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PS3 Price Drop Won't Happen Anytime Soon
1up is reporting on comments from SCEA's Jack Tretton, who responded to the question "Will we see the PS3's price drop?" with the point blank answer of not anytime soon. Mr. Tretton responded with what has now become the Sony party line: it cost a lot to develop, and gamers are getting a lot of machine for their money. Therefore, the high price is justified if you consider what is being offered. From the article: "By way of comparison, the PS2 dropped a hundred bucks in price during the first 550 days of its lifespan -- from $299 to $199 USD. Tretton's words would seem to suggest that the PS3's price point may take significantly longer than a mere year and a half to reach the same threshold. Given that scenario, one would really hope that Sony has some kind of ace-in-the-hole for keeping our collective attention (and purchasing enthusiasm) squarely focused on the PS3."
This story isn't really news. Everyone knows that, even at $600, Sony is selling the PS3 far below cost. It's an expensive product to manufacture that includes a lot of new technologies. It will take a while for their costs to drop. If Sony were to reduce the price, it would certainly increase sales. However, increasing sales and increasing your losses at the same time is not necessarily a good thing since it obviously leads to significantly more money lost.
There is always a fine line to walk when balancing your prices with your volumes. When every sale is essentially an investment in the future (for the company, not for the idiots who think buying a $600 console now is an investment for when there will be better games out), then that line is infinitely thinner. People can argue all they want about how smart Sony was to pick such complicated components for their console. However, that decision is in the past now and Sony has to make their future decisions regarding pricing based on the product they have.
See, if sony wants to sell more PS3's, they should include a sought after title, like Resistance...or, wait and then package in something that many people would LIKE to have but not necessarily want to spend 50-70 dollars on, like Ninja Gaiden Sigma.
I know that (excluding the Wii) the "pack-in" idea went the way of the dodo a long time ago, but still...it's fantastic knowing I can (could, whatever) buy a console, take it home, and already have something to play on it without having to spend and additional 1/8th-1/4th the cost of the console itself.
I miss those days...
Living With a Nerd
Based on recent behavior you may think that Sony isn't the brightest company in the world, but they certainly know enough to not divulge even a rumor of a price drop until said price drop is imminent. Nobody pre-announces price drops, because the first-order effect of doing so is to reduce your current sales. With PS3s sitting on the shelves, do you think they want to bring sales to a complete halt while people wait for the price break? There are probably enough people doing that already on the assumption that a price drop will occur; that would be everyone if they knew the price was going to drop at a specific point in time.
Now companies do pre-announce price drops near to the actual change, in order to get people who might also be interested in the competitor to wait for their product, but in a narrow enough time window to not significantly harm their own sales at the previous price.
So basically all this means is that Sony is definitely not dropping the price this month. In three months, if they truly aren't selling and Xbox continues to build its lead, then you'll maybe see something.
The enemies of Democracy are
I brought this up one time in a forum and most people just blew me off, but I still believe it to be true. Some people say they will not get a PS3. Others have a wait and see approach. And others will "wait for the price to drop" (a lot). It's only a sliver which actually bought them.
So what's the problem here? With everyone WAITING for the ps3 to drop in price, no one is purchasing them so economies of scale will actually ramp up. Sony is probably already loath to produce units for much longer since they're already sitting on the shelves just about everywhere. Unless that killer game comes out pretty soon, the price hit for the ps3 may last longer than Sony anticipated - which would probably make the ps3 even more of a financial liability.
You're splitting hairs. Sony makes the same per unit whether a retailer sells it for 200% MSRP or 50%, or throws it out the window.
Not that the Japanese store discounts are insignificant. It costs money (albeit indirectly) to maintain inventory, especially in smaller retail stores, so they're just trying to get rid of the excess; i.e. it's probably a temporary thing given the initial "let's stock as many as we can in anticipation of non-stop sellouts!" But if this keeps up, it indicates retailers aren't shifting units and will thus stop ordering from Sony. That's when the shit will really hit the fan.
why? forty-two.
He doesn't want to piss off the early adopters or cause people to wait for the price drop, so obviously he's going to say "No way is there going to be a price drop." However, the reality is that the PS3 are not moving. Yes, they don't want to lose even more money on the consoles, but losing $400 as opposed to not only losing $600 but losing mindshare and losing the support of video game manufacturers that won't develop games if not enough people buy the PS3.
Reality dictates that unless there's a miraculous sudden spike of PS3 sales they will be *forced* to drop the prices.
Seriously, what did you expect? Look back before the PS2 price drop: mere days before, there officially wasn't going to be one. Then it happened.
Anyone would be shooting themselves in the foot to announce a price drop, especially for a product like this, anytime early. What are you expecting? "Yeah, a year from now, it's going to be $299. Why don't you all just hold off buying one til then?" This would kill their market. Idiotic self-deluding fanboy fantasies to the contrary, this isn't going to happen; but that doesn't mean they won't drop the price a year or two from now.
Right now they're sticking to the "this is worth a lot, you're getting a lot when you buy it" mantra, which, mathematically speaking, still holds true.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Amazingly, it seemed to work. Before I got my Wii, I kept an eye on the eBay prices. The Wiis that were advertising "Wii + 5 Games!" consistently sold higher than the Wiis that didn't.
All I can say is, I'm constantly surprised at how many gullible people there are in the world.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
True, but there are some things you get with the 360 you don't get with PS3...
1. More comfortable (read: natural in your hand) controller that also has rumble in it (yes it's a little gimicky, but you do miss it...)
2. Xbox live. It will be damn near IMPOSSIBLE for a company to catch up with microsoft in the online arena, especially once they integrate the Live service with PC gamers and games
3. Modability. Granted, the PS3 supports Linux out of the box, but tell me what sounds like a better deal to you; being able to put linux on a game console, or being able to hack the firmware and play backups and downloaded games at no cost to you? Not to mention the inherent design of the case would make it (the 360) a bit easier to mod as well.
4. Price. Even with the 100 dollar wifi adapter on the 360, that still leaves you with enough money for a full-price and reduced price game, or three reduced price games for the cost of the 60gig PS3 (and that's assuming you didn't buy the 300 dollar core version).
5. Form. Granted, the 360 isn't as easy to integrate into an entertainment center as a rectangular-shaped amp, but it is a hell of a lot easier than getting a PS3 to fit (not to mention it's smaller)
Now, the PS3 has Blu-Ray (if you care about that sort of thing), native 1080p support, native linux support, some long-running franchises (although sony is slowly losing their grip on those things) and it looks quite sleek. It's not a FAILURE as a system in my eyes, just not as much of a success (success meaning overal value for the money spent))
I think the 360 all-around is a MUCH better choice...it being able to integrate and be used as a streaming box with little configuration required is a good choice as well...lord knows I would rather be able to stream content from my 1.5 terabyte fileserver than store it on an internal 60 GB hard drive with linux...
Living With a Nerd
The thing is, that "Super Mario All-Stars and Super Mario World" really is FIVE games. Each were sold seperately at the time of their release. They aren't mini-games, and still hold value independantly(see the requests for each of them for the virtual console).
Retailers are dropping prices because they're having trouble selling them. They're probably taking a hit at this point, just to shove them out the door. And since they had trouble selling and are taking a hit, more than likely, they will not be ordering as many PS3s from Sony so they don't get screwed over again.
Certainly a price drop would help, but a lot of what people are waiting for are good games to come out for the system. There is certainly lots of potential with the system, with it being the home of mega-hits such as Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, and so forth. However, with more exclusives getting away from Sony (such as Virtua Fighter and Grand Theft Auto), the more likely your average hardcore gamer is just going to wait until a price drop and/or the much-anticipated PS3 games to actually ship. (Well, that's certainly what I'm doing)
With the PS2, it was a no-brainer. You already knew that the Sony console was going to get all the big name games. Not so much with the PS3 anymore, and coupled with the high price, there's a lot of people sitting on the fence this time around.
-- jchenx
We don't ignore that the lower cost PS3 exists, but the problem is all three consoles are affected by nearly equivalent factors, with some differences spread around. Comparing the unadorned, low-end of one console with a high-end, fully decked out version of another console is a shady endeavor at best.
It is true that if you want HD movies on the Xbox360, you need to spend $200 to get the adaptor. However, the PS3 (Either $500 or $600) does not come with the HD cable required to connect to a HDTV. That's $25-$60 if you want anything in HD at all.
The most important comparison between the consoles is the minimum requirements to get the experience they advertise. Wrangling about add-ons and how they can make any system expensive is disingenuous, because for the most part they affect all systems relatively evenly.
So, here's the minimum it takes to get you running.
Wii: Console ($250) [Comes with Remote, Nunchuck, Cables, Sensor Bar, Batteries and a Game]
Xbox360: Console ($400) [Comes with Controller, HD Cables, Batteries, and a Live Subscription for 1 month]
Game ($60)
PS3: Console ($600) [Comes with Controller, Cables, Batteries (assumed) and a free online service]
HD Cable ($25)
Game ($60)
While it is true that attempting to use the 360 and the PS3 for similar things will lead to them being approximately equivalent in cost (the HDDVD addon is $200), your statements about the Wii are largely inaccurate.
The NES, SNES, Genesis and TGX16 virtual console games can all use the regular remote. Only N64 and GameCube games require Classic or GameCube controllers, which for a GameCube owner isn't a problem as you'd already have some. Also, you can plug your GameCube memory cards into the system directly without having to purchase an adaptor. The Wii has internal Flash Memory and accepts SD cards for additional space. For a GameCube owner it costs nothing extra to take advantage of backwards compatibility, and the cost is minimal for anyone who wasn't ($20 per Classic Controller and per 251 slot Memory Card).
As for purchasing controllers for multiplayer, that argument is one which applies equally to all systems.
The "Maximum" cost of all three systems is therefore.
Wii: Console ($250)
3x Remote ($120)
1x Nunchuck ($20)
4x Classic Controller ($80)
1x Memory Card ($20)
1x GameCube Game ($20)
Total: $510
360: Console ($400)
HD-DVD AddOn ($200)
3x Controller ($150)
Live Subscription ($50)
Game ($60)
Total: $860
PS3: Console ($600)
3x Controller ($150)
HD Cable ($25)
Memory Card Adaptor ($15)
Game ($60)
Total: $850
As I stated earlier, if you wanted to use your Xbox 360 to watch HD movies the cost difference between it and the PS3 evens out. However, even callous assumptions against the Wii in terms of accessories still place it in excess of $300 cheaper than a decked out 360 or PS3.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!