PS3 to Sell at Over $800 in UK

joe 155 writes "The Register is reporting that ' the PS3 will cost £425 in the UK - over $800'. SCE UK Managing Director Rat Maguire said: 'I don't think it's an expensive machine - I think actually, it's probably a cheap machine. If you think a Blu-Ray player by itself might be £600-700, and we're coming in at just £425, it's a bargain.' Can a console really be viable at this price?"

Comments

Re:Prices of other consoles in the UK

[Fred Or Alive]

The premium Xbox 360 is £280 (~$530), the crap pack is £210 (~$400), the basic (not value / giga pack) PSP is £150 (~$280) and the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 1 both launched at £300 (~$570), although the latter dropped in price very quickly, and Microsoft ended up giving away some controllers and games to early adopters in compensation. All prices rounded up, and include 17.5% VAT.

The Pound Sterling price is slightly (about £10-20) more than the Euro one, those British plugs must cost a bomb.

Re:Not that expensive

[Rob T Firefly]

PS3 has one major difference to Neo Geo and 3DO: it's only on par with the competition, not leaps and bounds ahead as the various marketing types would have us believe.

When Neo-Geo came out, we were still playing with 8-bit consoles. Neo-Geo was meant to basically be an arcade-level piece of equipment, and marketed to the class of people who could afford to stick a real Street-Fighter cabinet in their rumpus rooms, but who wanted to swap out games as easily as with a console. NG was even basically the same level of hardware as their arcade machine, which nobody believed could happen back then. And 3DO was a whole different animal, attempting some weirdass hybrid level of interactive video machine during the height of the FMV craze, before everyone had a PC with a CD-ROM.

Sony, however, doesn't have much to push. Hardcore techies can go on about poly counts and HD, but your average Joe will be able to look at the same demo played on PS3, 360, or Wii and not see any noticeable level of graphical difference. This isn't an 80s arcade-vs-console battle, or even a SNES-vs-Genesis-vs-NES deal where anyone could see the extra detail and capability. The only noticeable difference to anyone without fanboyish loyalty to one brand over another or a particular exclusive killer app to look forward to, is the honking big price tag on one of them.

Re:Typical

[Khaed]

Actually, if you look at his other posts, he pretty much spends every gaming thread bitching about people shilling for Nintendo. If anything he is a fanboy, or at least a Nintendo hater. I thought "Gee, another guy complaining about people shilling for Nintendo... oh wait... that name is familiar..."

Yeah, the guy thinks we're being paid, too. Just because I think $600 is crazy. If Nintendo was paying me I could afford a PS3.