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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."
Bang for the buck, blah blah, but the mainstream target audience will never flock to this price point. What's worse is that the technology inside the PS3 ensures that the common competitive strategy of frequent price drops will be that much harder for Sony to stomach--are those Blu-Ray drives REALLY going to drop significantly enough to make MS's likely price cuts easy enough to match? Certainly, gaming hardware drops in price over time. That's a given. But this generation, Sony might not get to wait long enough before having its financial hand forced.