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Sony Looks to 'Refine' PS3 Price

Posted by Zonk on from the that's-corpspeak-for-price-cut dept.

Via GameDaily a Financial Times interview with with Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's CEO, gives fans the first hope that price cuts may be coming soon. Lauding the Wii's performance in last month's NPD numbers, Stringer says that Sony is looking to 'refine' the PS3's pricepoint. "'Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise, and a very good business model, compared with ours . . . because it's cheaper,' Mr Stringer said in a video interview. 'That [price cuts] is what we are studying at the moment. That's what we are trying to refine.' Sir Howard said he expected 'energy [in PS3 sales] by Christmas, and then you will begin to see break-out games'. Sony is launching a virtual-world game called Home this year, and up to 30 other games."

16 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. So... by brkello · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is about every 2 days when we get someone from Sony talking about price cuts then someone else at Sony saying that there won't be price cuts. Now come all the posts on how it is stupid for a company to announce a price drop until they are ready to actually drop the price. blah blah blah...news worthy? blah blah blah. It's Friday morning...I need something better than this to get me through the rest of the day.

    --
    Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
    1. Re:So... by EggyToast · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well the caveat that they shouldn't announce until they're ready to drop the prices implies that people would actually buy the console at the current price :)

  2. Games by strider2k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't really care about the price. I'd be glad to pay the $600 US dollars for the premium. The sad part is, what games will I get? The answer is none. I don't have a big HD tv. So unless they release at least 1 big gun soon (MGS4 or FF13) then there's no incentive for me to buy. I guess I'll play my ds/gba (lots of good games) or board games (Settlers or Puerto Rico)!!!

    When they do bring the AAA top tier games, then it'll be World War III in console terms.

    --
    Every geek has some sort of website, programming or computer project. Here's mine: www.youtasteit.com . What's yours?
    1. Re:Games by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So unless they release at least 1 big gun soon (MGS4 or FF13) then there's no incentive for me to buy.

      the sad thing is that they said that the console would heat up for christmas, but the great games wouldn't come out until after that. So Sony has what, one maybe two A-list titles until after christmas?

      That's a long time.

      When they do bring the AAA top tier games, then it'll be World War III in console terms.

      I don't know, will it be? Will they still be in the running by then? I'm kind of thinking that there's some good games on the Xbox 360 right now, that pretty much everyone in the market has a PS2 so back-compatibility is a total non-issue, and that people will be buying Wiis (they are becoming more available even now) and Xbox 360s while they're waiting for Sony to get their shit together and get out some games.

      But, maybe that's just wishful thinking.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Games by DrEldarion · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Man, if you think that's bad, look at the Wii's rankings on GameRankings.

  3. Re:Captain' Obvious by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually, it's not obvious. The XBox 360 for instance is also cheaper, and not getting as much buzz at the moment. (Perhaps just because it isn't 'new' at the moment, but also because it isn't as 'different' as the Wii is.)

    Yes, the Wii is cheaper, and yes it is sucessful, but is it sucessful just because it is cheaper? I sincerly doubt it. I think Sony and Nintendo intentionally aimed for different target audiences, and Sony found out that the audience they targeted at didn't exist in the numbers they thought existed. Now they will have to scramble to market a product to an audience it is not designed for. Meanwhile, Nintendo judged their market quite well.

    --
    'Sensible' is a curse word.
  4. It's still a good buy as just a blue ray player by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1, Insightful

    as they cost more then ps3 and they are missing a few blue ray features and it plays games as well as running linux.

  5. This just in... by pragma_x · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ""'Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise, and a very good business model, compared with ours . . . because it's cheaper,' "

    In a recent shake-up within the Japan-based electronics juggernaut Sony, Captain Obvious was promoted to the position of CEO.

  6. Blu-ray is the problem. by Fross · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A common argument for the high price of the PS3 is that "hey, it includes a blu-ray player!" Which is true, and changes something.

    The PS3 isn't the most expensive console, rather, it is the cheapest available Blu-ray player.

    So not only does Sony have part of the market for the next-gen console market with the PS3, but it also has the vast majority of the HD-video market as well.

    The sales figures are testament more to the fact that nobody wants HD video at the moment, and forcing people to take it in a bundle is crucifying them. The PS3 may be better than the 360 (the games look about the same to me), but it costs $300 more (at least here in the UK) - that's a lot to a gamer. You can make a car with a gold steering wheel for an extra $50,000, but if nobody *wants* a gold steering wheel, then your car isn't going to sell at all, as good as it is, unless you can sell if without the steering wheel.

    1. Re:Blu-ray is the problem. by DrEldarion · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's a lot more to using blu-ray than just promoting a new format (though I'm sure that's part of it). With gaming this gen, games are going to be LARGE. We already saw PS2 games spanning multiple DVDs, so it makes sense to move to a bigger storage medium as standard. It's already been stated that Resistance would have had to be on two dual-layer DVDs, and Rockstar said they're having issues with storage space on the 360 version. Not including a better drive in the 360, to me, shows a pretty big lack of foresight (the Wii is different since it's standard-def).

      Sony wants the PS3 to be something amazing - the total experience. It definitely has the potential to be that, whereas the Wii (especially) and the 360 are likely to show growing pains over the next couple years.

      Now we just need the games... :/

    2. Re:Blu-ray is the problem. by SparkyFlooner · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Agreed. More space can only be a good thing. The problem is if PS3 doesn't really land many exclusives, all the 'cool' games will be designed for multiple consoles using the least common denominator, which is DVD. So sure there's more space on a Blu Ray disk, and the games could look and sound better on a PS3, but the space wouldn't really be used for gameplay.

  7. Re:Captain' Obvious by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    While the target audiences are different, the target audiences overlapped. Nintendo chose to build a console that almost everyone would like in some way. Sony chose to build a console that only a small portion of people would like. Sony limited their market by making it cost so much, that even a lot of people who would probably want one, aren't buying one. Same thing happened to NeoGeo. Everybody that I knew who saw the thing said they wanted one, but I don't know anybody who actually bought one. I would like to own a PS3, but it is way out of my price range. So by having a smaller number of people who actually want the product, and by making it really expensive, they have really cut down on sales. Decreasing the price will bring up sales, but it won't capture as many sales as the Wii, because their target market is "everybody".

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  8. Lower game prices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Screw lowering the console price, that's going to happen anyway. Lower the damn game prices! $69 for the garbage that was Spiderman 3? Ridiculous...

  9. Re:It Needs "Refined"... by MS-06FZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's funny, but just stupid. The PS3 is and always has been worth well more than its price in the store for a lot of reasons that nobody should have to justify anymore. That's ridiculous. Value is subjective. Sure, the PS3 is a fine machine, but to say that it's worth the price - that's something people have to decide for themselves. You could put $3000 worth of computer hardware into a little black box that does nothing but play MP3s - it doesn't matter that it cost you $3000 in hardware, though, because the thing is still worth no more to me than what an iPod costs.

    If Sony's doing well at selling the PS3 at its current price point - then fine, good for them. For me, it's too damn expensive. There are much better ways I could spend $600, you know?
    --
    ---GEC
    I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
  10. Re:It Needs "Refined"... by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That said, people aren't always willing to pay what something is worth

    On the contrary, which people are willing to pay for something is the DEFINITION of its worth.

  11. Re:It Needs "Refined"... by twistedsymphony · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the point is most of the things that the PS3 can do don't appeal to the people who consider it to be over priced...

    Maybe that $3000 MP3 player also plays games and Blu-Rays discs... but it's still just an MP3 player to those consumers who don't want to play games or Blu-Ray. To use another analogy if you were looking at two houses that were equal in all aspects except one had an extra 5 car garage and cost twice as much... if you have no cars, it doesn't matter if those 5 bays are "worth" the extra cost because you have no intention of ever using them, it's just a useless extremity that needlessly drives up the price.

    The problem with adding features that drive up the price of your console is that every feature you add shrinks the potential market of people who will find 100% of your features useful and valuable.

    Would be PS3 buyers who aren't interested in Blu-Ray see the blu-Ray features valued at $0... would be PS3 buyers who aren't interested in WiFi see the WiFi features valued at $0 etc... Eventually you have a machine that "just plays games" because a large group of gamers don't care about the noise and your console suddenly isn't valued at what you thought it was in the eyes of the consumer.

    --
    Collector's Edition