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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.'"

7 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, well... by iogan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... I don't know about the rest of you, but I never, ever eat in really expensive restaurants. As good as the food may be, it's simply not worth the additional cost. Which is why I'll be getting a Wii and not the PS3.

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    Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
    1. Re:Yeah, well... by Mursk · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, we're getting into fois gras/escargot territory. Stuff that may be fancy but no one in their right mind would want to eat. ;)

      --
      "This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
    2. Re:Yeah, well... by bluemeep · · Score: 5, Funny
      Yeah, we're getting into fois gras/escargot territory. Stuff that may be fancy but no one in their right mind would want to eat. ;)

      Sorta like caviar, eh? Speaking of which, for the cost of the high end PS3, you could get about 7 ounces of Russian Imperial caviar. For a Wii, you could get about 50 foot long subs.

      I know which I'd take!

  2. Pride cometh before a fall... by Jerf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know, Ken, if the gaming press is saying that's probably too expensive, and a lot of hard-core gamers are looking at your price and honestly wondering if they can even afford it, maybe you should listen.

    On the other hand, by E3 it was already too late to change course on that.

    It's amazing how badly E3 went for Sony. I'd say Microsoft at least broke even, Nintendo scored in a big way, almost entirely at the expense of Sony, which lost big.

    On Slashdot, digg, and other gaming sites I've been looking at, the Sony fanboy has overnight become an endangered species. That is what is really telling me Sony has a problem. If even the Retardusfuckwitis Internetus, a species Sony nearly owned last week, is defecting, you're gonna die.

  3. Remember the PS2! by Otis2222222 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    No offense Ken. But I heard this same BS when the PS2 came out. You know, how the PS2 wasn't a video game console, it was a home entertainment device that was going to revolutionize my living room. There was all this talk of expansion, it had built in Firewire and USB, space for a hard drive, people speculated it might function as a DVR too. Even Microsoft tried to sell the original XBOX the same way -- That it was much more than a console. (and before anyone accuses me of being a Nintento fanboy I assure you I'm not. The last Nintendo I ever owned was an SNES).

    Fortunately for Sony, the PS2 came out at a time when a lot of people still didn't have DVD players so Sony was somewhat vindicated by that. But Sony has a habit of overhyping and under-delivering (i.e. using cut scenes in product promos and passing them off as real graphics). I think that this round, the PS3 is going to have a tough sell since no one seems to really want to be an early adopter of Blu-Ray / HD-DVD.

    I had high hopes for this latest round of next generation systems. I bought a 360, and while it's pretty impressive there still isn't a huge library of games, let alone decent ones, for it. I want to get a PS3 but I am not going to buy one right away if there aren't any decent launch titles (learned my lesson on the 360). I still think the Wii is too gimicky but I might be proven wrong. I want to actually play with one before I decide.

    I am starting to wonder if we aren't about to have another video game crash. But maybe I'm being too melodramatic. Either that or Nintendo is about to make a triumphant return to the "good old days". Will be interesting to see...

  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  5. Not getting it by Nurf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I really don't know what the fuss is about.

    Sony will charge high prices for the initial release of the PS3 and they will sell them as fast as they can make them. After demand decreases at that price, they will adjust the price to match the competition.

    They can do this because there are people that will pay the initial release price and be happy to do so. The XBOX 360 was arguably underpriced on release: how many were sold on ebay for prices way above the MSRP?

    Freaking about the price of the PS3 is meaningless, because the price is temporary, and will come down when it makes sense for it to do so. In the meantime, Sony will recoup their costs on a production line that is still scaling up to volume production, early adopters will voluntarily get screwed and appreciate the experience, and life will go on for everyone else.

    Until then, I'll be playing games on my GameCube, PSP, and PS2, and will be generally chilling out. I suggest everyone else do the same.

    -Nurf

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