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

Change Your Ads Then!

[eldavojohn]

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.'

Buddy, if your logic rests upon the consumer thinking about this being a blu-ray player, then you had better change your marketing strategy.

When I look for a gaming console, I don't care if it plays 8 tracks. I want to be able to play fun games and I would like to do it without too high of a price tag. If you want people to buy it for blu-ray functionality, you better market it as such because the gaming & movie crowds might overlap but one is far larger than the other.

And that's not even bringing up the problems me and my friends experienced with first generation PS2s and their ability (or lack thereof) to play DVDs. I haven't played a DVD in a PS2 for years ... now I've learned my lesson and don't care what a console can do aside from gaming.

Do one thing right and don't bloat your hardware please. You haven't had a spotless track record for testing prior to release and more functionality means a lot more testing.

Do you want me to see this as "The Playstation Three" or "The Sony Blu-Ray Player"? Pick one and make a solid product.

Re:Change Your Ads Then!

[Evangelion]

They can't.

I don't think Sony is capable of NOT trying to control a format. The PS3 is simply thier attempt to get an installed base of Blu-Ray players, fast, and beat out HD-DVD. The rest of the company is simply using the PS division to futher thier own ends.

WHY they need to control a format is up for grabs -- it's possible it's just thier culture, or the dogma handed down by the leaders that has been followed for decades. But this is the exact same thing as Beta, MD, Memory Sticks, and UMD -- all of which failed to get any support outside of Sony products.

The PS3 is expensive, but it's the only player in it's domain in Japan -- the Xbox 360 has, somehow, been less successful than the original Xbox over there.

There's also an interesting column about E3's fallout in Japan that makes the next-gen battle much different over there. It's interesting to note that if the PS3 will be bringing demo/content delivery services to Japan, it would be a revolutionary first, given that Japan's gaming landscape is much different than North America's (difference: Nintendo managed to get game rentals outlawed there back in the day. So game magazines have much more clout, which a demo download service could disrupt.)

Re:Change Your Ads Then!

[eln]

The problem is that when the PS2 came out, there was still a significant portion of the population that didn't own a DVD player, so it was a real bargain (especially when decent standalone DVD players at the time were close to $200).

Now, everyone already has a DVD player, and a standalone player can be had for $50. Sure, Bluray is a new technology, but to most people it's just a fancy DVD, and they already have a DVD player. When the PS2 came out, DVD technology had been out for years, and it was in the middle of the transition from "early adopter" product to "mass market" product. Bluray hasn't even really come out yet, and is still in the very early stages of the "early adopter" market.

Basically, while Microsoft and Nintendo are offering game consoles that immediately appeal to the mass market, Sony is putting in a very expensive cutting-edge technology that pretty much guarantees their primary market will be the affluent early adopters. While this is certainly a viable market, it's a much much smaller one. While this may not matter in commodity electronics, in the gaming industry, where the number of units you can sell has a major effect on how many developers make games for your platform, shooting for such a small market can kill a console before it ever gets off the ground.

Re:Change Your Ads Then!

[archen]

It's also amazing that Sony still hasn't learned it's lesson. But there's a reason for that. This is a case of left hand vs right hand. The hardware engineers make various stuff, but continually have their hands tied behind their backs by the "content" people, or someone else at Sony with another agenda. Each time it is the hardware division that pays the price for everyone meddling in their affairs.

Sony is a company with a good hardware division that implement rather innovative products. I'm sure when they drew the PS3 up they said a Bluray player was fine but as it came to crunch time they wanted to dump it. Yet I'm willing to bet it's the 'content' people who wanted to force BluRay down everyones throat and forced them to put it in and jack the price up WAY too high. The content people are DEMANDING their DRM, and again this is going to fuck over the hardware division of Sony.

At this point the best thing this company could do is split. Cut out the cancer that is Sony records/film and let the hardware people make products that WORK without being crippled. Personally I feel this works to my benefit because with BluRay fighting HD-DVD it's likely that neither will win and DVD will stay; which is exactly the result I want. Go Sony!

From the Article

[Orrin Bloquy]

"Outraged chavs complained that it would take saving two or three welfare payments to afford the PS3, and that being unfamiliar with how banks worked they were being unfairly discriminated against."

Expect the Playstation to underperform.

[Ckwop]

It's not going to stay that price. All the consoles have come down in price relatively quickly. So the question is not whether it is viable but more whether it's a sensible decision.

The way consoles are sold is quite a clever exercise in capturing the consumer surplus; that is, segmenting your market according to their willingness to pay. You launch at a price that is very high to start with and you capture the relatively small segment of the market that thinks your product is really worth that much. You then slowly lower your price so you hoover up more and more of the people who are willing to part with their cash when the price is more reasonable. Eventually, as you near the end of production, you cut your prices further to get it off the shelves and get the people who want something for nothing.

The problem Sony has neglected to contemplate is that this Playstation is not launching in the same conditions as the previous versions of the brand. It is not the first to market with the new generation of console. This is crucial, because now Microsoft is already ahead of the curve with the price strategy I described above. At every stage in the price lowering, we'd expect Microsoft to be cheaper than the Playstation. The Xbox 360 is likely to have more games at any given instant than the Playstation 3.

Another factor here is BluRay. I'd estimate that 80% of Playstation 2s are hooked up to a small TV in some teenageers bedroom. They're not going to go out and buy a High-Definition set for their Playstation 3. They will get no benefit from the enhanced resolution of BluRay and therefore see no reason to buy it.

For this reason, I expect the Playstation to under perform by a long way. It may even cause the Playstation to fade much in the same way the Dreamcast caused Sega to wash out to see. These are interesting times to be alive.

Simon.

Re:VAT

[ZombieWomble]

IS this before or after the VAT TAX

Don't you just hate redundancy in TLA Acronyms?

In other news...

[Wampus Aurelius]

...Jack in the Box has announced that its new burger, the "Jumbo Jack 2" will be priced at $250 and contain a generous portion of "the finest Russian caviar."

Jack in the Box CEO Jack said, "I don't think it's an expensive burger. I think it's actually a cheap burger. If you think that that much caviar itself might be $300-$400, and we're coming in at only $250, it's a bargain."

But...I just wanted a burger.

The UK != The US

[Lave]

I have a couple of points to make about how they are marketing it as a cheap way to get a blu-ray player. This worked brilliantly for the PS2 in the UK. In the same way we all told our parents we needed a PC for "homework" when growing up. This won't work for a number of reasons.

1) DVD -> Blu-Ray != VHS -> DVD. VHS were terrible. Crappy quality and wore out fast. DVD players let us use our current equipment to get much better picture quality. It was a one purchase upgrade. And it's only become universal in the last few years (now that a dvd player is £30). With Blue-ray moveis I need a new TV or it's meaningless. And a new TV will never reach £30. most people won't upgrade till our current TV breaks.

2) PAL != NTSC. When I've been in america I have to say - the picture quality is terrible. I can see the desire for HD television there. But in the UK we have very good quality broadcasts. There is less desire for the upgrade.

3) Freeview. This - in my opinion - is the clincher. Our normal terrestial broadcast (channels 1-5) is the primary method of recieving TV. This will be shut off between 2008 and 2010 to replaced with the currently available "freeview" this provides 30-40 free channels for the price of a set top box. There is much annoyance about this - even when set top boxes are only about £30. "Freeview" doesn't have the bandwidth to provide HD content. So knowing that cable channels in the UK have always been niche, there is no way that people will be willing to upgrade from freeview till at least 2010.

To me, this suggest that these consoles are a generation early with HD in the UK. And this should have profound effects. In my opinion of course.

Re:Typo of the Century!

[VJ42]

Execpt sitting right next to it will be Nintendo's offering at around £200 (probably nearer £150 or £175). I know which one I'm gonna buy, I had the same choice when I went into the shop and saw the PSP bundle at £270 and the DS bundle at £120. I chose the DS, people will buy the Nintendo, especially as it's going to come out at more than 1\2 the price in the UK, and about 1\3 the price in the US