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$499 PlayStation 3 Confirmed
Gamespot is reporting that the rumoured price drop from earlier this week is a reality. Starting on July 10th, the current 60GB model will sell for $499. Coming to US shores in August is the 80GB version only available in South Korea at the moment, which will retail for $599. They're bundling that unit with Motorstorm, so it's not just another 20 gigs for $100. "The price drop further indicates that, after a slow start, Sony is now aggressively trying to expand its customer base in the US. The move comes none too soon. According to the latest figures from industry-research firm the NPD Group, the PS3 only sold 82,000 units in the US in May, compared to the Xbox 360's 155,000 units and the Wii's 338,000 units." So, is this it? Will this price drop make you buy a PS3, or are you still holding off for the big games this fall?
Calling a $500 price "aggressive" may not be appropriate, really. Realistic, perhaps; it's still $200 pricier than an HD-DVD player or a basic XBox 360. I'd call it barely reasonable, but not aggressive.
Sony's continual disdain toward customers over the past few years was the guaranteed nail in the coffin for me. My hard earned cash will go to entertainment elsewhere.
A new motorcycle is looking much more tempting, entertaining, and far more invigorating than a PS/3 could ever be.
Sorry Sony it was just too little too late, better luck next time.
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
As a parent of a child that *really* wants a PS3, I can say that the price has been the biggest barrier. It's hard to justify this sort of expenditure for a twelve-year-old... I sort of feel like he'll grow up like his gaming-geek old man if I give in and buy one. I'm glad to see that they are coming down in price. -W
The PS3 is still too expensive. But the bigger problem is, there just aren't any "must have" games. I was at Wal-Mart the other day, and just for kicks I was looking at the PS3 game selection. There were about, oh, 25 titles or so, and fully HALF of them were crappy movie tie-in games. That's nuts.
The Wii is slightly better off, in that there are at least 3 or 4 really fun games. But in my opinion, it's not worth buying yet either. But the good Wii games are fun, and they are nice and "console-y". Which brings me to the 360-
Well, it has the most games, of course. But am I the only one that finds the 360s selection of games really dull? It seems like there are a lot of FPS and sports games, and not a heck of a lot else. I expect this will be the case with the PS3, also. It's almost like they are trying too hard to cater to the "hardcore" crowd. Lots of "heavy" games, not too much stuff that's simple to pick-up-and-play. Well, I guess the Live! Arcade games are. But all of those games could be done on the Wii, easily. Never mind the emulated games, which I refuse to pay for because I've been playing them for free for almost a decade now via PC emulators.
I've been debating getting a Game Cube or PlayStation 2, now maybe I'll seriously look at the PS2. :-) Prices are soo much better at the trailing edge.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
"$499 PS3 rumored"
"$499 PS3 denied by Sony CEO"
"Sony rejects $499 PS3"
"Sony Spokesman says $499 a hoax"
"$499 PS3 confirmed"
And $3000 in 1990 dollars, what a half-decent desktop PC cost back then, is $5169 in 2006 dollars. Except a half-decent PC is 1/10th that price. Could you imagine spending $5000+ on a PC these days? Yet they're faster, have more storage, massive improvements in graphics hardware...
Technology gets CHEAPER. Far out-pacing inflation. The PS3 pricing is a joke when compared to any other modern consumer electronics - then again, game consoles pretty much have been for a while now.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
That may be the picture they present to internal revenue to dodge taxes, or to the FTC to avoid monopoly charges, but to me, Sony is Sony. And if Playstation can't say or do much about the DRM issues the others decide on, then that just means they're not so separate after all.
What?
They did, it had a DVD player in it. Critically the PS2 came out and was cheaper than a DVD player, meaning that guys like me could get approval from the domestic commandant with the words "but you wanted a DVD player, right". So they thought they'd pull the same trick again - make the PS3 cheaper than a standalone BluRay player and you either get a free games console with your BR player, or a free BR player with your games console
As far as I can see it, Sony have made two big mistakes with the PS3:
* Nobody wants a BluRay player.
* Nobody wants a PS3 either.
Because both value propositions only make sense if you drop $2k on a new telly at the same time. Furthermore, where the PS2 was a giant leap from the PS1 and where DVD was a giant leap from VHS, the same cannot be said of this new generation. Consequently they're stuffed.
FWIW after the dead 360 debacle it's becoming clear that the only winner from this round is Nintendo. Who'dve thunk it?
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Sigh. I know I'm going to probably get modded "Flaimbait" for this, but here goes anyway...
It's only been two years since the CD rootkit scandal and already it seems the consumers have either forgotten or forgiven Sony. So please bear with me while I just take a moment to point out that there are probably still holdouts like me out there who *really* meant it when we said we would never buy from Sony ever again.
We now continue with your regularly commercial sheep-like programming existance where electronics are mass-marketed to you as shiny new objects.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I gotta say, the PS3 as a blu-ray player is excellent. I've talked with several retailers, they want this war to end quickly. They're sick of stocking both formats. They say the blu-ray products move a ton more than the HDDVD stuff. They're fairly confident in a bluray victory.
.... So is microsoft. Bluray rules, the next gen PS3 games coming out are amazing! The PS3 is very smooth and looks better than all the other consoles (in my opinion)...
When I had learned that Microsoft was entering into the video game industry I had several predictions, and they've all happened and we as the consumers are the ones who suffer.
Microsoft has enough cash to drown out any compitition. I felt that they'll come out the gate (no pun intended) with easily hackable hardware and piracy will run rampad. They will show attempts to squash piracy so their 3rd party developers won't be "as pissed' when they realize their software is out in the wild without anyone buying it. Microsoft doesn't really care about piracy, they more care about domiance. Once a market is dominated then they no longer have to focus on anything in particular to keep the customer happy.
Back in the day there were lots of exclusive games for specific consoles. Now between Nintendo, XBox and Playstation, nobody wants to choose a side and miss out on potential market sales. So now they make their games so it's most friendly with all platforms. Exclusive titles is really what the consumers should want. When a game goes exclusive they tailor the game to the console it's being written for with all the extra bells and whisles. When they're developing for all consoles, there is lots of console specific programming that gets lost, so in the end, the consumer suffers.
Sure, sony is evil
Wow, that's the craziest "advantage" I've ever heard anyone cite :-) "PS3 is slow right now because it's hard to program for, but you should buy it anyway because one day hopefully they'll figure it out" - where do I sign?
Here's a thought - why not just wait until when/if they do figure it out, and then buy it? It'll be cheaper too.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
so bluray is good? so what? I dont want a hd video player right now, I want a video game console. I have a perfectly good upscaling dvd player that sits there unused because basically everything I watch is kept in digital formats on my home server and then streamed to my TV via HTPC. sure, the upsampled picture doesnt have the definition of bluray, but seeing as it's only being played back on a 26" 720p tv the difference is ignorable. it seems impossible for sony apologists to say why the ps3 is good value for money without resorting to it's wonderful "blue rays", something that most consumers neither need or want.
microsoft may be evil but at least they arent trying to jam their stupid hd format down my throat, and charging me more for the privilege.
TIAEAE!
You're right on many counts. The PS3 is certainly:
1 =All&cons2=PS3®2=All&cons3=X360®3=All&weekly =1 the only thing "really rolling" is the steep decline the PS3's sales are taking.
Blu-ray player
Upscaling DVD player
HDMI out
I'm pretty sure when I want a Blu-ray player, I'll buy a PS3. Right now, I don't, so to me the PS3 is an exceptionally expensive game console, that plays about the same as the Xbox 360, but has fewer decent games. And it looks like the vast majority of people feel this way about it as well - there just isn't the demand for Blu-ray / HDDVD, which is crippling the PS3 sales.
I mean look at this: http://www.vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii®
Sir, your post is really funny, stupid funny.
You start with:
And you did what MS fanboys always do. You assumed someone can play games on the $299 Core.
and after a random anti-Microsoft rant you finish with:
So yes, you can play games on the Xbox 360 Core system for $299, assuming...
So, your rant is completely out of place, if someone wants to play the new Xbox-360 games he just have to pay the $299 + a memory stick which as someone else state is about $20...
Not that I care about the systems being discussed in this flamewar... I am a happy Wii user which only plays each odd weekend
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
It's hard to justify this sort of expenditure for a twelve-year-old...
A twelve-year-old boy is probably old enough to mow lawns, run errands, etc. to earn his own income.
It shouldn't take him much of that to understand how much money $500 actually is.
No offense intended, but I don't follow this line of reasoning. It's not like microsoft has ever been a paragon of virtue or humility. They are both self-interested corporations that look out for their own interests at all times, regardless of consequence. In the past, Nintendo has demonstrated similar behaviour. None of them are angels, they are all the basically the same.
I don't have a Wii, PS3 or 360 and I'm not likely to own any of them any time soon. I could afford to buy all three if I wanted, but I what I have today is enough for the forseeable future. I expect that I will get a next-gen console at some point, but my decision will be based on the games. I will get the system that plays the games I want to play.
Sony's behaviour does not alter whether the PS3 is a good gaming system or not. It provides value for the money or it doesn't, and the same goes for the Wii or 360. It's only entertainment and the vendors are equivalently malevolent. So go out and purchase what you want and have fun. There's no need for mental gymnastics to persuade yourself or anyone else that one decision is better than the alternatives.
(However, the fact that a slashdotter would sooner do business with microsoft than Sony is more than a little amusing!)
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?