Not even Nintendo was immune from Activision Blizzard’s criticisms. Chief Executive Bobby Kotick, who runs the massive videogame publisher, had strong words for all three console manufacturers, citing the economic downturn as a significant problem that should have been attacked immediately.
The company, who’s titles include Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and World of Warcraft, recently posted $981 million in net revenue last quarter, and was one of the few game companies to benefit from a profitable fiscal year. But based off Kotick’s words, this isn’t enough.
“I was disappointed not to see any sort of aggressive price cutting. Of all the things that the hardware companies need to be doing right now, it’s recognizing the difficulties of the economy and pricing their hardware appropriately.”
But considering companies like Sony Computer Entertainment posted a $605 million loss for the year ending March 31st, the hardware manufacturers may not have enough breathing room to appease the demands of Kotick and his fellow software publishers. A more economic strategy for Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo would be to simply make their hardware more desirable through compelling software releases, which made a grand showing at E3, and keep the innovative firmware updates coming.
[Source]
