Low-End PS3 Comes with HDMI, Cheaper in Japan

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Low-End PS3 Comes with HDMI, Cheaper in Japan

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday September 21, 2006 @07:30PM from the little-consolation-to-the-us-fans dept.

jayintune writes "2old2play has a nice round-up on the main talking points from the Sony Keynote speech at the 2006 TGS (Tokyo Game Show). Most notably, Sony announced HDMI ports will be included on ALL models of the PS3. Initially, Sony was worried that if they put the HDMI in the lower version, some would complain about having to pay for something they don't want. Apparently they realized people would be more upset without it." Additionally, it's been confirmed that the cheaper PS3 will be even less expensive ... in Japan. For now, it seems this price drop only affects the Japanese Market. For many additional viewpoints on the announcement and keynote, click through to see this post's associated links.

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Sony is starting to get it by Mikachu · 2006-09-21 19:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think Sony is starting to realize that their business plan of "we'll get the fanboys to buy it" isn't going to win the market for them.

I wonder if they'll do the same thing in the US... although I think that if they were going to, they'd have announced it already. Not like I was gonna buy a PS3 anyway, though. Even the cheaper model is too expensive for me. Nintendo Wii all the way, baby.
"Price Cut", that sounds nice doesn't it... by MrChom · 2006-09-21 19:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

I hear "PS3 price cut" so then I look at the price of all the major consoles in Japan:
Wii... 25,000 yen...
360... 29,800 yen...
PS3... 62,790 yen...

Now this is all for "Low End" models but forgive for saying that the PS3 price is still ringing the insanity alarm inside my head. The console is STILL more than double the price of either of its competitors (Yes, I know 360 isn't selling in Japan but Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon et al. may help to convince the Japanese market that 360 is worth it).

I've never been a big fan of Sony, never will be, but their recent list of faux pas, technical errors and the mockery of the whole is world is slowly making me think that one day they might just not bother with consoles...maybe not this generation, or the next....but soon...and for the rest of my life hopefully.
1. Re:"Price Cut", that sounds nice doesn't it... by ArwynH · 2006-09-21 20:51 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Well, the 62,790 yen PS3 now will cost 49,980 yen. I doubt that includes tax btw.
  
  On a related note 50,000 yen is my current bugget for end-of-year console spending. So now it's either a PS3 + 1 controller or Wii + 2 Wii-motes, 1 nunchuck, 1 classic controller, 4 games and 5000 yen to spend on classics. Let's see... um... well, my choice is pretty obvious, but TGS opens to the public tomorrow, so Sony has 1 last chance to convince me (and others) to buy the PS3 over the Wii.
  
  Ok, it's a small chance, but a chance none the less
  
  360? Japan? New games? You have to goto the 2nd hand section in my local games shop to find 360 games there. The 360 demo box standing outside has been converted to a ps2 demo box. I doubt new games or even droping the 360's price below 10,000 will help MS in Japan now.
2. Re:"Price Cut", that sounds nice doesn't it... by Duds · 2006-09-21 21:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  It makes it cheaper than a Core 360 and a Ferrari too. Don't add optional accessories that people might not want.to try and make the PS3 seem cheaper.
3. Re:"Price Cut", that sounds nice doesn't it... by donaldm · 2006-09-21 23:22 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  The price drop if (and I mean IF!!) it occurs across all countries would make the PS3 basic (with HDMI) a very attractive machine. Now before I get flamed lets look are the announcement.
  
  The 20GB version will cost 49,980 yen (EUR 335 / GBP 225), down from 62,790 yen (EUR 421 / GBP 283), Kutaragi said.
  
  Now doing some currency calculations (I live in Australia) and the above translates to AU$570.00 and adding 10% GST and most likely some other tariffs (assume 30% overall - a ripoff I know) then the retail price in Australia is approx AU$741.00 . Now this is not bad considering the original PS2 retailed at AU$730.00 and was highly successful.
  
  Many organisations seem think the build costs of the PS3 is anything from US$700 to US800 however Sony is not talking and why should they. It is easy to cost an item if you do know what the manufacturer charges but it is not so easy when you try to put a manufactures cost on the item. If you control the process and Sony does, then the overall manufacturing cost to you is fairly small. If you have looked at an electronics manufacturing plant it is very difficult for an outsider to guess manufacturing costs correctly.
  
  Try guessing costs for the Cell Chip and this gets so much harder, however I do know that the new generation machines use Silicon on Insulator (SOI) which currently costs about US$1200 per 300mm diameter wafer, however this will come down dramatically with volume usage. An educated guess at about 20% to 30% yield brings the Cell Chip manufacture cost from US$30 to US$18, even this is a guess because I don't know what the processing cost of actually creating the Cell Chips on the wafer are. You also have to remember that the Cell Chip is jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba who all have vested interests in making this chip profitable and these people do control the manufacturing process.
  
  Now what is the overall cost of the BluRay player to the manufacture? again unless you actually know the costs you can only guess. Assume SOI again and a 4 square mm laser and assuming a 40% yield and an overall processing cost of 100% on each SOI wafer and you get approx US$0.40, now how much to actually make the mechanics? Well if DVD's are anything to go by then assume say 100% more expensive then you get a US$40 to US$60 cost.
  
  If anyone has better figures (not hearsay from journalists who most likely don't even know what a resistor is) please publish them.
  
  Before I hear about "Console makers make a loss on their consoles", that is an Urban Myth since Nintendo and Sony (maybe initially) did not make a loss on the Gamecube, PS1 or PS2. The only company that has done this is Microsoft (approx US$4B to date) with their Xbox. I am not sure of the Xbox 360 loss since reports are contradictory but take a look at the following URL:
  
  http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st ory=9085
  
  The only new machine Australia is going to see this year is the Wii and that will sell for AU$400 (US$301) which IMHO will sell well but I don't see the price of the games being that much different than the Xbox 360's (can't compare the PS3 yet) if the previous game prices are anything to go by. In fact I have found the Nintendo Gamecube games don't drop as much over time as the other console games.
  
  Still games are a personal choice and while the majority of games will be ported to each console, the choice of a particular console will allow you to play that consoles exclusive games.
  
  --
  There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Amazing marketing by Forkenhoppen · 2006-09-21 21:54 · Score: 1, Interesting

This is actually an example of very good marketing. Others have touched on it, but I can think of a couple of reasons why this is working out better than expected for Sony.

1) They probably wanted to put out all of the consoles with HDMI anyways. As Kutaragi said, they didn't want people to feel like they were paying for something they'd never use. This is a powerful statement, in my mind, because it shows that Sony was willing to put out the PS3, knowing that they would be fragmenting the HD market into two tiers; those with HDMI and those without. (Yes, there will still be people who don't have HDMI-enabled sets, but that's not the point.) With a tiered market, the most widely-available Blu-Ray player would not be guaranteed to have HDMI, which would pose a huge stumbling block to enabling the ICT later on.

Now, they can just tell people to go out and buy HDMI cables when they do. Your Toshiba HDTV doesn't have HDMI inputs? That's too bad, you should've bought a Sony set; all Sony sets come with HDMI.. (If that isn't true today, you can be sure it will be soon.)

2) In effect, they've managed to convince consumers to go out and pick up HDMI-equipped HDTVs, etc., without having to do any 'sway' marketting. There was always the chance, with an HDMI-less PS3, that people would buy so many of them instead of the HDMI-equipped one that media companies would be hard-pressed to use the ICT in any great numbers for fear of a backlash. But if everyone's going to have an HDMI-ready player anyways, suddenly this huge obstacle disappears.

So all I can say is that consumers have done more for getting other consumers to buy into copy protected media than Sony ever could have. This is an amazing coup for Sony's marketing, and I would call it a very shrewd business decision.

In short, this is a huge win for Sony.
Re:Why cheaper in Japan? by kellererik · 2006-09-21 22:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

It's not about being cheaper in Japan, it's about getting as much DRM as possible into the Japanese households. Just imagine a lot of PS3s without (gasp) copy-protection. The movie industry would be forced to, either sell Blue-Ray disks willing to output HD-signals to TV-sets without checking for an active DRM, or deal with thousands of angry customers feeling cheated. OK, now they have been cheated into buying PS3s with DRM, which will - in the not to distant future - not allow them to use the product they bought with their first- or second-gen HD-TV.
Why does Microsoft continue to try? by EComni · 2006-09-22 01:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

360? Japan? New games? You have to goto the 2nd hand section in my local games shop to find 360 games there. The 360 demo box standing outside has been converted to a ps2 demo box. I doubt new games or even droping the 360's price below 10,000 will help MS in Japan now.

I'm still not sure why Microsoft has such a hard-on for losing in Japan. The original XBox was a dismal failure in Japan, but it was a pretty solid yet distant second place in just about every other major market in the world. The ONLY reason why there's this pointless debate about "which console was #2 last generation" was because the XBox failed so miserably in Japan.

According to an AP story not too long ago, the 360 has sold 150,000 units in Japan, but 5 million units worldwide. Going by the fact that they still lose money on every unit purchased, all Japan amounts to is a big money sink with absolutely no prospect of obtaining a good marketshare percentage.

The PS3 dropping its price is the 360's Japanese death knell. I don't understand why Microsoft keeps trying over there; WHY exactly is Japan "must-win"? Developers? If the 360 holds a firm number one spot in North America and Europe, wouldn't Playstation-friendly Japanese developers be willing to develop for the 360, especially with the PS3 set to get trounced by the Wii in Japan and possibly not be a market leader anywhere? Is impossible world domination THAT much more important to them than actually making some money? Why doesn't Microsoft take a page from Nintendo and just focus on trying to make a profit for once. Concentrate on markets that actually want your product and cut your losses. That means exiting Japan ASAP.

I live in the US where the XBox brand is relatively popular and I plan to own a 360. But I don't want to purchase a console that won't be supported in the future by a cash-strapped manufacturer because they were too stupid to stop throwing money away in another country in a BLATANTLY OBVIOUS lost cause.

I'd really like to hear other possibly more informed opinions about this, because I seriously don't know what's what.

But it does seem like the Wii will stomp all over Japan. This next-generation is looking very interesting.
Wii and Xbox 360 fans should want a PS3 price cut by ConfusedSelfHating · 2006-09-22 02:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

Even if you don't want a PS3, you want sharp PS3 price cuts. Because both Microsoft and Nintendo are in a position to slash the price of their consoles. Microsoft has an enormous war chest and has been producing Xbox 360s for a year which should bring their manufacturing costs down significantly. Nintendo is selling the Wii for a profit and it's very simple technologically.

I could see the Xbox 360 Premium package with Project Gotham Racing 3 going for as low as $249 and the Wii with Wii Sports going as low as $149.

Nintendo will quickly get the cost of the Wii manufacturing to below $149, they can afford to bleed a little money at the start. Except for the Wiimote, the Wii is last generation technology. The only reason the Wii is $250 is because of the insane price of the PS3.

Microsoft needs to protect the Windows franchise. With Linux coming on the PS3 and web browsers coming on both the Wii and PS3, Microsoft should be worried. Microsoft desperately needs people to feel that in order to surf the Internet they need a computer with Windows. The last thing that Microsoft wants is people using Linux boxes with Wiimote-like pointing devices instead of a mouse and keyboard Windows Vista system. Microsoft will either spend billions to get as many Xbox 360s in homes as possible or they will drop out in exchange for Sony and Nintendo disabling certain console functionality.

I guess you could argue that people who purchased Xbox 360s early would be screwed by this. But then again early adopters always pay the most for a system.

Personally, I own a Xbox which I've enjoyed. I've tried a PS2 and a GameCube, but was never impressed with either of them. From the video I've seen of the Wii in action, I don't think I'll like it. I neither want nor need the Blu Ray drive of the PS3. I am looking forward to the Xbox 360 switching to 65nm, Microsoft has stated that it should reduce manufacturing costs and heat. Heat seems to bedevil the current version of the 360. With price cuts in the system and older games, the Xbox 360 becomes much more price competitive with the Wii. However I am open to my mind being changed.