Activision: "We may have to stop supporting Sony"

Activision Blizzard CEO and president Bobby Kotick has said that the company may have to stop supporting all Sony platforms in the future unless Sony is able to regain a position of power in the market.

The comments came in an interview with The Times where Kotick accused the PlayStation 3 of losing momentum and cited the common complaint that it's both difficult and expensive to code for the PlayStation 3.

"I'm getting concerned about Sony; the PlayStation 3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don't make it easy for me to support the platform," said Kotick. "It's expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better. Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStation."

Making no effort to pull his punches, Kotick flatly said that Sony would have to lower the price if they wanted to stay in the market - an opinion seemingly levelled mainly at the PS3 but which could also apply to the recently unveiled PSP Go.

"They have to cut the price, because if they don't, the attach rates are likely to slow", Kotick continued. "If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony...When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support the console - and the PSP [portable] too."

Activision Blizzard is the single largest third-party publisher on any platform and controls a number of the biggest and best-selling game franchises. If Activision were to drop support for Sony then there'd be no further Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawks or Crash Bandicoot titles on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable or PSP Go - and probably no possibility of Blizzard games either in the future.

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