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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."
In before jokes that the PS3 won't be around that long!
"This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
While it may be true that a PS3 price drop from Sony is not in the near term, what about things like rebates? Technically a rebate or other incentive, like free games with purchase, are not price drops. I think it is a safe bet that if PS3's continue to lounge about on shelves as some have reported, we'll see some kind of deal sweeteners that effectively reduce the price of ownership for consumers. Once those sales plateau, then the real price drops will come.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
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.
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
I believe they are talking about Sony dropping the price. Retailers will always adjust the price based on market demand, in this case I guess they couldn't sell any PS3's the the cost to them from Sony hasn't dropped. That's what TFA seems to be about.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
And WiFi is included with the PS3...
Only on the $600 model
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
I'd check out the prices for the original 802.11g adapters for the Xbox 1... They work with the 360, are cheap on eBay, but don't have 802.11a (which I don't use myself, so it's no big deal to me).
...within the next year or so, and it's that damn blue laser. If the supplies get much more plentiful and the price on those go down, then the price on the PS3 can go down, too.
A re-design to remove the PS2 chipset would also result in a price drop, but that's probably not going to happen for at least a year.
So how long did it take Sega to lower the Saturn from its initial price? If Sony takes longer than that, I think they're screwed.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
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.
Does anyone remember the NeoGeo? It was a great system around the time of the Super Nintendo. It was 24 bit as opposed to the Nintendo and the Sega at 16 bits each.. It did have a couple good games, but it was a complete flop. Why? It cost 600 bucks, and no one I know ever had one. It had a lot of power under the hood, but the price point was way too high. And now Sony is at the same price point. I have always loved my playstations, but 600 bucks is to steep just to play games, even if it does have other features. I can always use Linux on my home computer, after all..
Owning both I feel some of your points are a bit mistaken.
1. This is highly subjective. I prefer the ps3 controller (though I do miss rumble).
2. No question about it. XBox live is superior to the free PS3 offering. Now had MS offered a free, feature-stripped service like the Sony has, I would have taken that instead of paying $50.
3. Eh... the majority of console owners will never do anything but play games, so this isn't really a selling point to most people.
4. The 20 gig PS3 is the console which is comparable to the 360 premium, not the 60 gig. The only advantage the XBox has there is the inclusion of the component cables. If you're willing to go online, you can get HDMI for $10. So depending on your network setup, this is a wash. Me? I required wifi in my console so I would have made out the same had I purchased the 20 gig (I got the 60).
5. Smaller yes, but I think the PS3 looks nicer. Plus nothing is more annoying that a 360 with a disc in the drive. It's grating at 10 feet.
Now if I had to choose just one console? The 360. Without a doubt. But that's only NOW. In a year when Sony has built up a decent library of games like the 360 has, things may be different.
And I'm completely ignoring the Wii since that's competing on a different level than these two (planning on picking one up next month).
Not that surprising really... Unless you live near stores that stockpile, it's not all that uncommon to walk into a Target/BestBuy/CircuitCity late in the afternoon and see a couple on the shelves.
I was noticing a few days ago that most of the above retail auctions on eBay for the Wii were going to Canadian bidders. It's hard to say now though, since eBay changed to not revealing the high bidder's user name. It's pretty clear that ones displayed as willing to ship to Canada are selling for more though.
From asking around, even in these Slashdot threads, it seems that if you live more than a half hour outside of a city in the US, you can get a Wii without any trouble now. THey've shipped so many of them, it's really not surprising that supply would be catching up with demand finally.
All consoles sales (and even sales in general) see a dramatic drop after Christmas. It's called holiday shopping, and very few people have much money to spend once it's over. If you take a look at the charts, at a site such as vgcharts.org, you'll see it in the data.
Another important thing to note is that while the Wii is doing about as well as the GameCube in the Americas, the launch data for both consoles shows the Wii is doing 4-5 times as well in Japan as the GameCube did.
I would also suggest you visit www.wiihaveaproblem.com. Aside from the humor of seeing the destruction the Wii remote can cause in the wrong hands, you will see videos of people playing games. A fair number of these people do not fit into the gamer demographic. There's also a video online of an old man enjoying the Wii at a retired persons conference (was it ARPA or AARP?). There is evidence of the Wii's appeal beyond anecdotes.
As it stands all three companies need to step up to the plate. As of yet, Microsoft is only beginning to get the right titles out for the 360, the PS3 is lacking anything that truly pushes its capabilities, and the Wii does need some games that take the remote to new places. It will be interesting to see who hits a home run first.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
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!
It's the retailers in Japan that are marking it down, because there's an oversupply of consoles. Anecdotal evidence seems to point towards the same thing in the US (consoles sitting on shelves), although apparently not bad enough to make retailers want to do the same thing. Well, at least not yet. The funny thing, though, is that you can apparently go to eBay and get a Core PS3 for slightly cheaper than retail ($50 or so) from scalpers that got burned.
PS3 for $299 is a pipe-dream. Honestly, I don't think it'll happen until 2010, maybe 2009. There's just too much in that machine, and given the past history of console price drops
-- jchenx
I bought one for $250 at CompUSA yesterday. No bundling, no warranty, no scalping, no waiting in line. I just walked up to the desk and asked if they had a Wii in stock. They had seven.
However, this was after I couldn't find one at Best Buy, Circuit City, or Costco.
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