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Blu-Ray cost 'non-existent' says Harrison

Sony's Phil Harrison has stated that the decision to include Blu-ray functionality in PlayStation 3 has not burdened the console with 'unnecessary cost' - but there are still no plans to cut the price of the console in PAL territories.

Sony's Phil Harrison has insisted the decision to include Blu-ray functionality in the PlayStation 3 has not burdened the console with 'unnecessary cost'.

Speaking to US magazine GamePro, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios said that the cost of including the new technology is 'non-existent', and that it is essential to the development of next-gen software.

"There's this sort of misunderstanding that the Blu-ray disc player for movies is somehow burdening the console with unnecessary cost," said Harrison.

"That is completely not true. We put our Blu-ray disc functionality in the console purely from a game design point of view."

"Once we had that storage capacity on Blu-ray disc, adding the movie playback functionality was extremely cost-effective, [the cost] is actually non-existent," added Harrison.

The PlayStation 3 is due to launch in the US and Japan in November, with a European launch next March.

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Matt Martin

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Matt Martin joined GamesIndustry in 2006 and was made editor of the site in 2008. With over ten years experience in journalism, he has written for multiple trade, consumer, contract and business-to-business publications in the games, retail and technology sectors.