Reeves: A price cut could have seen Sony exit games biz

Speaking to The Guardian, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president David Reeves has revealed that reducing the price of the PS3 would have potentially led to Sony exiting the video game business.

"My objective is financial - to make a profit in our territory by the end of March, and we will. Our priority has always been the PS3; the forecast was 10m at the beginning of the year and it's still 10m," said Reeves. "If we'd cut the price, lost another billion dollars, we might have had a huge Christmas but it would have been followed by a huge loss. The company could have thought: 'Hmm, I'm not sure I want to be in this business at all.' But we've shown Sony this is still a good business to have."

Reeves admits that Sony isn't in for an easy ride.

"We simply have to suffer a little," he explained, "go down in market share and mind-share. It's like Ali v Foreman - go eight or nine rounds and let him punch himself out. We're still standing, we're still profitable and there's a lot of fight in us. I don't say we will land a knockout blow, but we're there and we're fighting."

Regarding job cuts, Reeves confirmed that there are no such plans for the European operation.

"We took our cuts in 07 and 08, we restructured and streamlined and we're as lean, as mean as we can be," said Reeves. "I have seen no plans to cut jobs and it wouldn't be productive to do so. We're always looking at ways to reduce costs, replacing the current 65 nanometre Cell chip with a 45 nanometre one probably in middle of year. But will it be anything as off-strategy as releasing a PS3 with a DVD rather than a Blu-ray drive? I doubt it."