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PS3 Price Up In The Air, Demos In 02/2006
Gamespot is reporting that the price for Sony's next-gen console is still something being worked out. Additionally, we're not going to get the chance to play demos for the system until February of 2006. From the article: "When asked why there were no playable PS3 games at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show, as previously promised by SCE president Ken Kutaragi, Saeki revealed that there was a long discussion inside Sony before the show opened. While many executives argued that it would be good for the public to play demos, eventually the decision was made to only show E3-style trailers, as it was the first time the PS3 was being shown publicly in Japan. When asked if there would be any changes to the February PS3 event where playable demos will be on hand, Saeki did not respond directly. However, he did say that SCE is planning something for the event that is sure to be a 'major' surprise. "
They will release the price right before the 360 is released and I bet it will be cheaper than the 360. They are going to release the spec's of the system at the same time as the price so people will see a cheaper machine with better spec's and they will hopefully (for Sony) get people to wait.
Either way, games are more important than spec's and I'll be waiting for all three new consoles to come out before I make a decision.
I would say that Sony's best bet is to not release any official numbers until after the Xbox360 comes out (but of course keep the rumors of affordable hardware flowing) so that they can keep as many people "on the fence" for the first weeks or so after the Xbox launch. That way they can take as much wind as possible out of 360's sails upon launching. After all, once the prices for both systems are set, it will galvanize many gamers to one side or the other on price alone and Sony needs to keep as many people as possible from comitting to the 360 early on.
So far, everyone replying here is interpreting Sony's "surprise" as some sort of response to or knockoff of Nintendo's controller. I thought that Sony and Microsoft had pretty much written off Nintendo as a competitor at this point, especially since the companies have such a different focus on markets and hardware strategies.
However, the way the original article was written, it implies that the "surprise" is in regard to PS3 demos... such as a fully playable game, or some sort of software development beyond what we're currently expecting for demos.
I'm really surprised that no one's already mentioned this, but at the beginning of this week it looked like Sony's Blue Ray disk format was going to be the hands-down victor in the up and coming format wars. Then, a day or two ago both Microsoft and Sony announced support for the competing HD DVD format, and suddenly Sony has real competition in a fight that looked to be a foregone conclusion in their favor. Loss in the format war would be horrifically expensive for Sony. As such, I really don't think it's too great of a stretch to assume that they'll be more willing to take more of a loss on the hardware than they otherwise would have. Cheap PS3's ensure that millions of homes will be equipped with Blue Ray players (PS3's will play Blue Ray movies out of the box), giving Sony an instant customer base for their Blue Ray movies. Couple this with news this week that MS's X-Box division is currently 4 Billion dollars in the hole after its 4 years of existence and is experiencing increasing pressure both internally and from shareholders to turn a profit, and it starts to look reasonably likely that the PS3 and its superior hardware could retail for less than the 360 throughout the consoles' lifecycle. I don't think that a PS3 launch price point of $349 or even $299 are at all out of the question.