ve more confidence in consumer spending," he told the Financial Times. "We feel like some of that has stabilised and there are price cuts on the [console] hardware in the works."

Kotick also made a timely call for all platform holders to forget about new hardware and instead focus their efforts on developing their online networks.

That the statement comes at a time when PSN is still inaccessible is unlikely to be a coincidence.

The industry is evolving," he added. "We had more than 50 per cent of our revenues from digital this quarter – and one of the things you realise is that there’s less of a need for new hardware when people become much more enthusiastic about the online components of the game.

The platform used to be defined as just the box, but the platform today is really the box plus all the online services and capabilities.”