Sony UK Boss Calls the US a ‘Land of Cheap People’ to Justify PS3 Price
via playfuls
In an interview with Martin Matt, from the popular GameIndustry.biz site, Sony UK managing director Ray Maguire calls America "a land of cheap people", while the UK is “a little island where rent and rates are at an absolute premium”.
When asked about the high price of the PS3 in PAL areas, especially in the UK (where Sony’s console is currently being sold for GBP 425- US $840- more expensive than anywhere in Europe) this is what Ray Maguire had to say:
“If you take what's considered to be the most expensive and the least expensive – consider the US with its massive land and cheap people. Then you look at the UK – a little island where rent and rates are at an absolute premium, and the cost of people is a lot more. The cost of retail is vastly more in the UK than it is in the US and that's before you even stop to consider the US doesn't have VAT at RRP, they put a small amount on afterwards. Whereas, we get stung by 17.5 per cent. And pity the poor Irish and places like Sweden.
But we have to remember this is no different to selling a cup of Starbucks coffee or a McDonald's hamburger. This is the cost of living in the UK. It just becomes another barrier for us to get more product into the marketplace because the price needs to be set higher to get from our factory to the consumer.”
Maguire continued to defend PlayStation 3’s actual price of GBP425 by saying it’s “the best for the consumer” although he admitted Sony had thought at selling its product for a higher price, namely GBP 429.
Concerning PS3’s apparently disastrous debut in PAL areas, the Sony UK official admitted to some “issues”, but argued that every console launch had its tides in the past: “Well, it's certainly not been smooth sailing. I'd have to say that every launch has its issues. Sometimes they're behind the scenes so you'll see the grace of the swan above the water and not the rapid movement of legs beneath.”
He also put much of the responsibility for Sony’s bad press in the recent period on the media’s continuous hunger for sensational and biased articles, accusing journalists of being “lazy” when it comes to selecting information for their articles:
“Nowadays, with how the media works, not only does information fly around at the speed of light, so does mis-information. With blogs on the increase, people's thought processes are transferred from one place to another and picked up by people who might be lazy when it comes to finding out whether something is true or not. The old adage of never let the truth get in the way of a good story is probably more prevalent than it has been before”.
