Low-End PS3 Comes with HDMI, Cheaper in Japan

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.

Re:Sony is starting to get it by Turken · 2006-09-22 02:01 · Score: 2, Informative

Well, over at Kotaku they also mentioned this little tidbit:

Kutaragi also pretty much confirmed that we won't be seeing a comparative price drop in other territories. According to Ken, the Japanese pricing changes were merely an adjustment to keep the price inline with the market. He argued that the misconception that 1 dollar equals 1 euro equals 100 yen is not a fair comparison. So keep saving, kids. The PlayStation 3 is looking better and better, but still expensive as all get out.

So, it still isn't looking good fro a US price drop.

"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.

Re:"Price Cut", that sounds nice doesn't it... by spindizzy · 2006-09-21 20:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

Except that the new price announced is:

PS3... 47,600 yen

Which as the article states makes the PS3 cheaper than a core XBOX 360 and HD-DVD addon which doesn't include a HD. Seems like competitive pricing there.

Sony will have done market research to find the best price (for them) to sell the PS3. Time will tell how good this strategy is...

--
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
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.
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.
Re:"Price Cut", that sounds nice doesn't it... by DrXym · 2006-09-21 21:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

You're right. I don't think anyone would want the ugly external HD-DVD drive. But you can bet Microsoft will stick an internal HD-DVD in their next revision of the 360. I expect they'll also want to include HDMI and some other bits and pieces to close the gap with the PS3. HD-DVD still won't be any use to games though, unlike Blu-Ray.
Anyway, for Japan at least, the basic PS3 is almost the same price as the XBox premium which isn't bad going at all.
Re:"Price Cut", that sounds nice doesn't it... by KDR_11k · 2006-09-21 23:14 · Score: 5, Funny

There's also the possibility that I will be hit by a falling sasquatch tied to a unicorn after they have suddently come into existance from a random collision of a large number of atoms.

--
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Re:"Price Cut", that sounds nice doesn't it... by 91degrees · 2006-09-21 23:21 · Score: 5, Funny

Happened to me last week.
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.

Good choice of words... by asb · 2006-09-21 20:00 · Score: 4, Funny

For some weird reason I like the statement "even less expensive" very much.

--
Antti S. Brax - Old school - http://www.iki.fi/asb/

Disappointing generation by Nightspirit · 2006-09-21 20:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

The Wii could be an outright failure. Yah, Nintendo fanboys will boast that they havn't played a console in years even though they have a gamecube and 12 different mario games for it, and internet hype says "oh my godz ta Wii!" which further proves the Wii may be the Snakes on a Plane of consoles. Makes a little bit of money, but eventually the hype doesn't live up. The Wii controller may be just a gimmick, and a few months after the console release we'll see if it truly lives up to the hype. But anyone saying they will buy a Wii without even playing one first is just as much of a sheep and fanboy as a final fantasy droolboy. Time will tell if it is worth buying a slightly souped up gamecube with a new controller. I may buy one just to play some gamecube games that I've missed out on though.

The PS3 will likely deliver the goods, but nevertheless is too expensive. In the end the only exclusives will be metal gear + 100 different japanese RPGs that we've all played different incarnations of dozens of times before.

And the 360 isn't faring much better. The most interesting titles are $5 arcade games (I may pick one up when settlers of cantan is released), and the best games that look good are not only released on the PC as well, but the PC version offers mods (looking at Oblivion and the upcoming Star trek: legacy). Perhaps I wouldn't be so disappointed with the 360 if I wasn't spoiled on xbox media center for my xbox.

Want to know the best bet right now if you havn't jumped onto the ps2/xbox/gamecube generation? Pick up an xbox original and mod it (which is actually not that difficult), install xbox media center, and not only play nes, snes, n64, tg16, genesis, MAME, etc games for free but you'll have an extensive library of great $5-$15 used games available to load onto the harddrive (or rent and steal if you are so inclined). Alot of the xbox games have 480p 16:9 if you have an HDTV, and the only exclusives you will really miss out on are a bunch of square-enix RPGs, which honestly you arn't missing out much on (seriously, did anyone play through more than 25 hours of dragon warrior VIII or kingdom hearts 2 without wanting to rip their eyeballs out?) and katamari damacy (which is a great game, but isn't alone worth getting a console for). Otherwise most games on the ps2 are available on the xbox, and the xbox is a bit more mod friendly (with xbox media center + emulators, etc).

I think what may happen is alot of the people who skipped out on the gamecube may just get a Wii to play gamecube games they missed out on. I actually hope Nintendo does well this generation and doesn't turn into another Sega. I'd hate for the only players in the field to be Sony and Microsoft.

Re:Disappointing generation by Dan+Guisinger · 2006-09-21 20:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

The games everyone has been waiting for on the Xbox 360 are Gears of War and Halo 3. Those are the big upcoming titles. Gears of war comes out in 2 months, and there are hundreds on reserve at every store in my area, and the gameplay and graphics are just a big WOW when you see them.

Sure, games like Perfect Dark Zero sucked on the 360, but they are finally about to have their 2nd wind of games. Sony has such a convoluded development enviroment I'm sure it will take longer than a year for the really good Sony games to come out.

Also, as a note, last I read Microsoft had sold 6 million xbox 360 consoles in the last year; not bad considering no one had released very good games yet. Now that the platformers are coming, expect it to catch on even more. Microsoft expects to sell another 6 million by the end of the year; thats well before Halo 3 comes into the picture. There are strong rumors that they will add an internal HD-DVD model (for video only) at the highend to compete against sony. Price cuts and die shrinkage are all coming.

Whether or not you like Microsoft, they are in a very good position.

I personally own a 360, and also am planning on grabbing a Wii or two. Both are excellent systems, Sony on the other hand, while I had a PS1, I will never buy a PS3, that thing was engineered by a patent committee looking to force standards on the world; if it was really designed for games it wouldnt have had 2 major delays already (BlueRay standard, and now Blue laser shortages).

--
www.atacomm.com - The Leader in VoIP Product Distributi
Re:Disappointing generation by DrXym · 2006-09-21 23:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

The sad thing is if the 360 came with native divx and FLAC support I'd probably pick on up right now (as I have no desire to install windows xp media center).
Exactly. The 360 had a great potential for multimedia but was deliberately crippled to prop up Windows Media Center. I expect some flack at Microsoft thought "if we let this thing store and play movies then who is going to buy WMC? So let's cripple it so it only streams movies!".
One would hope that as Sony is more agnostic on video formats than MS that they might at least allow you to store files on the PS3 and possibly support several major codecs. They might not support Divx though simply because that is what most pirate content is in. But if Sony are really smart, they'd let people play their own ripped content while providing convenient access to their own video store.
Re:Disappointing generation by Aurisor · 2006-09-22 00:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

"One would hope that as Sony is more agnostic on video formats than MS"

BWAAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

*oh my god*

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*wipes tear from eye*
Re:Disappointing generation by Yosho · 2006-09-22 00:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yah, Nintendo fanboys will boast that they havn't played a console in years even though they have a gamecube and 12 different mario games for it

Why would any console fanboy boast that they haven't played a console in years? That makes no sense at all.

But anyone saying they will buy a Wii without even playing one first is just as much of a sheep and fanboy as a final fantasy droolboy.

Except that many people have played Wiis at demos and verified that the controller works wonderfully. The only people who are calling it a "gimmick" nowadays are anti-fanboys. Besides that, there are plenty of people who would buy a Wii for the Virtual Console, regardless of whether the Wii games are any good.

Pick up an xbox original and mod it (which is actually not that difficult), install xbox media center, and not only play nes, snes, n64, tg16, genesis, MAME, etc games for free

If you don't like breaking multiple laws, sure. All of those ROMs aren't public domain, you know, and some of us prefer being in the legal when possible. You may say modding is "not that difficult," but a lot of people would argue that any difficulty is to much, especially when you can just plug in a Wii and go, legally.

Alot of the xbox games have 480p 16:9 if you have an HDTV

There are also a lot of Gamecube and PS2 games that support 16:9 and/or 480p. Your point?

seriously, did anyone play through more than 25 hours of dragon warrior VIII or kingdom hearts 2 without wanting to rip their eyeballs out?

Yes. What's the point of this statement, other than to troll? Should I flame all of the genres featured prominently on the Xbox that I don't enjoy, and presume that nobody else enjoys them, as well?

Otherwise most games on the ps2 are available on the xbox, and the xbox is a bit more mod friendly (with xbox media center + emulators, etc).

You could also argue that most of the Xbox's good games are available for the PC, not to mention all the emulators you can dream of.

I think what may happen is alot of the people who skipped out on the gamecube may just get a Wii to play gamecube games they missed out on.

Have you read any previous Slashdot discussions on the Wii? Almost nobody is buying a Wii because they want to play the Gamecube games they missed out on. Anybody who wants that can go pick up a Gamecube right now for $80 or less.

--
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)

more bad marketing... by AceJohnny · 2006-09-21 20:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

So they misevaluated their market, and the media backlash made them change their minds? Shouldn't this be the kind of element that should've been identified earlier on? As largely mentioned earlier, if they're pushing the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player, it's pretty dumb to "forget" the HD output...

Wow, I keep being surprised by how their marketing department sucks. For a consumer-electronics company, I find this plainly catastrophic.

Or maybe the dept doesn't suck, but they're crushed under other interests, which is just as bad.

--
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.

Re:more bad marketing... by Yonatanz · 2006-09-21 20:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

Remember the old saying, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The more articles they get, the more the acronym "PS3" gets into people's minds.

In today's marketing media, companies plan their campaign so that they will "change their mind" a couple of times in order to achieve another slashdot/blog/newspaper article.

A so called bad-design-decision that gets some hype around it, is actually nothing more than a good-marketing-decision in disguise.
Re:more bad marketing... by MikeBabcock · 2006-09-22 02:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Forget what HD output? Component video cables provide equal (or better) quality output to HDMI (especially to those of us with CRT HDTV sets). HDMI is only barely interesting for newer resolutions and encryption (ugh) and its ability to carry audio as well (which no HiFi geek or audiophile wants anyway).

I'm currently using (and plan to continue using) component video cables to my TV and coax digital audio cables to my receiver for the near future. When I buy a new receiver with DTS Master audio support, I'll be going to new audio cables. If and when LCD or Plasma TVs look as good at variable resolutions as my CRT, I might use HDMI for video only.

Yes yes, I know, in a few years, some discs might be encoded so that I need HDCP to play them on my TV at all. For the reasonable future, it would seem that movie companies care more about sales figures though and won't be setting that bit.

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- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)

Re:Yawn... by DrXym · 2006-09-21 21:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

The Tokyo Game Show is on but this is nothing compared the number of Nintendo announcements that appeared on /. when E3 was on.

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.

Re:Why cheaper in Japan? by Mitaphane · 2006-09-21 22:53 · Score: 3, Informative

The Japanese aren't willing to jump on the PS3 just because it's from their country. Many think the console is over priced(a Famitsu poll I think showed it around 70%). From what I've read, polls and Nikko Citigroup, most people are predicting that the Wii is going to be the market leader in Japan. The XBox360 is a non issue over there so if Sony is hoping to have a chance for market dominance in Japan a price drop to a reasonable level will have to be it. I really wouldn't be surprised if they anounced a price drop here. After a string of bad news coming from Sony, they need something to show that they aren't completely inept.

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-Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn

Re:Supply and demand by iainl · 2006-09-21 23:35 · Score: 2, Informative

All what Japanese PS3? They're only getting 100,000 of them. The US is a slightly larger market, but not 4 times as large, so expect the situation to be even worse over there.

--
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"

Note how few of these there will be by robosmurf · 2006-09-22 00:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

The price drop only affects the Japanese release, and then only on the lower-end model.

Sony have already stated that there will only be 100,000 PS3s at launch in Japan. They have also stated that the vast majority of these will be the higher end version. Thus the price cut will be on a very small number of units.

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.

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Low-End PS3 Comes with HDMI, Cheaper in Japan

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