Both Sides of the PS3 Price Cut Rumor

So here's the deal: Kotaku has a flier for an upcoming Circuit City deal on the PlayStation 3, putting the price at $499. There's some confusion about whether this is just a sale from Circuit City, or an actual price drop from Sony. Next Generation has Sony saying 'no', indicating that this isn't a sign of an across-the-board price cut. Meanwhile, GameDaily says 'yes', with sources in the retail industry indicating this is the price adjustment we've heard coming for a while now. "As it turns out, a merchandising manager (who wished to remain anonymous) at one of the world's biggest retailers has confirmed to GameDaily BIZ that the price drop is indeed retail-wide and it's scheduled to take place on July 12, although the first wave of ads to promote the PS3's new price won't kick in until Sunday, July 15. Many analysts have speculated that Sony would drop the price on the expensive console this year, and some even predicted that it could happen this summer. It's starting to look like they were right. We're sure to find out much more next week when Sony holds its press conference at E3." Luckily we won't have to wait long to see what's the real story here.

Comments

$499

[penp]

Still way more than I will pay for bare bones console.

Sadly, I could probably double the performance of my PC for that price.

Re:$499

[Sciros]

The Netflix thing is a good point, although I tend to buy rather than rent because I'm a big moviegoer. But in terms of price, I tend to see Blu-Ray at $25-$30, with the $25 ones being bad Adam Sandler films or something. I buy DVDs at prices in the $10-$15 range usually. The only pricey ones I sometimes get are anime ones, which I'm always like "grumble grumble" about grabbing off the shelf. And if someone were to tell me that anime DVDs are overpriced, I'd say "ABSOLUTELY!"

I might buy at that price....

[Fallen Kell]

I really might consider buying at that price, if only for the BluRay. Hell, I paid $1000 for my DVD player!!! I think I can pay $500 for a BluRay player and a console in one.

Re:I might buy at that price....

[michrech]

Is this the part where you tell me that DVDs will be around for ages? I doubt it. Almost all TVs produced now are HD-capable, give it 2 years for the players to go down in price and maybe another year for people to buy them and I'll bet you any money that one or both formats will be outselling DVD. I'm here to tell you that the 25" CRT I bought about 6 years ago is going along just fine. I'm also here to guarantee you that it will NOT be replaced, no matter how much Blue Ray/HD-DVD players and HDTV's drop in price, until my current TV dies, or the signals being sent to it from Dish Network and my DVD player quit working with it.

That being said, adding the fact that I am not alone in the US (let alone the rest of the world) in this line of thought, DVD's will, in fact, be around for a while. If they are not, then the movie studios are going to notice a sudden drop in revenue as people such as myself forgo purchasing ANY media and get it via the internet instead (legally or not).

Re:...zzz...Is it less than $200 yet? No?...zzz...

[twistedsymphony]

while I don't think it needs to be THAT cheap to be a success they already had a $500 price point that they ditched. IMO the extra 40GB of hard drive space (for a hard drive that you can swap out yourself with an off the shelf part) and built in WiFi wasn't really worth the extra $100 they were charging for the premium unit anyway.

If there was anyone with $500 in their pocket who wanted a PS3 they probably would have bought the 20GB model when it was still available, I'm pretty sure you can still find them lingering around stores today too.

If they want to be competitive they have to match the 360's price point... unfortunately I think if anything this price drop will cause Microsoft to follow suit, they've been hinting at a price drop for quite some time as well.

Re:...zzz...Is it less than $200 yet? No?...zzz...

[eln]

I bought the Wii for $250, and I thought that was a pretty good price. For the PS3, if they got the 60 GB version down around $400, I'd probably seriously consider buying one. Anything higher than that just isn't going to happen though.

Re:Nice, but not enough

[doombringerltx]

Chilli-cheese dogs taste better than caviar and the wii is more fun PS3. Money isn't everything

Re:Nice, but not enough

[hibiki_r]

Oh, so the rest of us with bigger, better setups that are playing the Wii are just wrong. After all, there is a law against having a 4K+ entertainment center and using a component input to play the Wii. I guess I'm breaking the law.

You are right on one point though: The PS3 and the Wii are not comparable products: One is a console with a bunch of good games, the other is a bad Blu-ray player that has an anemic game library. That's why one is selling well, and the other is tanking. Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo: all 2008 titles.

Re:Wii

[Rayonic]

And Toyotas sell 5 times as many units as Lexus. Who cares?

Well, both Toyotas and Lexuses use the same gasoline. If fuel was brand-specific, Lexus owners might be SOL.

/car analogies ftw!

Re:...zzz...Is it less than $200 yet? No?...zzz...

[Rolgar]

Hmm, I haven't had a console since the NES, but when I bought my Wii with Sports and Trauma Center, I basically got a Gamecube, and a limited NES, SNES, TG16 and I have my Wii now. A friend loaned me Prince of Persia, Metriod Prime, and two Zelda disks, and I got a whole lot of gaming for under $400. I'm big on budget gaming, but there is a whole lot of value in having a Nintendo right now. I'll probably continue to focus on Gamecube gaming for a while and add some VC games before I pick up new Wii games next year.

Re:$500 is a steal, why are people being so diffic

[The One and Only]

• Upconverting (1080i) DVD player
• Cross platform (Win/Mac/Linux) streaming media player (H.264, MPEG2,Many AVI-contained formats)
• Local media player (variety of flash memory cards and external hard drives)
• Can browse the internet w/ flash support
• Plays a variety of farily good online content, with feature titles including Calling All Cars and the recent Super Stardust HD.
• Uses standard bluetooth and USB for all peripherals. You can use your existing bluetooth headset.
• It can run linux. It cannot access the video hardware, but thats boring anyways. The Cell processor is far more exciting.
• 802.11b/g right out of the box. No external adaptor required.

With the exception of the Cell processor and a different selection of "fairly good online content", I already own something that does all of these things. And unless you're also using your PS3 to post on Slashdot, so do you.

Just as an aside

[SuiteSisterMary]

You're a troll. Sony got cocky and Nintendo is kicking their ass for losing sight of the consumers demands.

1970s: Arcades got cocky, and Atari is kicking their ass for losing sight of the consumer's demands.
1980s: Atari got cocky, and Nintendo is kicking their ass for losing sight of the consumer's demands.
1990s: Nintendo got cocky, and Sony is kicking their ass for losing sight of the consumer's demands.
2000s: Sony got cocky, and Microsoft is kicking their ass for losing sight of the consumer's demands.