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Ken Kutaragi's Famous Last Words

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the six-hundred-dollars-is-only-cheap-in-japan dept.

When we look back on this E3, I think one of the moments we're most clearly going to remember is the dead silence in the Sony press conference following the price announcement. Eurogamer and GameDaily has coverage of Phil Harrison's spin work, trying to recover from that moment, discussing how Sony is not ripping off Nintendo and Microsoft probably won't meet their 10 million units goal. More interestingly, they discuss an interview with Ken Kutaragi conducted by a Japanese website. From that piece: "SCEI president Ken Kutaragi has defended the PlayStation 3's high price tag once again, declaring that not only will consumers be prepared to pay the cost but that the console is 'probably too cheap.' In an interview with Japanese website IT Media, partially translated by IGN, Kutaragi said: 'This is the PS3 price. Expensive, cheap - we don't want you to think of it in terms of game machines ... For instance ... Is it not nonsense to compare the charge for dinner at the company cafeteria with dinner at a fine restaurant? It's a question of what you can do with that game machine. If you can have an amazing experience, we believe price is not a problem.'"

2 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sinking Dollar to Blame? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's caused by two effects:

    1. The exchange rate. £410 is equivalent to what we pay in the US, but thanks to the exchange rate that gets jacked up by 27%.

    2. VAT. Up to 20% in taxes really sucks. Sales tax isn't reflected in US prices, but it's usually about 5-7% over the store price. Thus a $399 machine will go out the door for as much as $426.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  2. Re:Yeah, well... by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Informative
    But just how fancy are we talking here? I don't think this analogy is valid, ESPECIALLY in today's world. 'Fancy' usually amounts to an Olive Garden or some other such chain restaurant, whose prices are reasonable.
    Fancy may amount to that to the uneducated, (understanding food, like understanding tech, takes experience and education) - but I can take you to at least four different restaurants in my town where you can get gourmet cooking at Denny's prices.
    If we were talking about the 1600's, this would be a different story, of course. Fancy restaurants were all the rage, because it wasn't about being full, it was about impressing people.
    It would be awful hard to impress someone with a fancy restaurant in the 1600's - they didn't exist. The modern restaurant is a child of the French Revolution.