Slashdot Mirror
PS3 European Launch 23 March, $835
Andy_R writes "Sony has finally committed themselves to a European launch date for the PS3, after disappointing European fans by not having the promised worldwide simultaneous launch, then missing the lucrative Christmas period. The BBC is reporting that the console will arrive on the 23rd of March. EU fans will only be getting the 60Gb version at first, and it will be priced at 599 Euros or 425 pounds in Britain. At today's exchange rates, that's US$ 835.99! From the article: 'A problem manufacturing blue diodes, used in high-definition Blu-ray disc drives, forced the Japanese firm to announce another delay but only for European customers. Sony said the decision was made because Europe was logistically the most complex market for distribution."
Delay for months, don't sell the version most people wanted to buy and thereby put yourself 200€ over the closest competition (unless you count the MacMini which is more expensive than a PS3). Sony's statement? "Europeans are used to waiting". Gee, thanks for demonstrating that you're not going to do something about that like your two competitors have done (360 and Wii were released less than a month after their US release). Next thing you know SCEE is wondering why we don't buy any PS3s.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Cue endless complaints about "Rip-off Britain" and high (after tax) prices. Made by people who then still go out and pay those excessive prices, thereby exacerbating the problem. If we didn't buy goods at those inflated prices, we wouldn't have to pay those inflated prices.
After all, it is our right to buy goods from continental Europe if they are cheaper there.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Dont worry too much, not too many people will buy it at that price anyway ;-)
It does not matter when it will be released, because it is out of christmas and hollywood season, and it is too expensive.
Add to that the fact that hdtv has not such a big impact here than it has in the USA, so blue ray is a non argument for a lot of people.
That's a BIG price. Really, realy big. Wii60 big (Premium XBox 360 plus a copy of PGR3 is £250, Wii is £180, but what's a fiver at that price?)
But we expected this. What I really don't understand is why Sony hate the 20Gb model so much? Many of us (most?) don't have any call for the extra features of the 60Gb (drives are swappable, 20Gb is big enough anyway, memory stick readers are about £15 in the unlikely event of us not already having one but needing it, and the wireless is a bit pointless if your Cable Box lives under the telly next to the PS3). Those ignored stockpiles you always hear about in US stores always seem to be 60Gb ones, too.
Have Sony made a mistake by making too many 60Gb ones at the expense of the 20Gb?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
To make the data a little more meaningful to Europeans: 835.00 USD = 643.790 EUR.
Source.
I tried to scalp a PS3 on ebay (from Texas). Where were the bids from England? Do you guys not have Dec. 25th?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
At least, Europeans will have PS3 shipped with latest updated bios. Cooool.
More expensive, but with less bugs. Happy Europeans !
-- Rastignac was here.
... but the initial estimate of a cool thousand bucks seems awfully likely. Think I'll get a 360 instead. It'll look nice next to my Wii.
I'm not paying £425 for a unit that is delayed, has trouble being even produced and ultimately no different from its competitors (bar the Wii). I'm more tempted to buy a Wii...At least they know what they're aiming for (playability). Hell, i'll just stick to my PC.
ilovegeorgebush
At least you have it announced, it still remains to be announced in Australia. I've seen two PS3's in Australia and both of them were running Linux at Linux.conf.au 2007 (from the Yellow Dog Linux guys, so I don't think they were local). So to answer your question? It isn't. I can understand localization issues in parts of Europe might cause delays but for Australia were technically its British English but due to the absolute raping that occured during our early TV development where the US TV producers firmly established their foothold in Australia (to the point that easily 50% or more commercial TV in Australia is American; the Australian Broadcasting Commission's Radio National weekly 'The Science Show' covered this in one of its broadcasts on TV in Australia), American English would be accepted normally without a second thought. I'd almost suggest it'd be easier to ship the PS3 from Japan to Australia than it would to get it from Japan to the UK - especially via boat.
I always wondered where this setting was...
The only complex thing about logistics is getting it from A to B. What makes Europe complex are the variety of languages and jurisdictions. That's still called localization.
The real reason why Europe is left behind every time is because Europeans are more critical and don't jump any wagons like the Japanese and US markets.
If Sony would launch first in Europe and at that price, they could as well write off their whole business plan.
just my 0.0248 eurocents.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Wii £180
Xbox 360 (core) £199
Dreamcast (ebay) £30
Total £410
Vs PS3 £425
Dreamcast wins ! *Prices correct at time going to press
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
I can guarantee you, not just to the Brits.
SCEE Europe sucks majorly when it comes to living up to signed commitments in the Game biz. You'd be surprised about how efficiently they can screw things up.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Technically with the minimum 15%-20% VAT tax (always included in price) that is nearly the same as the US price ($600-700) depending on VAT. Of course they aren't flying off the shelves here in the US.
----- 70% of all statistics are completely made up.
I am interested in how this will turn out, it is like a bad soap
You can bet that it will be >650 here in Ireland, maybe even hitting the 700 mark. They mention 300,000 units for the UK, so maybe 10K for Ireland.
Still I know it will be sold out here in Ireland. Some of my friends will buy at launch, I cannot understand it and they are not rich. The only thing is that their GF's might nix it. That is a lot to spend on a console and most guys in the 20-30 bracket who have a better half will have a tough time convincing them.
Also will being the cheapest BD player around affect attach ratio? I wonder how many will buy it to just watch BD movies, of course Sony wont care, but 3RD parties might.
I cannot see many familys springing for one this Christmas either, it is 2-3 hundred too much. After the insane hard core have had their fill will sales just petter out?
Stay Tuned!!
I don't know about Britain in particular but, from what I had read earlier, in Europe as a whole the DS has always sold more because of the lead it built from months without competition. Unfortunately there is no (good) tracking happening in Europe like there is in Japan (and to a lesser extent North America) because it makes it difficult to know what is really going on.
I mean, thats what everyone was predicting here in NA as well... that all the consoles would sell out, and it'd be next to impossible to get your hand on a unit at retail prices until March or later.
The reality is, the PS3 is FAR from sold out, and you can walk into any major retailer anywhere in North America and see 5 or more units on the shelf, with who knows how many out back. Prices for the unit on eBay have sunk to BELOW RETAIL. Meanwhile the Wii is still nowhere to be found in stores, despite having more available units shipped, and it looks like this trend will keep up for at least the near future.
The moral of the story is
a) Nothing is a "sure thing", and
b) Never bet on a new Sony medium (Blu-Ray).
Or even 21% VAT here in Ireland, where unfortunately we don't quite have pots of gold despite all the tall tales.
The bigger question is what the package deals will be priced at. Even now you would be hard pushed to get a decent Xbox 360 full package (HDD etc.) with a game or two for much less than €500. Unsurprisingly, although there are buyers, it's not a must-have item that everyone is going for.
The one thing that people have been going for like rabid ferrets is the DS lite, those sold out again a couple of times before Christmas - esp. the black ones. In fact, the prices are now far higher than back in late Autumn - profiteering shops.
Getting consumer items in Ireland can be expensive too because of moron distributors insisting on routing things through the UK, despite our using the euro here. Generally this costs more as there are more agents who have to take a cut. Also UK companies have a belittling attitude to Ireland and seem to regard it as an annoying exception - heck, half of them even have problems sending stuff in their own country to Scotland or Northern Ireland, or even odder places like, oh no, Channel Islands (OK so technically that last place isn't in the EU).
NOTE: WHEN WILL SLASHDOT ALLOW EURO SYMBOL DIRECTLY TYPED INTO POSTS?! ARGH!
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
I've often wondered about advertised prices in the US. Why is it the pre-tax price that is shown to the consumer? Surely the consumer needs to know the total amount of cash they have to hand over, rather than the amount the vendor will have after passing the tax portion on the the government.
Is there some reasoning I'm missing?
I suppose that would be an extra fifty bucks. Sony really have lost their minds - mayday, going down, mayday!
Gaming for over 25 years
The reason is simple. Every State in the US has a different sales tax rate.
The greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue - Socrates
Yes. There's something big you're missing. It's the fact that THERE IS NO VALUE ADDED TAX in America.
There's just a sales tax of 6-10% varying state to state (with the exceptions of Oregon and Delaware, where there's also no sales tax. Also, in many states groceries are exempt from said sales tax).
Anyway, lesson being: If you ever visit America, buy your electronics there. They're WAY cheaper, especially consider the RIDICULOUS EXCHANGE RATE that Europeans now enjoy.
(I'm currently studying in Europe, but my parents are funding me from America. Which ROYALLY SUCKS from our financial perspective (basically since the Euro here gets you about as far as a dollar does in America, it's like there's a blanket 30% tax on everything).)
oops, sorry, messed up the tags.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In the US, taxes vary completely from state to state. Some states break it down further, and have different taxes per county. New York City adds its own taxes onto the state taxes. New Jersey cuts the sales tax in crappy areas, in an effort to encourage people to spend their money there and bring more money into the local economy. Other states have other oddities.
Also, what's taxed varies from state to state. In New Jersey, prepared foods are taxed, but unprepared foods are not. This gets some weird corner cases - if you buy a Snapple bottle from a refrigerator you pay tax on it, but not if you buy one off a shelf.
In short, US sales taxes are even more complicated than income taxes. It's not as well known because most people don't have to deal with more than a couple different tax zones with any regularity.
I can sympathise with those in Europe, but spare a thought for a moment for those of us in NZ. PS3 price is/will be $NZ1199 (incl 12.5% tax). At today's (spot) rate that's about $US835.
For context, 2005 GDP per capita (in US dollars and adjusted for price differences i.e. PPP):
US: 41,399
UK: 30,436
NZ: 24,797.
( Source)
My other sig is a
March 23.0 4857.html
$999 AUD for 60GB
See http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenplay/archives//0
Emerald Astrology
A £30 Dreamcast would generally come with a number of games, as well. I bought a basic Dreamcast (2 controllers + memory thingie) without any games for £15.
Uhm... there are more and better Mac games than there are PS3 games. And that's not even counting Photoshop (haha, preventive joke). And you can actually use it as a real computer, without a hypervisor taking away access from graphics card and hd. I have no clue how you could know what to do with a PS3, but not with a Mac mini.
And how exactly would a Mac make your pals ask embarrassing questions?
Even better, the PS3 is a grill!
because the make less money on it. The saving they make by removing those features in manufacture is way less than the amount they lose by selling you the cheap, rather than expensive PS3.
As with the 360, the reason the cheap model exists is so they can advertise a lower price and pull consumers in - once you're hooked the want you to buy the expensive one. Same thing as in car adverts the new blah blah from £x (but if you want one that looks like the one in the advert you'll need to stump up more).
It costs them more to keep the supply chain fed with two products rather than one and it pisses off the consumer (I had a hard time last year tracking down a premium 360, whilst core systems were dripping off the shelves).