Sony Rejects PS3 Price Cuts

Despite hopeful comments by analysts, Sony has gone on the record (again) saying that it has no plans to cut the PS3's pricetag any time soon. Next Generation reports: "'PS3 prices and shipment plans for the future should be determined by market trends and competition. Sony currently doesn't have any specific plan to cut the PlayStation 3's price.' Analysts believe a price cut is inevitable, as the company struggles to catch Microsoft's early lead with Xbox 360, and the $250 Wii continues to sell as many as can be produced. However, Sony's plan has generally been to hold tight and hope that demand for Blu-ray drives will increase, by the end of this year." Relatedly, the company has outlined releases for the second quarter of this year on the PS2, PS3, and PSP systems.

Comments

Counter-Headline:

[Lachryma]

Consumers reject Sony.

when you know you're wrong...

[butterflysrage]

dig in your heals and hope no one catches on to that fact...

Re:when you know you're wrong...

[rhombic]

George, is that you?

It's the right move

[cxreg]

cutting the price at this point wouldn't help game sales enough to offset the extra loss they'd be taking on each unit, because the library is still pretty sparse. might as well suck it up and sell whatever units are selling. when the really good games start coming out later this summer and fall, sales will pick up and I wouldn't be surprised to see a november cut of about $100

Re:It's the right move

[powerlord]

Not to mention even if they WERE going to have a price cut, denying it is "standard practice".

Take a look at Nintendo (who everyone seems enamored with at the moment), and remember what happened when they had the last round of price cuts on their handheld ... and denied any price cuts were about to happen when asked about the week before?

Look. Suck it up. Price cuts WILL happen at some point. If you want to wait for whenever that will be, then wait. If you don't, then don't. I agree that once the games start rolling this Summer and Fall things will start looking up, and I also wouldn't be surprised by a price drop before the holidays.

Re:It's the right move

[cxreg]

please, anyone can make a list of those ps3-seller games?

Exclusive material that people are very excited for, most if not all of which is expected this year:

Motorstorm (already out)
Metal Gear Solid 4
Killzone
Heavenly Sword
FF13 (despite recent headlines, 13 and 13vs are still PS3 exclusive for now)
Lair
Afrika
LittleBigPlanet
Home

And others coming down the line, like the next Gran Turismo and Tekken games

And there's games such as GTA4, Assassin's Creed, Katamari 3. People talk about a lack of exclusivity as if it's no longer available on the first platform. That's just stupid. The fact that a game is going to be available elsewhere doesn't mean it's not going to sell tremendously well on the PS3, and many people will buy one just to play their favorite franchise because it's what they're familiar with. Not to mention that it IS a better machine, and there's a good chance that multiplatform games will look nicer on the PS3. This has happened already with Oblivion.

Its my toy

[jriding]

They keep playing the old its my toy and if you don't want to play by my rules you can't play with it... But they don't seem to notice that not many people are willing to play with their toy based on their rules. This includes both game makers as well as customers. Over all I keep hoping that they will see the light and the ps3 will take off with both good games and good price... but untill then I will just keep what I have.

Wow

[stratjakt]

Wait for demand for Blu-Ray drives?

Is there any demand, whatsoever?

Hell - demand for HDTVs isn't even all that high.

Regardless, I can watch HD movies via Comcast on demand, download them via XBox 360, or to a PC.

I have no problem at all getting HD content onto my screen.

Why should (most)people care about plastic discs anymore?

Naturally no announced price cut...

[geders]

I don't understand why people are confused about the lack of a price cut announcement.

You don't tell the public that a poorly selling, expensive product is going to be $100 cheaper next month unless you want even lower sales for the next month. Lower sales for that month means even lower numbers of customers looking to buy software for the machine.

The announcement of the PS3 price cut will come the same day as the PS3 price cut (see PSP price cut as an example).

Re:Suggesting a price cut right now is retarded

[drinkypoo]

the money is not made on the hardware but on the software

This isn't news. But several other things are also true. Among them:

1. Gamers go where the games are.
2. The games are where the developers are.
3. The developers are where the gamers are.
4. GOTO 1

Sony completely fucking blew the PS3 launch. There are simply not enough games that people actually want, and the price is astronomical so many people decided to wait for more games to be released. But the result of that is that there are less PS3s sold. Developers want to make games for consoles that people actually own, so they will be less inclined to make PS3 games. This won't result in many games being cancelled, but it will result in less games being exclusive to the PS3 - the installed base is less than any other console for which people are still making/selling games, so making a PS3 exclusive is guaranteeing that your profits will be reduced. Since there are less games, and less exclusives (which have traditionally been strong selling points - for example zillions of people bought the PS2 just for Tekken Tag, Gran Turismo, or a Final Fantasy title) this means that less people will want to buy the system.

If you can't sell games, you're not going to make the money.

Also keep in mind that Nintendo makes money when they sell game consoles. They don't lose it. So even if they sold less units they still wouldn't be losing money on consoles. This is why there's room in the industry for first place, second place, and Nintendo. But if Nintendo takes first or second place, I think there's distinctly less room left...