John Riccitiello is well-known as a man accustomed to living on the edge. His opinions, often controversial and polarizing, frequently tear rifts between factions of the gaming community. We imagine his latest outburst will be no different -- during EA's Q1 conference call, the polemical CEO said, "We think pricing will move hardware," and added, "We anticipate price cuts at some point and we'd like to see them later in the year." Sure, this may seem like the popular opinion right now, but there's plenty of folks who hold opposing beliefs. Like us -- we wouldn't mind seeing a universal increase in the price of consoles. You know, to keep the proles out. EA: We would like to see console price cuts this year originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments - Bwana ☠

while I would say quality comes before price for me, that only exists for a certain threshold before the price hits my "I'm not paying that much for *that*" reflex. Pricing in the gaming industry is so messed up that it needs a massive shake up soon. Europe gets ripped off every chance it can, digital prices match bricks n mortar prices and price fixing exists at such a ridiculous level where any retailer trying to sell hardware at whatever price they want to gets jumped on very quickly (do a search for hardware prices.. you'll notice little to no variation in price). And, I do like to point out that, while the 360 and ps3 have dropped in price, the wii is yet to receive a single cut. - alphaxion

Many factors in action here, but the big three realize they have to weigh the consumer vs the economy. This past quarter is a testament that they better change things up (Sony's huge 90+% profit drop and Nintendo's 60% profit drop). - Bwana ☠

On top of the fact that the mobile/smart phone has come back with a vengeance. Remember the laughable N-gage? Well the iPhone/Android/Pre has got Nintendo shaking in their boots. The DS dominance is now vulnerable - Bwana ☠

that and the DSi is a poor upgrade over the DSLite, while the PSPGo has many question marks over it (and a massive complaint over price!!). The NGage made a return last year - as an app rather than an unbelievably badly designed device (take the back off and the battery out just to swap game? The ngage was destined for nothing but fail!) and yet still didn't make a dent. The PC market is overwhelmingly moving towards digital distribution, but the issue still exists that there is little to no price difference between digital copies and retail copies - unless you're buying old games and/or indie releases, not including things such as the stream weekend deals. It's just the iphone that has the potential to shake that market up - I've played with a few in dev titles right now, Manic Monkey Mayhem from the Code Monkeys is one of the best looking iphone games I've ever seen, as well as my GF working for someone that deals with all of segas portable titles giving me an interesting insight there.. tho I can't really say anything otherwise she'd get the boot :( - alphaxion