PlayStation: We don’t need to give anything away for free

Sony has shrugged off Xbox One’s FIFA 14 giveaway.

The platform holder told MCV that it would only need to offer free games at launch if pre-orders were low, and that PS4 demand is currently much higher than expected.

Xbox announced at Gamescom that FIFA 14 would be included with every pre-order of Xbox One, a move that Xbox Europe VP Chris Lewis described a s a ‘big bet’ for the company.

But PlayStation Europe boss Jim Ryan told MCV: We have over 1m pre-orders, so why would we need to do that? We had to switch off day one pre-orders, we are now onto day two, so why would we pour gasoline onto the fire?

Platform holders and publishers run pre-order campaigns, and if you need to increase momentum then they dial it up a little bit with some promotional stuff, it’s a rational thing to do. But do we need to do that? No. We don’t need to give anything away for free.”

SCE UK MD Fergal Gara added: We don’t need to do anything to drive pre-orders, which this offer appears to be focused at. I’d point out the price of the PS4 and FIFA 14, if you bought both at full whack, it is still less than an Xbox One.”