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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
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
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.
"Everyone knows that, even at $600, Sony is selling the PS3 far below cost. "
c osts-900-sez-merrill-lynch-mob/
We don't know that.
We know about this:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/18/playstation-3-
But that assumes price points that simply don't hold up under any kind of scrutiny. Most of it appears to be uneducated guesswork. My guess is the PS3 breaks even for Sony and allows the retailed to make some profit.
Companies like the "we are selling cheaper than it cost to make" stories because it makes some people feel like they got a real bargain. At $600 the PS3 is no bargain. They're still about $100 too high for the thing, at least compared to the competition.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you