Possible PS2 Price Portent Pondered

Londovir writes "Could Nintendo soon be sharing shelf space at the $99 rack? According to an article on IGN.com, an internal source at Target claims to have received printed fliers with the Playstation 2 listed at $99. If you remember from an earlier story from September, it was an advance newspaper ad from Target (again), as well as a leaked scan of a Wal-Mart ad, that told the world about the GameCube's price before it happened. Given how the GameCube is outselling the PS2 & XBox - would a price drop so low be so unexpected? One last tidbit to contemplate: Sony is ready to roll the manufacturing plants for their smaller 90 nanometer PS2 CPU. Maybe that price drop isn't so unbelievable after all..."

Comments

Re:2 thoughts

[DoorFrame]

I doubt they'll feel screwed. They did get to own and use a PS2 for a year (or more?) before the price dropped so low. It's not like those people are just receiving delivery on their PS2s today.

Will this kill the XBox?

[Animats]

The XBox is not a business success. Microsoft loses money on the whole XBox operation, even after collecting fees from game developers. Lots of money.

It's hard to see how Microsoft can get the XBox to profitability. The original game plan was that decreasing electronics costs would eventually make the XBox profitable at the original price point. But Nintendo and Sony aren't letting Microsoft maintain that price point. They've pushed the price of game consoles down from around $300 to $100. Microsoft was losing money on every unit at $300; it's worse now.

The only way Microsoft can make money with the XBox is if they achieve market dominance and pricing power. That's not happening. They've found themselves in price competition against larger competitors with lower costs, an unusual position for Microsoft.

Microsoft is trying to design a lower-priced XBox 2, which might bail them out of this hole. But that's still some time away.

Re:Will this kill the XBox?

[Alpha_Nerd]

It may not be profitable now, but wait unitl the XBox 5...

Re:Will this kill the XBox?

[drinkypoo]

Aside from processing power and graphics capability which are if not equivalent (though not identical) the PS2 is only half the machine the Xbox is. Remember that the Xbox has a hard drive and ethernet as it ships, it has better video output capabilities, it has four controller ports. To get all this on your PS2, even priced at $99, will put it well above the Xbox's price. Add to this the underground credibility of the Xbox due to its hacking potential - It might say Microsoft on it, but tons of people who would never run Windows own an Xbox and are not only using it to run Linux - I'd say that they'll have to do a whole lot more than this to beat up the Xbox.

If Sony wants to kill the Xbox they will have to bring out a version of the PS2 which comes with the hard drive and ethernet interface, which can both run linux and play games on the internet, and which costs no more than the Xbox. Obviously their PSX system (It is terribly ignorant of Sony to name their new system the PSX, given that their old system is commonly known as PSX, but that's a subject for another rant I guess) is not going to be any kind of competitor, as it will price itself right out of existence for almost everyone.

Great news for Xbox

[Fervent]

If Sony does this (somehow I doubt it, although a drop to $150 wouldn't be unexpected), MS has got to drop. Imagine picking up what's essentially a computer in a box for $99.

To be honest, as a geek, Xbox has become my favorite plaything. The games have started to get very good (I've been playing Panzer Dragoon and Voodoo Vince pretty much non-stop) and, when you're ready to hack the system, all the parts are there. I actually have two: one legitimate one I use on Xbox Live and another I've sacrificed for hacking. Hard drive, Intel processor, networking, nice video: card all for $100? I'll pick up another. :)