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CNN On The $500 PS3
Chris Morris reports in CNN's Game Over column that analysts have pegged the price point for the PS3 at $500. Despite the high price, you're getting a lot of tech for your buck. From the article: "The strongest argument behind the $499 price point is the PS3's inclusion of a Blu-Ray drive. This bleeding edge technology will give Sony significant bragging rights, but it comes at a cost. Pioneer last week at the Consumer Electronics Show unveiled a standalone Blu-Ray player for $1,800. Obviously, Pioneer's earning some profit there - and Sony will almost certainly subsidize the cost of the drives, but you're still looking at an expensive bit of hardware. The PS3 will also feature other pricey items, such as a hard drive, the Cell processor and a new graphics chip from nVidia."
The entire article is nothing but speculations about the price. The article even says they have no idea what the price will be and that it is all just guesswork; especially since Sony made no other comment than "...it's all just speculation".
Why is this considered front page news for Slashdot?
$500 is the price of a basic deskop system. Its your average Dell machine, or the cheapest Lenovo machine.
For this money youre getting a CPU way better than most chips put into the Dells and Lenovos out there, and a graphics card to envy. Consoles have become more and more desktop-like, and the PS3 should be compared to high-end desktops. Give me a decent keyboard, mouse, possibly a PCI slot or ability to connect to most common networks, and an OS to work with and I'll call it a desktop.
The CPU however in itself is worth the pricetag. I'm considering getting the PS3, not for gaming at all, but to use as a linux desktop system running on 8 64-bit PPC cores, each of which runs at more than 2GHz. Go find that at $500.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Think about it. Even if Pioneer is just price gouging for the fun of it, 1800 is one hell of a gouge. I imagine that the controllers and most of the hardware is the same as a standard DVD player (well, more precise, perhaps). But a new kind of lens and obviously a way to produce a "blu-ray" to read with could be pretty pricey right now.
On the other hand, if Pioneer is making oh, $300 bucks on each, that's still a 1500 buck drive. Prices are not likely to drop much more than 30-40%, and Sony isn't likely to lose 500 bucks on the drive alone. Let's face it. Sony may have deep pockets, but even MS isn't stupid enough to gamble like that.
The way I see it, Pioneer better be super-gouging that price. (maybe it writes, I didn't catch anything about that). Sony and MS have both had major drive problems with exhisting tech, so this looks bad for the consumer. Real bad. And I've been drooling over the idea of a PS3 for a long time now.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Despite the high price, you're getting a lot of tech for your buck.
I dont want a lot of tech for $500, I just want something that plays games that is affordable. Of course I am getting a Revolution, but I also want something that will play Metal Gear Solid 4 and some other sony-exclusive titles -and that will have to be a PS3. Make a machine that plays games and leave all the media extender dual 1080p output bullshit to the people who want it.
As far as video clarity goes Blu Ray & HD-DVD are going to fail unless they force studios to stop making DVD's. Read any of the CES coverage and you'll find 1080p plasmas running a Blu Ray/HD movie and the same set running a regular DVD on an upconverting dvd player.
Every one of them says the difference is hardly noticeable, slight bit of extra sharpness to the picture for the HD one. This is NOT the jump from VHS to DVD.
Other than for data storage these two formats are about 7-10 years ahead of when they'd really be needed.
Why they felt the need to try and push another new format on top of DVD is beyond me. Sounds like a pissing match that got out of hand. Where was the guy standing up in the meeting asking "Wait why are we spending time and tons of money on this right at this moment?"
-- taking over the world, we are.
You know, as I sit here and realize that we are all yammering on about how a $500 price point is too high, it strikes me that hundreds, if not thousands of Xbox360's changed hands on Ebay for well over $500 not a month ago. The non-core version is still selling for more than $500 in a few auctions.
We all know that the PS3 will blow the doors off the 360 (and some of us saw this @ CES), so where's the problem with the $500?
The simple truth is that if it hits at $500, and you want it, you'll buy it. And if there is a shortage, and you still want it, you'll pay $1000 for it on Ebay.