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PlayStation 3 Pricing Revealed?
Jakhel writes "IGN has up an article on PS3 pricing information. Apparently it comes straight from Sony officials. From the article: 'According an article published in the May 17th edition of Japan's Mainichi Shimbun, the PlayStation 3 could be one of the most expensive mass-market videogame consoles ever created. Officials from Sony apparently told the newspaper that PlayStation 3s would sell in Japan for "less than 50,000 yen each." That translates to about $465 US dollars.' So I guess they will be around $464.99 in the U.S. (plus tax of course). Granted, it does come with DVD Hi Def support out of the box, but is that enough to justify it's nearly $500 pricetag?" Commentary on this development available at GamesIndustry.biz as well.
I don't expect to see the PS3 come down at $450. If I were a betting man I'd say $299.
This is elementary marketing, you _must_ have run into it before. When touting your own product you want to make it seem as cheap as possible, so you pick how much it costs (or how much you think it will cost) add a tiny increment, and say it costs less than that.
If a store advertises that they have something for "less than $10" you can be pretty sure it will cost $9.99. That's certainly what a "betting man" would go with. Also note that there is a certain amount of psychology in the "look" of the price. Subtracting one cent has a greater psychological effect than the actual price difference merits, especially when you you're talking about a psychologically significant barrier such as $1, $10, $100 or $1000, and to a lesser extent $5, $25, $50, and any other multiple of 10 or 100.
If Sony _knew_ they were going to sell it at $299 they would be saying "less than $300" (or whatever the yen equivalent of that is.) The fact that they're not saying that indicates they think there is a reasonably strong possibility that it will cost more than that.
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Sony will match wahtever the Xbox comes out for. Both M$ and Sony have bottomless pits of money so they don't mind taking a hit on the harware. The problem for Sony may be when the PS3 come out at the same price as the Xbox and M$ slashes the price a week later just to stick it up Sony's ass. Either way, mass market consoles are not going to sell for more than $400. and even $400 is a lot for little johnny to hit his parents up for. It's going to be interesting.
IIRC, the PSP costs significantly more than it should if you just convert currency, so maybe the PS3 will be more
on the other hand, they have made a lot of money on the sale of the PSP unit, so they can afford to loose money on the PS3. Considering Sony's game library size, it would probably be a good idea
By reading this, you have given me brief control of your mind.
Perhaps the high price tag will make parents realize that the $600-ish (CDN) would be better spent perhaps getting their kids sport equipment or even just getting them outside.
Parent 1: "Oh yeah? Well, my $600 bought my kid an extra 100Kg! Can you beat that?"
Parent 2: "Aww hell, I could only afford a $20 NES system that he doesn't even play. He's lost 60Kg just by playing outside! Its awful!"
that means LESS than $465. It is probably just someone saying the equivalent of "my car cost less than $100k." True statement, vague though.
I was going to post this exact thing - the fact is Sony probably doesn't know what the pricing is going to be yet. But there is an obvious ceiling that they can point to and say "we're pretty confident we can bring the costs in below this number". That doesn't mean they won't be able to bring them down even further, and it doesn't mean they won't choose to sell the system at even more of a loss in a grab for market share.
We don't know the original context for this. (As a side note, I don't know why the blurb here links to IGN - the official translation of the original article is on the Mainichi web site here, if you want to see the source for this.) We don't know what was said in the original Japanese interview (there's no actual quote here, it's all paraphrased) and we don't know what question was asked of Sony. It could have been something like "how much would you need to sell a PS3 for to turn a profit?" for all we know.
My guess is the PS3 will be priced to compete with the Xbox 360; whatever the Xbox is at, the PS3 will be at.
Also keep in mind that pricing in Japan and the US rarely correlates directly on game consoles. The disconnect can be upwards of $100 in some cases.
Judging based on processing power, thats a bargain. It would cost in excess of $2,000 to get a comperable PC system. (Which don't even exist yet)
Of course, a finished, working PS3 doesn't exist now either. In a year and a half, who knows?
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
There's also a time honored marketing tradition of making your device seem like it's worth a ton more than it is by saying things like "there's $1000 worth of computing power in there," etc... So that when it hits the market and only costs $350 everybody thinks they're getting a bargain.
If Sony knew it were going to sell for $299, they sure as hell wouldn't let anybody know that this early.
From the specs released, the Xbox360 and PS3 sound kinda the same for now. You've got to understand that Sony has a history of severely over-hyping the power of their upcoming console. Furthermore, until we see more detailed specs, we're not sure what bottlenecks might arise in the PS3's architecture.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I think i will wait till 2007 to get my next gen consoles and probably get all 3 for around 500 with free games.
Its never a good idea to buy them when they are first out as within 6 months normaly the price will half.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
If you release it at $200, everyone will buy it for $200, including the folks who would have paid $500. So you relase it at $500, then when sales drop you figure you've tapped that market and you lower the pricepoint to get all those willing to pay $400. Then when sales dip you reach out to all those willing to pay $300. It's only after you've sucked those dudes dry that you lower the price to $200. Even if your cost to make it was $100 all along. Especially if your cost to make it was $100 all along.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
It's not just about the graphical power tho (admittedly, that's what will get the most attention). PS3 has better compatibility with memory cards, WiFi built in, bluetooth controllers (so you can have wireless keyboards and not just the USB), HDMI outputs (2 at that), etc. These are all out of the box and immediately noticable even if you don't use them. The only thing missing is the HDD.
It just seems that the Xbox 360 is an evolutionary upgrade, which is perfectly fine since the Xbox still could have had a lot of life left. However, the PS3 seems to have added so many more new features that it has the hype all over it as being a true next generation machine beyond the graphics. The PS3 seems to be the machine that will last 5 years instead of a rushed solution.
I wouldn't bet against Sony that they will play every trick in the book to beat MSFT's price. They could just be suggesting a high price so that MSFT slaps a $400 price tag and they sweep in for $350 or so. Sony has done all sorts of pricing and hype games before, and so far, they've won.
"2-3 times GC power sounds like they don't want to pay that much for the hardware"
...
Where do people get these numbers?
Oh yeah, their ass
Seriously, if you think that the Revolution will not be in the same league as the 360 or PS3 you're in for a surprise. Just using the gamecube as an example, Nintendo produced a system which was roughly as powerful as the XBox at a dramatically lower price; how did they do it?
They used well known, conventional hardware (a modified power pc processor and a conventional graphics process [that is no shaders]) and avoided adding unnecessary features that would add to the price (no DVD playback and no Hard-Drive).
If they want to make the console more expensive fine, but the only way to win me back would be to lower the price of the games....
Sadly, the price of a console and the price of games for it are fairly directly related. If the console costs more, it follows that it should be more powerful, so the games for it probably cost more to make than they would on a lower-end console. This cost is, of course, made up for by charging more for the game.
Sometimes you've gotta roll the hard six.