EA: This Console Generation Will Last Longer Than Usual
According to EA CFO Eric Brown, slow price drops and high-end tech mean your current-generation console may be sticking around a bit longer than usual.
"Pricing has not come down as much as we would have expected at this point in the cycle compared to the last," Brown said. Consoles this generation have a long way to go before they match end-of-life prices of the previous generation, he said.
"Last cycle, approximately 48 percent of PlayStation 2 units were sold at a price point of $149 or less. Clearly at $299 we're nowhere near that price point," Brown said.
In addition to heightened prices, Brown said modern consoles have the hard drive space and graphical capacity to last for years. Upgrading to a new generation simply isn't feasible.
"If you have a multi-billion capital investment to develop the next generation hardware, the question I would ask is, 'If you were to produce that, what would you display it on?'" Brown said. "You could upgrade in theory, but you wouldn't get the obvious graphic benefit that we saw that drove the transitions in the prior cycle," he said.
Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27364/EA_CFO_Slow_Price_Cuts_Powerful_Hardware_Will_Slow_Console_Transition.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+%28Gamasutra+News%29]
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According to EA CFO Eric Brown, slow price drops and high-end tech mean your current-generation console may be sticking around a bit longer than usual.
"Pricing has not come down as much as we would have expected at this point in the cycle compared to the last," Brown said. Consoles this generation have a long way to go before they match end-of-life prices of the previous generation, he said.
"Last cycle, approximately 48 percent of PlayStation 2 units were sold at a price point of $149 or less. Clearly at $299 we're nowhere near that price point," Brown said.
In addition to heightened prices, Brown said modern consoles have the hard drive space and graphical capacity to last for years. Upgrading to a new generation simply isn't feasible.
"If you have a multi-billion capital investment to develop the next generation hardware, the question I would ask is, 'If you were to produce that, what would you display it on?'" Brown said. "You could upgrade in theory, but you wouldn't get the obvious graphic benefit that we saw that drove the transitions in the prior cycle," he said.
Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27364/EA_CFO_Slow_Price_Cuts_Powerful_Hardware_Will_Slow_Console_Transition.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+%28Gamasutra+News%29]
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