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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."
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.
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