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PlayStation 3 Pricing Revealed?

Posted by Zonk on from the that's-a-lot-of-yen dept.

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.

8 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. Bargain by Satertek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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)

    The "mainstream" console players, however, may find it harder to justify the higher price tag. Especially if the XBox 360 retails for a couple hundred less.

  2. Probably Still Worth It. by xombo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm sad to say that even with a $150 price difference than the expected price of the Xbox 360, the PS3 sounds to be a lot more bang for the buck. It's like comparing the DS to the PSP. I've owned both and frankly I wish I'd of saved my $150 from the DS to buy more PSP games.

    1. Re:Probably Still Worth It. by snorklewacker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The bottleneck in the PS2 architecture is quite easy to point out: it has no GPU, only a very primitive "Graphic Synthesizer", which simply accellerates some raster ops on a framebuffer. Even then it STILL manages to hold nearly even with the XBox, even with half the RAM and a slower CPU (though with a 128 bit bus that could have made up for it).

      I have no doubt that Sony has greatly overhyped the PS3, and that the two consoles are quite close in real world performance. However, Sony has certainly removed the old bottleneck.

      And starting at 1080p is certainly a draw for me. 'course, I'm going to have to run it through my monitor for a while instead of my TV .. of course if there's no VGA out, then I guess I'll have to invest in a scan converter as well.

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  3. less than 50,000 yen by Naikrovek · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 don't expect to see the PS3 come down at $450. If I were a betting man I'd say $299.

  4. Re:Heh. by Darth_Burrito · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I agree with you. The dollar is weak right now so I would take any literal currency translations with a grain of salt. In January 2003, the exchange rate was 120 Yen to 1 Dollar. May 1st it was 105 Yen to the dollar. Using the 2003 conversion rate, the PS3 would be about $400.

    How this works into the PS3's US based pricing strategy is anyone's guess, but I wouldn't just take a price in Yen, convert it, and assume that will be the price in dollars.

  5. Re:Blame the Weak Dollar by ivan256 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    that paycheck you get is now worth perhaps half what it used to be a few years ago due to poor economic policy in the US

    Actually, when buying japanese goods, the US dollar is worth only 10% less than it was two years ago. When buying from China, where most of the goods imported into the US come from, it's worth exactly the same amount it was two years ago.

    The US economy is huge, so effects take a while to propegate. you will notice it first on imported goods, then local goods, then you will hopefully still be able to pay for food. I sure hope you arn't paycheck to paycheck right now with no ability to cut back.

    This comment got modded up? Please go home Mr. Troll.

  6. If they really want to eat up everyone's lunch... by stienman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If Sony really wants to eat everyone for lunch, they'll use these extra few months after the XBox comes out to polish up an emulation layer so they can charge more for the machine because it'll do double duty. Play XBox and XBox 360 games as well as all the PS, PSII, and PSIII games on one box *and* play HD-DVDs. Throw in gamestation compatability and they could shut everyone else down.

    Yes, I've read through the specs. It would be difficult - not impossible - but very, very difficult to emulate the XBox 360 on the PS3 with an acceptable quality.

    But imagine the rewards of doing so...

    </pipedream>

    Note: It may be impossible to do in a practical time frame and amount of resources, but I still claim it's possible. I doubt the inverse is possible - the XBox 360 playing PS3 games.

    -Adam

  7. Over-hyped by maybe a little by Rhys · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The specs I saw claiming 2 tflop (!?) per PS3 are just a tad over the top. They're essentially making the claim that they can deliver the equivilant of a $3 mil super computer I manage for what, $2.5k?

    Three orders of magnitude less expensive in two years? I don't think so. Processors don't move that fast. I could maybe see 20 gflop but even that's pushing it.

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