60GB PS3 Price Cut Not Just a 'Fire Sale'

Heffenfeffer writes "Those excited about the $100 price cut that the 60 GB PS3 recently received should act quickly — according to an interview from SCEE president David Reeves: 'All they're doing is taking their stock in trade that they've got at the moment of the 60GB model, marking the price down and it will all be gone by the end of July.' When asked if the 60GB PS3 would be no more after the fire sale, he confirmed, 'In America, yes ... what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD $599 version with one game.'" Meanwhile, the EU won't be getting the 80GB system at all. Instead, they'll be getting a new starter pack bundle pack with two games and an extra controller for the same cost as the current system on its own (£425, or $862). Update: 07/13 17:17 GMT by Z : Okay ... it's really challenging to understand what's going on when Sony as an entity is saying two different things. Despite the above coming from a Sony executive, it looks like this is completely untrue. Says a Sony of America spokesperson: "SCEA has reacted with puzzlement to the European perspective, suggesting that there may have been an incorrect interpretation. The spokesperson said, 'Those quotes from David Reeves are not accurate.'"

Comments

I just dont get it

[pl1ght]

OK, i am usually one of the first ones to defend sony, and how much i love my PS3(which i do). But this is just too much. How can sony honestly be that stupid. Unless we are missing something and they are going to drop the 80gb model down to 499 after the 60gb is phased out this makes no sense at all. Why announce this after you have an amazing showing at E3 and then screw it all up with bad PR like this. Really ridiculous.

Re:I just dont get it

[RamblinLonghorn]

Agreed. The 100$ price cut just becomes a publicity stunt aimed at hyping the press in advance of E3. Combined with Microsoft's admission of the defects in the 360, the PS3 price cut had many people thinking that momentum had shifted. Now I personally see Sony as desperate. Even stranger is that the European market was told they would not get a 100$ price cut, but that they would get an announced bundle of a 60gb system, 2 controllers and 2 games for the standard same price. This seems like the way the North American model should have been handled.

Re:I just dont get it

[Applekid]

Pricewise, the EU market's been getting the shaft anyway. So I'm pleased for those across the pond can get a better deal.

The thing is that there have been some loud voices from Konami and Capcom that say even a $100 cut is too little. Now there really it looks like it's still $600. Hasn't Hideo been kicking around the idea of going multiplatform on MGS4 if the price wasn't dropped?

Re:I just dont get it

[Cerberus911]

That bundle is probably a way for SONY to get rid of all their rumble-less controllers before they announce their new vibrating ones.

Re:I just dont get it

[coop247]

It sure seems like a misstatement to me, or at least I really hope it was. This guy is in charge of Europe, and the America comment went by pretty quickly without any sort of explanation. He was trying to defend the Europe package, and did so pretty poorly.

Re:I just dont get it

[_xeno_]

Even better is the admission that they're phasing out the PS3 model with "100% backwards compatibility" to replace it with one with "88%" compatibility. (I'm not sure what that 88% figure means, but it's what the guy said in the interview. Percent of games that work? Percent of PS2 emulated? He didn't say.)

Then there's this quote:

[GamesIndustry.biz:] But you're still asking people to commit GBP 425 to a games console. Isn't there a problem with the perception that that's an awful lot of money to shell out?

It is, but surprisingly, people are paying that amount of money for it.

It's like he's just begging for people to hate Sony. I don't get it.

Re:I just dont get it

[MeanderingMind]

I know you're excited that the PS3 has been topping Amazon.com's bestselling list for video games. It is something to be happy about, but think about the context.

1. At #4 is the Wii, which as of this comment Amazon doesn't have stocked save for random people selling their own.
2. This is one online store amoung many others physical and virtual. Individual store sales vary, even on a day to day basis within the same store.

Like I said, it's a milestone, but it isn't as damning for Sony's competitors as an NPD report would be.

Re:I just dont get it

[SP33doh]

I don't have a PS3 yet, but I really want one, both for the games coming out this fall, and for blu ray. but before, I was just planning on waiting until this fall, once the games I want are actually out, but now? I think I might go out and get one now, so I can save $100

it's pushing the console into homes, they don't want to lower the price, but they want it in homes as quickly as they can get it there. This accomplishes that goal, without forcing them to lower prices long-term.

Re:I just dont get it

[Opportunist]

The 88% is probably the average amount of a game you play through before it freezes for good and toasts your safegames in the process.

Re:I just dont get it

[Darundal]

No, "spinning" words, in this case, would be taking a comment out of context by ignoring some other part of the statement that wholly changes the meaning. In this case, there isn't anything that would change what that would mean in what they have said, and looking at a literal interpretation of the words meaning, which is what you are doing, is spinning it. Now, whether everyone out there is correct, or you are, as to what was meant by the statement doesn't change the fact that your statement, at this point, is spin. There is no other reason for that statement other than to indicate that the 60 gigabyte model will not be sold in the US. Hence, the widespread belief that they are going to be discontinuing the model in the US.

Re:I just dont get it

[NonSequor]

Let me know when the PS3 goes back over 100k per month for North America.

Re:I just dont get it

[Kazzahdrane]

You're a moron. His comment wasn't fanboy-fueled, he was observing that the Sony guy's reply expressed surprise that customers in the EU would pay such a price. Makes him seem a little....evil. (Note: I'm not a fanboy, I was pretty heavily anti-Sony until this week when I think they had the best E3 keynote and showed a few games that I really want to play and are only available on PS3)

Re:I just dont get it

[wolfing]

Sheesh, whatever happened to good ol' "one model fits all", simple and easy to understand? I don't remember deciding which Atari to get, or which Intellivision, or which Nintendo, or which PS2, or which Xbox. Why do they have to have 12 models depending on your sex and eye color? I thought one of the main advantages of the consoles over PC was exactly that, one hardware configuration. Maybe that's why Wii is so popular (or are there several versions of Wii too?)

Re:I just dont get it

[tkrotchko]

This move was predictable. The U.S. and Japanese consoles came out first with full PS/2 compatibility, the EU version had the software emulator. Since a reason to drop the PS/2 chips was to save cost, it was inevitable a new rev in the U.S. would not have the PS/2 hardware chips.

The PS3's made now are more desirable if you care about backwards compatibility.

Re:I just dont get it

[Fred Ferrigno]

1. At #4 is the Wii, which as of this comment Amazon doesn't have stocked save for random people selling their own. Amazon is still selling Wiis directly. (It's how I got mine.) They only get a few in every once in a while, just like every other retailer. Usually it only takes a few minutes before they sell out. They're selling absolutely all the stock they get. The only reason the Wii isn't any higher on the list is because they can't get enough to meet demand.

Re:I just dont get it

[tgibbs]

I ordered a PS3 from Amazon. But if they'd had in in stock, I'd have ordered a Wii and waited on the PS3.

Re:I just dont get it

[AK Marc]

Yes, the PS3 is just above the Wii, which isn't even available.

Re:I just dont get it

[ravenshrike]

?? I don't think anyone's been saying the PS3 will be a 'danger' to the Wii at all. In fact, nintendo will probably come out with another console before the PS3 surpasses Wii sales. If it ever does, given that Nintendo played this round extremely well. That being said, it IS a danger to the 360, especially with mouse/keyboard compatibility, which means that you can theoretically have console/PC multiplayer without dumbing down the game like you must do for Live.

Re:I just dont get it

[badasscat]

How can sony honestly be that stupid. Unless we are missing something and they are going to drop the 80gb model down to 499 after the 60gb is phased out this makes no sense at all.

And that is what they're planning to do, mark my words. I think Reeves unintentionally just let that cat out of the bag.

The $499 price point is not going back up; that would be catastrophic. Nobody raises prices on a game console; it just never happens. Especially not a system that's struggling.

On the other hand, Sony has a bunch of 60GB systems still lying around, while it seems their 80GB systems are the new standard model in production. So hey, how about we drop the price $100 and sell the 80GB alongside it for an *extra* $100 while we clear the 60GB's out? Sony wins all the way around - they pocket that extra $100 for as long as the 60GB model still exists, then after the 60GB model is cleared out, they can drop the 80GB to $499 and still not lose (much) money given the cost savings of removing things like hardware BC.

So, you hit it. Once the 60GB units are out of the pipeline, the 80GB unit drops to $499. Sony gets to play it off as another price drop, and jump-start sales again without *really* doing anything. Their developers are happy, their consumers are happy, they get a bunch of positive PR.

Of course, one guy like David Reeves or whatever his name is can easily throw all those plans out the window. That guy probably just cost Sony millions of dollars with his moronic comment, because now people like me will just wait for the 80GB to drop in price, and other people end up just getting scared off the PS3 altogether for the time being.

Re:I just dont get it

[thebonafortuna]

Hey, I have what might sound like a stupid question, but here goes:

I was always curious why PS1 games didn't seem to load or play any better on a PS2...then I came to find out the PS2 was actually using the same chip set for backwards compatibility. Then it all seemed to make sense.
I figured the same thing would be the case with the PS3 playing PS2 games - using the same chip set, the PS3 would play PS2 games the same as the PS2 did. But now that this specific chip set is being removed, being replaced instead with emulation software to play older games...does this mean the games might actually load faster?

I mean, if its using better hardware, why not? Or will the emulation software have (by necessity) handicaps built it which prevents this from happening? Why or why not?

Re:I just dont get it

[NoodleSlayer]

If you're going to make a complete idiot of yourself why don't you at least get the country right?

If you didn't happen to notice he was referring to the UK pricing regime for the PS3... And if you look at the Amazon UK site:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/videogames/

You'll notice the PS3 is currently coming in at #27, behind a number of Xbox 360 and Wii games, not to mention the DS handheld.

Re:I just dont get it

[_xeno_]

Yeah, you had to enable them because they broke some games (apparently) and enabling them involved the most braindead, convoluted set of steps, making it almost easier not to.

1. Open the disc tray. This causes the PS2 to boot to the browser.
2. Press Triangle to open System Information. (Not the System Configuration option!)
3. Select PlayStation Driver, and press Triangle to open its options.
4. Switch Disc Speed to "Fast" and Texture Mapping to "Smooth."
5. Press Circle twice to return to the root menu.
6. Select Browser.
7. Select the game.

These options are not saved since they apparently could cause problems with some games, so every time you want to enable them, you have to go through this process.

Re:I just dont get it

[Mark Gillespie]

It's actually 97% for hardware and 92% for software emulation. (based on EU titles). That may be better when the US model launches, as the software BC in the EU models has risen from 88% with firmware 1.60 to 92% with 1.80 firmware. (forgetting the 1.70, which broke MGS), if they can improve it by the same margin again before next month, then you will be talking 96% vs 97%.

Also, I like hoe the article implies SCEE used the term Firesale. That is purely a Xbot addition...

If you want a $499 PS3, go down an buy one this weekend, if not, shut the fuck up.

Foiled again?

[Applekid]

I wonder if their plan included possibly forcing Microsoft to cut the price on the 360 (and announce that at e3) and rubbing salt in that wound since Microsoft's game division lost money and with that $1 billion warranty extention deal.

Didn't go that way, obviously, so, maybe my imagination for dark smoke filled conference rooms at Sony is running wild again.

Re:Foiled again?

[Amouth]

the sad part is MS has done two warranty extentions.. while yes the 360 seems to fail alot and MS is going to lose alot of money.. i can say one thing.. they are saving face and are doing a good job.. if i was going to get a consol it would be either A: a 360 or B: a Wii (if they add dvd playback and i could find one) - but i refuse to let my self own a consol cause it would be a very bad thing for me

Re:Foiled again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has always been and always will be irrelevant to Sony's pricing plans for the Playstation. There is one thing and one thing only that dictates Playstation price cuts - manufacturing cost.

We already know that there have been dramatic cost cuts in BluRay drive components - the diodes being the major savings having come down from some 100 dollars to around 10 as of a few months ago. And 60 gig drives are being phased out by drive manufactures leading to them becoming more expensive and leading Sony to move to the now cheaper 80 gig drives. And the next big cost cutting move is 65nm later this year.

Microsoft is selling to the very same people who bought the first Xbox - actually a bit less most likely due to the huge defect problems turning former Xbox owners away. Sony doesn't care about the fairly small section of the console market. Sony's PS2 is still outselling the 360 - in other words there are more Playstation owners being added every month in the US than Xbox owners. Those are the people Sony is working on getting the price down to 499, then 399, then 299 and so on over the next five years. Manufacturing cost reduction is and always will be Sony's focus.

Re:Foiled again?

[MeanderingMind]

We already know that there have been dramatic cost cuts in BluRay drive components - the diodes being the major savings having come down from some 100 dollars to around 10 as of a few months ago.

I'd like to read more about this, can you fire a few links my way? I'm looking forward to blue laser pointers that don't cost an arm and a leg.

Re:Foiled again?

[Macthorpe]

The turnaround for console replacement is less than a month. They say two weeks maximum to receive and two weeks maximum to return it.

So even if it did fail (the new consoles already have the issue fixed, so less likely now), your assertion that you'll wait 'months' for a replacement is false.

Re:Foiled again?

[cbreaker]

No, it's only been that some of the new refurb units have been outfitted with better cooling parts. There's been no indication of NEW units having the "fix." Eventually, they will do this on newly manufactured units, and eventually this will trickle down the retail market.. maybe by 2008.

It's still a month to get it replaced. And it sucks, because there's no guarantee your data will be saved, and the 360 provides no way to back up all your data.

Re:Foiled again?

[DrXym]

Nah, I think Sony are genuinely going to stick with the $499 price point. It's just they're not going to piss on sales of the 60Gb console by announcing what will replace it. Doing an "Osborne" on themselves wouldn't be too smart. I expect once the 60Gb consoles are gone you'll see an unbundled console on sale. They may sweeten the bundled version by including a rumble controller, or HDMI or some other trinkets to encourage people to pay more but I think it's fairly likely that $499 is here to stay.

Re:Foiled again?

[LWATCDR]

Some how I don't think Sony is really worrying about Microsoft unless they fear that they might eventually start making headway in the Japanese market. And I really don't think that Microsoft is too worried about a PS3 price cut since they are out selling the PS3 in every market but Japan.
They are both chasing Nintendo at this point.

Sony and to some extent Microsoft's problems are actually the same problem. They planned for to use this generation of Game consoles as trojan horse. They both planned on making their systems your home entertainment systems. Sure they played games but they also let you watch videos, DVDs, Listen to music, surf the web, and goodness knows what else. What they didn't worry about was Nintendo. They wrote off Nintendo because all they where interested in was video games.
Look at the PSP compared to the DS. The PSP can play movies and music, surf the web, and all sorts of good stuff. All the DS does is play games. You can get movie players and music players for your DS but they are not super popular.

Frankly I don't think Microsoft or Sony where dumb. I can see the PS3 and or the 360 being used for IPTV and content delivery. I just think they rushed it. Games are about having fun. The Wii is more fun. More people seem to enjoy it. That makes it the best console as sales show.
For those "Hard core" gamers that hate the Wii. Don't buy one well at least until you see a game that you must have for it. I will probably buy a PS3 went the price drops down to 199 in a few years that is unless it doesn't have any fun games.

Re:Foiled again?

[Mondoz]

"Doing an "Osborne" on themselves wouldn't be too smart."

Their recent PR history suggests that 'do the smart thing' isn't exactly their current mission statement.

I'd really like a PS3, but just when I think about actually getting one, they do something like this that really turns me off.

Re:Foiled again?

[JLennox]

Can people stop saying that it's going to cost Microsoft $1,000,000,000? It's a speculated and unrealistic figure.

Re:Foiled again?

[blighter]

It was much faster than that when mine failed.

I was afraid that it would be a month or more, as you've stated, that it would mean weeks worth of waiting on shipping and fixing and god-only knows what. I mean, it was a free fix and you get what you pay for, right?

But the guy on the phone swore that they use 2-day (I think it was) shipping and that the turn-around time in the shop was less than 5 days. And he was right. I got the box a couple of days after my convo with him and shipped it out on a Friday, had a new working (so far...) model back by the next Friday. Call it 10 days total without a box. Not ideal, certainly, but pretty respectable. I was pleased.

Re:Foiled again?

[blighter]

Actually, when you ship in a broken box to be fixed you ship only the actual box, you remove the hard-drive and any peripherals you might have like a memory card. So you're data should be fine on the hard-drive or your memory card.

If it locked up in the middle of your game session you'll probably lose that session's worth of data but, really, that's kind of unavoidable.

Re:Foiled again?

[KDR_11k]

MS did a temporary pricedrop in Europe (300€ for the Premium) for a few weeks starting witht he PS3 launch. I think the price went back up because they found out that the PS3 was no real threat. The 360 Premium has 1-2 bundled games and a second controller at most places here for the standard 400€ price, the 300€ one came without those of course.

Re:Foiled again?

[Amouth]

personaly i would (for the first time in my life) go to best buy and get their exchange waranty so i could jsut go down there - throw it at them and grab a new one.... for like 50$ you can get it and it lasts 2 years past the MS waranty.. so that is what.. 5 years now.. personaly i hope we evolve to something new in that time frame..

crap i used MS and evolve in the same post - damnit did it again - someone shoot me now...

Seems likley to stick...

[SuperKendall]

I imagine when they clear out 60GB consoles, the free game (Motorstorm) will be dropped from the 80GB model and that price will be reduced. That actually seems like a pretty good path because you wouldn't be too upset if you had bought the 60GB model and the 80GB model was the same price a few weeks later, without the free game you passed on...

Re:Seems likley to stick...

[Aladrin]

Yeah, that's why the European PS3's are going down in price... Oh wait, they aren't.

As noted in the 'article', this is just a tactic to clear the old PS3's off the shelf while a new model of the same price is brought out. It would be extremely embarrassing to have 60gb PS3's on the shelf next year, with the better 80gb one selling like crazy. They want them gone.

So why the same price? Because they cost Sony the same price (or less). They dropped the PS2 hardware from inside and added a few GB HD space and a game.

They aren't going to drop a game that costs them almost nothing at this point (marginal cost blah blah) and drop the price $100. Don't forget that Nintendo usually includes a game with their consoles as well, and they're less than half the price.

Re:Seems likley to stick...

[PrescriptionWarning]

the big question is.. why all the fuss over a piddly 20GB upgrade??? The only thing that would make sense is if its cheaper for them to put the 80GB versions together since 60 GB drives are not as mass produced.

Either way, they're selling the unit at a couple hundred bucks too much.

Re:Seems likley to stick...

[SuperKendall]

You forget the new 80GB model is substantially cheaper to produce, because it lacks the PS2 emulation hardware and also has other components that have been reduced in price through volume (like the blu-ray diodes). Thus they earn a nice profit on it for now, and when it becomes $499 later they make more per system (or at least do not lose as much) as they do with today's 60GB PS3.

Simply put, I don't think Sony would raise the price again. And that's what Sony USA is saying.

If I were MS

[svendsen]

I would cut the xbox 360 (all versions) by $50 and say this is a permanent move. Would put sony on the defensive.

Re:If I were MS

[the computer guy nex]

Why? 3 major releases coming in the 3rd and 4th quarters this year.

1)Madden. Non exclusive, but will move a few more customers to the "next-gen".
2)GTA4. Microsoft has exclusive content, and they will make sure customers know it prior to release. It will sell many 360s.
3)Halo3. Probably the most popular next-gen exclusive behind Twilight Princess. This will move a ton of xboxs.

The extended warranty is an investment (IMO) to pull in people moving to next-gen this Christmas who may be on the fence. With $300 and $400 versions available, along with good value bundles of Halo, they don't need a price cut.

Re:If I were MS

[cbreaker]

Be sure that the exclusive content is going to be no big deal, and it will be available for the PS3 as well in the future; in fact they did say they would do different things for the PS3 version. Calling this a selling point for the 360 is ridiculous; it's even more ridiculous then one of those "exclusive for three months" titles both systems have coming.

Re:If I were MS

[SparkyFlooner]

"Be sure that the exclusive content is going to be no big deal, and it will be available for the PS3 as well in the future; in fact they did say they would do different things for the PS3 version. Calling this a selling point for the 360 is ridiculous"

Soul Caliber 2 for XBox had Spawn. Soul Caliber 2 for GameCube had Link. Soul Caliber 2 for PS2 had ...that Tekken dude.

Spawn, Link, or Tekken dude? Hmm...I'd call those selling points.

I wanted Link, so I bought the GameCube version, even though I had an XBox and a PS2 as well. Exclusive content of the same game can make a difference.

Re:If I were MS

[MagusSlurpy]

I believe Sony already *is* on the defensive. This is clearly a tactic to get people to go, "Oh no, the cheap PS3s are going to sell out, I'd better buy one!" What people forget is that there are a couple hundred thousand systems sitting on store shelves right now, while many people *still* can't find Wiis. . .

Re:If I were MS

[*weasel]

I don't even think Microsoft has to worry about Sony at this point. Sony's too busy shooting themselves in the foot over and over.
Apparently, the only reason their E3 announcements went over faily well, was because they'd paused to reload.

Microsoft would be better suited pricing the 360 core to compete with the Wii and reinvigorate sales in the premium.
(sales numbers have been falling off; they're pretty close to the limit on people willing to spend $400 for a console).

Re:If I were MS

[Belgand]

Frankly the exclusive content that wins out for me is the ability to use a mouse and keyboard. I've played all of the GTA3 games on the PC and I have some trouble imaging how I could possibly control it properly with a gamepad (huh... they have lock-on? Those poor bastards....) well... sometimes some of the fine motor control (e.g. flying in San Andreas) would be nice, but better aiming and movement generally make up for it. Along with consistently better graphics.

They may not have announced it yet, but the series started on the PC and based on past performance it will be coming out about six months later.

Re:If I were MS

[Fozzyuw]

Apparently, the only reason their E3 announcements went over faily well, was because they'd paused to reload.

If only I had mod points left! That was funny.

Re:If I were MS

[LWATCDR]

Isn't Madden on the Wii supposed to one of the games that make good use of the Wii controller?
If that is true then I wouldn't be surprised to see Madden move more people to the Wii.

Re:If I were MS

[thebonafortuna]

I think I read somewhere that is actually the plan for the 360...except the Elite will drop by $80. Not sure if that was confirmed out not though. Something about the system "not meeting sales expectations"...?

Re:If I were MS

[ucblockhead]

Yeah, Microsoft has to worry more about the fact that their game division has never done anything but bleed cash.

Damn

[Alzheimers]

...and they were this close to winning me over with games like EchoChrome and LittleBigPlanet. Guess now I'll have more time (and Money) for Bioshock, Super Mario Galaxy, Assassin's Creed, Fallout 3, Metroid Prime 3, Mass Effect, Rock Band, Halo3, Hellgate, Starcraft II, Gears of War...

(get the point here, sony?)

Re:Damn

[Alzheimers]

The point I was *trying* to make was that there are plenty of options coming down the pipe for the rest of this year. While the price cut alone might not have influenced me into buying an PS3, their library is getting interesting enough that it might have pushed me (and many other consumers) over the edge.

Gamers have a lot to be happy about this year -- an over-abundance of choice is not a bad problem to have. It's really only bad for Sony, trying to woo gamers who have already invested in a console or two into getting one more. Their Blu-ray format might be outselling HD-DVD 2:1, but they're still orders of magnitude lower than the numbers in DVD. As downloadable content becomes more prevalent (see also: MS's deal with Disney) they need to refocus on gamers, and I think Nintendo has shown the grossly underestimated casual market is one such target. Games like EchoChrome and LBP are the inroads, but you're not gonna win any fans in that segment until they show a willingness to play nice with the price. The announced cuts were a bold step (tho not quite enough) and by rescinding that price point the bait-n-switch is gonna turn off a lot of already reluctant consumers.

If I owned Sony, I'd drop the price to 399 right now, add a billing structure to their online service, and put the entire Sony movie library for download ASAP. MS is already making a killing with Live and the VC on the Wii is a huge draw to the system. Free online content is a great selling point, but Live has shown that a subscription plan won't get rejected out of hand. Even if Sony swallows a huge(er) chunk of the upfront cost, the real money in this generation is going to come in the form of micropayments for downloadable content. Since Sony has announced that they're going to be selling retail titles (not minigames) via download, they're going to poison their retail model even further.

It's about time one of the big three makes the jump to digital distribution. Sony looks to be out of the gate, but without the established install base their "retail partners" like EB are going to become less and less interested in giving them floorspace when they're not making the profits from sales (and resales) of shiny plastic disks. It's make or break time, and if they don't get burned by the customers, their distributers are going to leave them out in the cold.

Re:Damn

[cbreaker]

You just don't have the numbers right. Microsoft has sold only about 10 million 360's. Nintendo has sold less consoles then that, and the PS3 behind that. However, Sony sold 120+ million Playstation 2 units. So, they really don't need to get people that own an Xbox 360 to buy a PS3. There's plenty more customers out there to be had. They want to compete with games and features, but they don't need to woo existing console owners.

The retail market.. does it matter anymore? Why cares? Most titles will still be available at the stores; at least until the PS4 and Xbox 1080 come out. Accessories and systems will still be at stores. Should we ignore the fact that the Internet exists because some guy wants to keep his EB games store in business? It's called progress. If I can download a game to the hard drive and run it from there, faster and better then a disc, then that's what I'll do. Valve has been using their Steam system for online distribution of full games for some time now, and I don't see anyone losing money over it.

Re:Damn

[Alzheimers]

MS might have "only" sold 10 Million units, but those "early adopters" are going to include a big portion of the hardcore gamers that Sony's struggling with them to target. How many exclusive titles are there that make the PS3 a necessary investment for someone who already has a X360? If the PS3 is going to compete on titles and features, Sony need to sweeten the pot with a lower priced SKU, simple as that.

Now, what about the consumer who hasn't made the leap to the current gen yet? Sony Fanbois are an easy sell, but Mom and Pop Consumer aren't. If he or she is looking at a majority of titles that are cross-platform and make their purchase decision by the up-front cost the 360 is clearly the better purchase. If Sony wants to "woo" consumers with features and games, they need exclusives and to push the *hell* out of their Home service which is just not very compelling at the console's current price. While HDTV is becoming more common it's still not the majority -- most owners are of the Early Adopter variety and probably have at least one current gen console, see above -- so these latecomers won't be swayed by the "benefits" of Blu-Ray movies, especially at a $10 premium over DVD, so that's practically a non-feature.

If the numbers are to be believed there are still 2m unsold PS3 units in the retail channels. That can't be making stores very happy about dedicating warehouse, stockroom and floorspace to their hardware and software. Now that Sony's going to be distributing digitally, the big chains are being cut further and further out of the picture. If Sony's going to further alienate their "partners" by screwing with the prices, how well will the PS3 fare when the only way to buy one will be online? Amazon might be thrilled, but BestBuy, EB, Circuit City, and the Big W certainly won't be.

Re:Damn

[cbreaker]

You must be living in a dream world.

The big early adopter crowd doesn't hold as much weight as you may think. They're likely to buy all the systems anyways.

And yes, it's ONLY 10 million. Did you not read the number I posted? Sony sold ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY MILLION (there, I spelled it out for you) Playstation 2 systems. That means there's a huge market out there, and it's only getting bigger. And that also means that the market is not just for people that can't handle any games besides the Wii games.

One of the biggest questions I ever get when someone sees my PS3 or I tell them I have one, is "Ohh, how do the movies look on that thing!" You say the Blu-Ray disc issue is a non-starter. That's complete bullshit; straight from your ass. It's a huge selling point, and a very, very common question. And are you kidding me? Besides the people that buy HDTV's and yet still watch all SD TV, people want to use their HDTV's as high definition sets. Do you actually think that nobody that buys HDTV's with high definition movies in mind? And even if all movies were an extra $10 (which they're not always) you don't think it's worth getting a movie with much better detail, potentially much better sound, and cooler features, that will make full use of your HD system? Not to mention the fact that squabbling over $10 isn't really that sane when it comes to people that buy these new game systems and TV's to match.

You say "Up front cost of the 360" - yea, that's exactly it, isn't it. Up Front cost. Because with the PS3, you don't have to buy a separate Hard Drive (for the cheap model, or to get more then a measly 20GB) or Wifi (for the cheap model) or expensive memory cards (you can use cheap-o-matic cards of varying type on the PS3) or an HD Disc player that sits.. on top or next to the 360 awkwardly.

Again you harp on the retail market issue. Microsoft sells lots of small games on their Live system, and Sony does it with the PS3. Because games are large, I don't expect to see a huge number of titles available via PSN anytime soon, but even if they do.. it only helps bring in sales. You want this game? Pay here and wait 15 minutes on your couch. The money is in online sales, if the past decade of the Internet has taught you anything at all.

If you actually think stores would stop stocking PS3's because some games are available online, then I know you're just trying to spread bullshit.

Re:Damn

[gamer4Life]

Yeah, that you're a Microsoft fanboy that also happens to have the Wii.

Hear that?

[BlueParrot]

That is the sound of another champagne bottle being opened over at Nintendo ...

Seriously. It starts looking as if Sony WANTS to lose Europe.

Re:Hear that?

[Tol Dantom]

Yeah, it really seems like they're locked in a box with no windows over at Sony HQ. It took a $100 price cut to start to turn the overwhelmingly negative vocal consumer response, now people are ready to buy if only there were some games, but before they can get things going they announce that they're going to ruin it ahead of time. What is wrong with these people? Deny good things vehemently but rushing to tell the bad news must be some new form of corporate Tourettes syndrome.

Re:Hear that?

[Opportunist]

I'm from Europe. Who or what is Sony?

Re:Hear that?

[eison]

Lose Europe? I thought this was their scheme to lose *everywhere*.
How can I make an informed buying decision if they seem intent on lying to me constantly? The price is dropping. No it isn't. Yes it is. Not! Never. No way. Maybe. Not at all, definitely not. Hey, it just dropped. Except it is only existing stock. No it isn't...

Re:Hear that?

[AK Marc]

How can I make an informed buying decision if they seem intent on lying to me constantly?

They said the price dropped, and it did. There's no lying in that. They haven't "officially" announced whether this is temporary or permanent, so what is this "lie" of which you speak?

Price cut?

[MeanderingMind]

In effect, the bar of entry is now $100 more than it was before the "price cut".

Sony is making the same mistake they made when the PS3 first launched, they're trying to cram too much into the system. Your average customer is not someone who wants $600 package deals, however value-worthy they are. They had the opportunity to have a system, the 20gb version, as low as $400. Maybe its "gimp", but that would certainly give the Sony crowd something to fire back about system costs.

The PS3 seems destined to remain the luxury system this generation, with every car analogy applicable. At $600, the system is not going to achieve the same userbase as either of its competitors. It'll do well in its own right, but that's all.

Re:Price cut?

[MeanderingMind]

If you have an official announcement from Sony stating the 80gb PS3 will drop to $499 once the 60gb is gone, please share it. As it stands, the summary states that once the 60gb PS3 is gone (purportedly by August 1st) there will only be the $600 80gb model. That's what I'm going by until Sony announces something else.

Re:Price cut?

[Aladrin]

How do you figure that? The 20gb model hasn't existed almost since launch. The 'bar of entry' has been $600 for months. It'll be $600 again in August, once the 60gb models sell out. (Assuming Sony can actually sell them.)

Looks pretty obvious to me

[dilvish_the_damned]

They have to wait a bit before anouncing the price drop of the 80GB player or it would just piss you off that you just spent the same money for the 60GB model. If you want a 60GB model, buy it, if you don't, dont. If you really want an 80GB model, and that extra $100 pisses you off that much, then wait for November.
Myself I will be going down the Compucenter and upgrading my 60GB model to the 160GB model for $80 (its the little panel on the side that says "HDD").

Avoiding cannibalism/Future strategy

[vigmeister]

I think sony figured (as we did) that nobody would buy the 80GB version if they got a 60 gig version for a 100 dollars lesser. My feeling is that they'll keep trying to sell it at $600 with a game (worth - according to Sony - $60) and then come Christmas, move down to $500 and maybe release a higher capacity version (250 gig anyone?) for $600. Of course, it is also possible that the price structure will change to a $400/$500 business model around Xmas if PS3 doesn't become the shit then owing to their games (they are probably counting on this). Alternatively, if the PS3 DOES become the shit, then they don't have to price-cut the 80GB version (bad move in terms of economies of scale IMHO). The way they are probably buying these 80g HDDs from their EMSes needs for them to adopt a few different business strategies and I think this current move is just for them to adapt and study the trends of pricing using 60gb HDDs that they're possibly no longer ordering.

Cheers!

Oh well

[Orion_]

So, given that they've crippled the backward compatibility on the 80GB model, that I'm not ready to drop $500 on a system that doesn't (yet) have any games I want to play, that I still want to play my PS/PS2 games, and that I already have too many consoles littering the space around my TV, I guess I'm just never going to be getting one.

Oh well, just means more money to blow on Wii/360 games...

Re:Oh well

[typobox43]

Even in the linked article, the Sony exec admits that the software BC only supports about 88% of games compared to 100% for the hardware version. So, if you own one of those 12%, it most certainly does not work "just fine".

Re:Oh well

[Dr Kool, PhD]

88% right now, soon to be 100%. I'd rather play 88% of my games in 1080p and wait a few months for the final 12% than play 100% of my games in crappy 480p.

Re:Oh well

[Orion_]

Okay, I admit it. I'm pissed off at Sony, and perhaps I used some harsh language. I'm mad because they have just announced that they will no longer make a product that I was considering buying someday, and that they are replacing it with a model that, at the same price, removes a feature that I considered very important. And this makes me a "FanBoy" and, worse, a "dick". Yeah, real nice. Who's the fanboy here?

One look at Sony's own compatibility list puts the lie to "90% compatible". A lot of games work well, but many of them don't. I don't want to have to guess which games will play perfectly, which will play with "some issues" (which is frankly unacceptable to me), and which won't work at all.

Of course, if they someday improve their software to perfectly run all the PS2 games I want, then I will gladly eat my words. But I really don't see it happening, and IMHO anyone that claims that this will ever be as compatible as having the PS2 hardware is fooling themselves. I could see emulating a PS1, but for PS2 games, they're going to have to do some Xbox360-style "emulation", and even if they put more effort into it than Microsoft did, there will always be problems with that.

And why should I stay out of PS3 discussions just because I don't own one and no longer intend to buy one? The "fucking problem" is that I wanted one. Now I don't, at least not until there are enough good PS3 games that I'm willing to replace one of my other consoles.

And, by the way, the reason I didn't care about the 360's horrid "backward compatibility" is because I never owned an Xbox. If Xbox720 (or whatever) has the same problems the 360 did, I'll react the same way.

Re:Oh well

[cbreaker]

You don't have to guess - you yourself just posted their compatibility list. I don't know why it's unacceptable to you that nearly every single PS/PS2 game made in the last decade will run great on a brand new console. It's unprecedented compatibility; more so then any Microsoft OS upgrade has ever provided.

I know it's a real bitch that Madden 2001 plays fine with some graphical glitches. Dammit, I need Celebrity Deathmatch to work PERFECTLY!!! And I just know all the kids want to play NHL '98 like it was dreamed to be.

Backward compatibility is new. Sony was the first company to do it on a game console. They did extremely well with the PS3 in this regard, too. You're just bitching because you want to bitch at something.

Re:Oh well

[Alzheimers]

88% right now, soon to be 100%.

You should ask X-Box/360 owners about hopes like that.

Re:Oh well

[Orion_]

I know it's a real bitch that Madden 2001 plays fine with some graphical glitches. Dammit, I need Celebrity Deathmatch to work PERFECTLY!!! And I just know all the kids want to play NHL '98 like it was dreamed to be.

How about we pick some games people might actually want to play? Like, to take one system-selling franchise at random.. Final Fantasy. Looks like, from the list, that if you want to play the PS2 FF games, how well it works is pretty much a crapshoot, depending on what version of the game you happen to have. FF9 has "minor issues", FF8 has "noticeable issues", and FF7 isn't on the list at all. I own most of these games, so it looks like I won't be able to get rid of my PS2 anytime soon, whether or not I get a PS3.

It's unprecedented compatibility; more so then any Microsoft OS upgrade has ever provided.

It's not unprecedented. My Wii plays every GameCube game perfectly. My PS2 plays every PS1 game perfectly. My Atari 7800 plays Atari 2600 games perfectly. My sister's Gameboy Advance plays Gameboy and GB Color games perfectly, and her DS plays GBA games perfectly.

And, by the way, defending Sony by saying "hey, it's better than Microsoft" is hardly a convincing argument in this context.

Re:Oh well

[cbreaker]

The Wii *is a game cube.* The Atari 7800 was *almost* compatible with all 2600 games (not 100%) and the PS2 absolutely did NOT play every PS1 game perfectly. I don't own nor have I read much about any of the game boy units, so I can't really say much there (except that GB games, until the DS, were fairly simple machines.)

Minor issues on a game are just that, MINOR issues. You probably won't notice them. "Noticeable Issues" are some graphics glitches and such, that do NOT affect game play in any way.

You're being entirely too picky, and it's because you're a FAN BOY. Admit it! Well, okay, maybe you're not a fan boy - you're an ANTI-FAN BOY. You're a Fan Boy of the PS3 in the opposite sense.

Re:Oh well

[ravenshrike]

Your Wii plays GC games perfectly because all it IS is a souped up Wii. It's a great system, but apart from the motion sensing, there nothing NEW at all about the Wii itself.

Re:Oh well

[Orion_]

Your Wii plays GC games perfectly because all it IS is a souped up Wii.

Never claimed otherwise, was just responding to the claim that the cost-reduced PS3 provides "unprecedented" backwards compatibility. I suppose it would have sufficed to say that it couldn't be unprecedented because the original PS3 is much better at playing PS1/PS2 games.

Re:Oh well

[prockcore]

So, if you own one of those 12%, it most certainly does not work "just fine".

Not only that, but of those 88%, there are several that don't work as they were intended to play.

Guitar Hero 1 and 2 are labeled as working with no problems whatsoever.. but you can't play with the guitar, you have to play with the dualshock! Same goes for all the DDR games, and really every game that uses a peripheral.

good grief charlie brown...

[tomstdenis]

$600 for a video game console is still too much. Newsflash Sony, you suck. ... still waiting to get a Wii ...

Tom

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[brkello]

Ironic that Slashdotters can blast the price of a PS3...a machine with a cell processor and the ability to play BR...yet have no problem paying the same price for a cell phone that doesn't even have the ability to text message or very good call performance.

It isn't hard to get a Wii now if you really want one...stop trolling.

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[tomstdenis]

Actually if you checked my posting history I also blasted the iphone too.

So STFU. I'm all for toys, but people need perspective. "ooh a cell processor" so what. The wii with it's "lame" graphics still manages to entertain crowds at parties. And frankly more of my friends are into the Wii for it's approachability then they are into the xbox or playstation.

Sure shiny graphics are nice and all, but if the games don't entertain my friends what's the point? When I'm alone I can play games? woopy

Tom

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[tomstdenis]

Well it has several improvements you can't get in a game cube. therefore it's not a gamecube. It has more memory, a faster cpu/gpu, bluetooth, SD slot, and can use Motes. None of which the GC can.

And you don't think the Wii price will go down? I recall the GC being $300 when it was new. I believe Nintendo is trying to "make a profit" [good ol' econ 101] while demand is high.

Demand is low[er] for the PS3 so you'd think they'd adjust the price accordingly. Would you rather loose $100 to a sale made or $600 to a PS3 left on a shelf?

Tom

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[cbreaker]

It's an overclocked Game Cube with a new controller. Face it. All of the demo units up until WERE game cubes. They did their job well; they convinced millions of people that the Wii is a "Next Generation Console" and sold it for huge profits.

So, it's OKAY for Nintendo to make hand over fist on the Wii console sales, but it's bullshit for Sony to lose less money?

There's nothing especially wrong with either approach, but I can't believe Nintendo sells the Wii for that much money.

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[British]

It is funny. It is as if Sony REALLY wants to always have a console at $599. They'll find some way or another to add stuff to it(game, controllers, HD space), but bottom-line have $599 as that magic price point. Here comse the bundles!

Do they have some surplus of $599 stickers they really want to use up? Is there some superstition that the number 599 is lucky that I don't know about?

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[tomstdenis]

The Wii is sold at a profit. And it's not just an overclocked [hint: they're stable] GC. It also has the motes, SD slot, bluetooth, etc... and it's GC compatible.

The Wii is sold at a profit AND is cheaper than the PS3 AND is a better party console.

CONSOLE WARS!

Besides the PS3 is just an overclocked PS2.

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[Winckle]

Hey, not all slashdotters are one huge hivemind, the kind of person who thinks the PS3 is overpriced robably thinks that the iPhone is overpriced as well. I know I have both of those opinions.

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[trdrstv]

It's an overclocked GameCube with a new controller. Face it. All of the demo units up until WERE game cubes. They did their job well; they convinced millions of people that the Wii is a "Next Generation Console" and sold it for huge profits.

The Wii is an "Overclocked Gamecube" only if you consider a Pentium 4 an Over Clocked Pentium 3 (which it isn't). In fact an X-box 360 could be called an Overclocked Gamecube by the same logic. It is after all running on a PowerPC processer with an ATI GPU... The 360 would have more in common (technically) with the Gamecube than the original X-Box.

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[cbreaker]

No. The Wii is 100% hardware compatible with the Game Cube. It's got all the same parts, except that they're faster. Perhaps the new CPU has a few new features, but it's the same. The GPU is compatible. In fact, if you could, a Wii game would play on a GameCube, albiet a little slower. (only a couple months before launch, all the demo games and booths were powered by Game Cubes.)

And yea, the Xbox 360 DOES have more in common with the Game Cube then the original Xbox, which is why Xbox game compatibility on the 360 sucks ass. In fact, the 360 basically uses re-compiled binaries you can download to run the games on the 360, because the 360 CPU is not nearly fast enough to emulate a 733Mhz Pentium III in it's entirety.

Re:good grief charlie brown...

[fimbulvetr]

No offense but that analogy isn't so good. The PIII would and does smoke a comparably clocked PIV.

Re:Fire Sale?!

[_xeno_]

BRB, Ordering some Sony fire.

Ordering a spare laptop battery? (It had to be said.)

A stupid non-story

[DrXym]

Do people SERIOUSLY think Sony is going to hike the price up by $100 again? Of course they're not. They'll clear the 60Gb models out and then probably produce an unbundled version of the 80Gb model at the same price in time for Christmas.

This story is simply someone spreading shit.

Re:A stupid non-story

[samkass]

Agreed! Sony obviously did the right move with the $100 price cut-- The PS3 has led the Amazon "videogames" best-sellers list (with the Blu-Ray remote #2 and extra controller #3) ever since the announcement. They're not going to undo that.

On Amazon, the PS3 has been outselling the Wii since the price cut, and the XBox 360 is all the way down at #20. (Even the PS2 is outselling the XBox 360 on Amazon.)

Before people go nuts about never buying anything PS3/Sony/blah blah blah again, why don't you wait to see what ACTUALLY happens?

(It's also interesting that Blu-Ray remotes for PS3 appear to be selling more units than all the HD DVD players combined... another thing that Sony is not going to endanger with a boneheaded move...)

Re:A stupid non-story

[MeanderingMind]

Before people go nuts about never buying anything PS3/Sony/blah blah blah again, why don't you wait to see what ACTUALLY happens?

Probably the most sound idea I've read thus far.

This also goes for prognosticating further price drops. It would be really nice, but without an official announcement we just don't know.

Re:A stupid non-story

[uerunner]

You shouldn't be comparing the PS3 and Wii sales on Amazon. You can buy a PS3 for regular price (now $499), but all the Wiis available on Amazon are people reselling them with the current minimum cost after shipping of over $400. It's ridiculous to try to compare those two things in order to make a point.

This is not meant to be some fanboy comment looking to push the Wii, but just a math nerd pointing out the flaws in your logic.

Re:A stupid non-story

[drinkypoo]

Before people go nuts about never buying anything PS3/Sony/blah blah blah again, why don't you wait to see what ACTUALLY happens?

Uh, I didn't pledge never to buy Sony because the PS3 was expensive.

I made the decision because of their anti-freedom, closed mentality, their frequent attempts to create proprietary formats and leverage them to exert an undue level of control over the market and the general chilling effect that has on openness in general, and the results of their arrogance upon customer service.

The fact that most of their electronics are overpriced crap might have had something to do with it.

But come on. The PS3 is expensive specifically because of the Blu-Ray drive. The Cell processor is fast as hell, but few can argue against it making the PS3 the most complicated system to develop games for. Developers seemingly feel compelled to use as much of the Blu-Ray disc as possible (perhaps to justify the additional cost?) and this of course pushes the cost of game development higher.

Sony prevents you from utilizing the graphics hardware directly, locking you out of the hardware through a 'hypervisor'. They claim that this feature is there to prevent piracy but since they are almost certainly going to fail pretty much completely on that front (may have already, I'm not following PS3 modding because as you probably realized, as far as I'm concerned Sony can attempt aerial copulation with a ventrally rotating toroidal pastry) it's really there to prevent the homebrew scene from presenting the PS3 from being highly useful for any purpose that doesn't have Sony's blessing. It effectively makes Linux on the PS3 a curiosity (especially since you only get 256MB of system memory.)

So, you could use the PS3 for a media player, but I don't feel it's worth the price. And you could use it to play classic games through emulation, but there's a zillion cheaper ways to do that (like an Xbox, with or without Linux. Preferably without, because... have you tried the Genesis emulators available on Linux? Gah.)

Re:A stupid non-story

[samkass]

How else do you recommend one buy a Wii? If you eliminate the resales, I doubt the Wii would even be on the top-seller's list.

Re:A stupid non-story

[tgibbs]

Yes, I ordered a PS3 from Amazon. But if they'd had the Wii in stock, I'd definitely have ordered it instead.

Re:A stupid non-story

[trdrstv]

Yes, I ordered a PS3 from Amazon. But if they'd had the Wii in stock, I'd definitely have ordered it instead.

I could see an easy trade off between the 360, and PS3 and they both deliver in a fashion that one could substitute one for the other. The Wii however is a different animal. Is the Wii and PS3 really interchangeable in your view? or do you plan on getting both?

Re:A stupid non-story

[tgibbs]

From my perspective, the PS3 is a me-too machine, offering basically the same features that I already have on the XBox 360, with a weaker games library. It is of interest to me primarily as a BluRay player and secondarily for the (very) small number of exclusive games. The Wii is a far more unique system due to its innovative control mechanism. So if I could find the Wii at list price (I simply refuse to pay extra for bundles of crap that I don't want), I'd certainly have bought it instead of the PS3. I still might have bought the PS3 eventually, but I'd probably have waited at least for the next price cut.

Re:A stupid non-story

[Chris Burke]

Wal-mart's website has a good bundle that lets you select what games and accessories you want rather than forcing a pre-selected crap pile on you. It comes with an extra wiimote -- you did want two controllers right? -- so getting another nunchuck makes sense, and then I got 3 games I would have bought if I'd gotten a wii at retail anyway. Check your favorite wii tracker to see if they have it in stock.

Re:A stupid non-story

[tgibbs]

Wal-mart's website has a good bundle that lets you select what games and accessories you want rather than forcing a pre-selected crap pile on you. It comes with an extra wiimote -- you did want two controllers right? -- so getting another nunchuck makes sense, and then I got 3 games I would have bought if I'd gotten a wii at retail anyway. Check your favorite wii tracker to see if they have it in stock.

You're kidding. It's listed for $538, more than double list. And no, I don't need an extra controller. It comes with 3 games, but at $50 or so per game (which is the maximum I'll pay for a game; I usually buy games used) that still comes out to a $138 rip-off. No thanks.

I want a bare console with one controller, and I want to pay no more than list price. When Nintendo can get the supply up enough that I can buy it off the shelf without a ripoff bundle, then I'll get it.

Re:A stupid non-story

[Chris Burke]

You're kidding. It's listed for $538, more than double list.

It's not double list, because "list" for the console + 3 games + wiimote + nunchuck isn't $250, now is it?

But they have jacked up the price from when I got it, because at that time it was the same as buying a console, 3 games at $50, $40 wiimote and $20 nunchuck. Since I was getting nothing I wouldn't have bought individually anyway, the only extra cost for me was shipping and handling.

Now looking at it, they added brain age, defeating the "choice" aspect, and still jacked the price up besides. I'm not kidding, it used to be a good bundle.

And no, I don't need an extra controller.

You're weird, but okay. A friend who first pointed out the walmart bundle got it, and then returned the parts he didn't want to a walmart brick-and-mortar store, something you can't do with many other bundles. So that could be an option... or at least, would have been had they not bumped the price.

When Nintendo can get the supply up enough that I can buy it off the shelf without a ripoff bundle, then I'll get it.

I wouldn't hold my breath. I wanted to do the same thing but gave up after 6 months of calling every store in town. By the time increased manufacturing capacity affects their availability at retail, it'll be time for the holiday rush and then you can say goodbye to buying one until 2008 unless you like getting into brawls with soccer moms.

On the plus side, there will probably be more games in the used and discount bins.

Re:A stupid non-story

[fimbulvetr]

This is unsubstantiated and at best a fanboi's last stand and saving face on a thoughtless post.

The Wii, 8 months after launch, beating sales of the PS3 to a bloody pulp in addition to being sold faster than it can be shipped to most stores. Online services has popped up specifically to offer locating services of the Wii. bestbuy.com _still_ doesn't list it available online, yet shows stock at 6 locations near me for the PS3.

The simple fact is the PS3 is selling better than the Wii on amazon because THE WII ISN'T AVAILABLE.

Re:A stupid non-story

[reybrujo]

We have confirmation that they will keep a single, USD 599 SKU:

"Once that product is gone from the retailer shelves, then we're back to a $599 SKU only, so it's not like we have a two-price strategy in the US market. We found out very early on how consumers react to having just one SKU as opposed to two."

We don't have confirmation they will drop the SKU price to USD 499 later, so technically the story is right, even though Sony tried their best to swamp it.

Re:A stupid non-story

[samkass]

Somebody's a fan-boy here, but it isn't me. I like both the Wii and the PS3 as game systems. But the fact is, the Wii is old technology and Nintendo STILL can't build them. If the PS3 is out-selling the Wii because of the Wii's lack of availability, it means more PS3's are being produced than Wiis. Why on Earth would that be?

In any case, before the $100 price drop, it wasn't true. PS3's were selling pretty badly. Now they're #1. I don't understand how that simple fact can be seen as a "Troll" unless you're really emotionally invested in your Wii and hating Sony.

Re:A stupid non-story

[fimbulvetr]

Let me reiterate in the plainest terms possible:

Amazon.com does not sell the Wii.

Resellers sell the Wii through Amazon, be it new or used. The current minimum price is $389 from said resellers, and that's for a USED system.

Since there's a limited supply (and the inherent higher price) of Wiis, amazon.com is selling fewer Wiis. This is simple economics 101, day 1.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

Dismiss this with a "fanboy" handwave if you'd like, but you should at least engage brain prior to doing so.

If inventories of said seller were the same or even both in "available status", I'd have no ground to stand on and concede. This is not the case, however.

As of now, you still shoulder the burden of proof.

Time for a Management change at Sony....

[trdrstv]

Seriously. I was encouraged when crazy Ken got the You can do no further harm "promotion", then later the boot but GODDAMN. Do the current Sony execs own a bunch of Nintendo stock?

A $499 version can be purchased at Gamespot for $399 with a trade in of a PS2. This makes it the same price as 360 PRO AND it has the PS2 slimline chip built in. If you owned a PS2 you probably had a few games for it. This was a VALUE ADDED proposition for the PS3.

Then they had the get 5 BluRay disks promotion, which is another VALUE ADD tactic.

Now they are going to stick with the $599 price, drop the 'cheaper alternative' again and pull out the PS2 chip?

Somebody else needs to take the reigns or Sony will remain a distant 3rd this gen.

Re:Time for a Management change at Sony....

[BacOs]

$499 is about $20 more than I paid for my Xbox 360 Elite (120GB hard drive, HDMI). I was surprised how much the PS2 was being pushed at the store where I bought my Xbox. They had numerous PS3s available and only a few Xbox 360s and Wiis. Sony's definitely lost the gaming crown. If they want a chance of regaining it, they need to drop the prices even more.

Re:Time for a Management change at Sony....

[trdrstv]

$499 is about $20 more than I paid for my Xbox 360 Elite (120GB hard drive, HDMI). I was surprised how much the PS2 was being pushed at the store where I bought my Xbox. They had numerous PS3s available and only a few Xbox 360s and Wiis. Sony's definitely lost the gaming crown. If they want a chance of regaining it, they need to drop the prices even more.

True, however MS has the luxury of offering a $299 and a $399 SKU as an option. If you want to play any 360 game the point of Entry is $299 + the game. It's also $25 for a memory card (on Amazon), and you can play Gears of War or Guitar Hero II, Dead Rising, etc... just fine with that set up. If you want more capability (like the DLC) you can buy the HDD or the Pro bundle.

I'm not saying the $499 option is bad as an OPTION for the PS3 (or 360), but when that is the cheapest solution and it will be discontinued making the $599 version the lowest point of entry you are seriously backing yourself out of the market.

Re:Time for a Management change at Sony....

[stevenliv]

is this deal still even alive? steven

Re:idiots

[vigmeister]

Although guilty of using all these terms interchangeably in my own posts, the difference between gB, GB, gb and Gb are significant only when there is a 'ps' following the acronym. In other lay contexts, it's fairly unambiguous.

Cheers!

Emotionless PS3

[Deathlizard]

And apparently, the 80GB PS3 removes the Emotion Engine (PS2) hardware and replaces it with software emulation. So not only are they not dropping the price, their making it less backwards compatible as well but hey, here's an extra 20GB and the only game worth playing on the PS3 to make up for it...

It wasn't even a price cut to begin with. at most, it was a SKU shift. it would be the same thing if MS ditched the core system, dropped the premium to core prices, and priced the Elite and the original's premium price.

I'm so glad I bought a Wii. No Backwards compatibility problems, no Blinking Red Rings of Death, and more Ben Franklins in my wallet.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[techiemikey]

um...the graphics are good. Not phenomenal, but good. And by no good games since launch, do you mean games like Paper Mario, Wii Play and Mario Party 8 are not good games? And by no fun alone, do you mean games such as Twilight Princess, Wario Ware(it's an excelent stand alone game) and Trama Center?

Re:Emotionless PS3

[Deathlizard]

and no good graphics

Yeah. because Great Graphics == Great game. I better Toss Twilight Princess out the window and go play Spiderman 3 on the PS3/360 then.

no good games since launch

There are some great games for the Wii. Just not a ton of them. and there is still the Gamecube lineup and virtual console to fall back on. The 360 never had great backward compatibility to begin with, but at least the 360 library is rather strong to fall back on. The PS3 hasn't had a breakout game yet and they had the PS1/PS2 to fall back on, but now they decided that pocketing $50 is more important than backwards compatibility, even though it was one of the big selling points of the PS3.

wii-fit(whoopity dooo)

well at least we agree on something

no fun alone

Although the Wii mostly focuses on party type minigames, there are single player games out there that are fun to play, and most of the party games have a single player requirement.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[cbreaker]

The compatibility of PS1/2 games on the units without the PS2 chip is very high. They're removing it because A) It's unnecessary cost now that the software emulation is so good, B) Unnecessary complexity of manufacturing C) Unnecessary heat production.... and a myriad of other reasons.

Once the 60GB models are cleared out of inventory, expect to see the 80GB version drop to $500. Maybe they'll have a 120GB version by then, and continue on.

For all the people dropping $300 and $400 for iPods every other year for another 20GB, I don't understand the issue here.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[plague3106]

The graphics are good, good games are out / are coming (zelda, re4, re:uc, etc). I'm finding RE4 to be plenty fun as a single player game, and honestly I like the controls a lot more than the typical console controllers.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[CastrTroy]

While the Wii doesn't have hi-res graphics, it still has "good graphics". Check out Twilight Princess. That game has awesome graphics, with lots of detail and great scenery. There are tons of good games for the Wii, maybe not something that fits your style, but there are lots of games that people are buying in droves. As for "alone" games, there's twilight princess, super monkey ball, super swing golf, the entire virtual console, paper mario, and a bunch of other games. And just because Wii sports is fun with many people, doesn't mean it can't be fun by yourself.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[SparkyFlooner]

Yeah, I didn't think about it before, but C is a really good reason.

I think it was also mentioned that with software emulation, they can add visual effects to the games to improve PS1 and PS2 titles on HD sets, though I think it's probably just through AA. There's only so much you can do when the source is 1/3 of the target resolution.

WIth my PS2 hooked up to my HD set, Final Fantasy XII looked like pixelated crap. There were lots of initial complaints over 'jaggies' for older titles when played through a PS3. I don't know if it's better now.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[JebusIsLord]

Twilight princess is fucking incredible (and I can't put it down), but it's pretty ugly in my opinion. Background: I've had a 360 on my 1080p 42" Sharp since before Christmas, and only a few weeks ago managed to find a Wii (hooked up correctly, in 480p and whatnot). RE4 looks better than Twilight princess, and its a 2 year old GC game. Yes, I know Twilight started development as a GC game, but i'm still disappointed that it looks so bland, ESPECIALLY after the (IMO) beautiful Wind Waker.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[Aladrin]

Do we -know- C is a reason? I would think it's backwards, actually. Here's my reasoning:

Emotion hardware is only 'on' when using PS2 games, and the PS3 hardware is fairly idle at that point.
Emulating another hardware take more CPU than the original hardware needed, and thus produces more heat.

So at best, it's the same heat while playing PS3 games, and more when playing PS2.

In the end, I don't think the extra backwards-compatibility will matter. I think the number right now is 90% for the emulation, and that's pretty doggone good. Sony will be able to patch later (just like MS does) and gain ground on that, if they want.

As a side note, I recently learned that MS finally (in April) got backwards-compat for one of my favorite games on the XBox, Phantom Dust. I had pretty much given up on it. I had to order a copy off EBay ($12!) as I can't find mine, though... Oh well.

Oh, and anyone that's seriously considering the 80GB PS3 should snag a 60GB one and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16822136071 and have twice the hard drive space. I've got a 20GB that I got dirt cheap and if that drive wasn't most of what I paid for the PS3, I'd have already bought one and upgraded. ;) ($250 for a PS3 and $120 worth of accessory/game/guide.)

Re:Emotionless PS3

[cbreaker]

Yea, they could do what PSEmu or Bleem! did with their PS1 emulators. They can add bilinear filtering to PS1 games and Anti-aliasing to both, and increase the screen resolution because it's polygons and you can do that. Of course, they're looking for compatibility, so we're not likely to see those types of improvements any time soon.

As far as I could tell, the PS2 games I've played on my PS3 looked the same as the PS2. Lots of people purchased HD TV's at the same time they purchased PS3's so they might just be shocked over how much better the HD games looked, and it makes the older games look really.. .old. But, Sony did recently add some filtering to old titles, sort of how MAME or the Nintendo/SNES emulators do it. It makes the games look quite a bit better (but still old school.)

I think the degree of compatibility with the PS3 without the extra chips is very impressive. It seems like only some really odd titles don't work 100%, and old games in series; (like Madden 2001 not being perfect, where 2002, 03, 04 and 05 work fine.) The units with the extra CPU are better, but give them a couple more months and it simply won't matter at all.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[cbreaker]

Yea, the extra compatibility just won't matter; if they had the emulation up as good as it is now when they released the PS3 originally, I don't figure any PS3 would have included that extra hardware. They do keep improving the compatibility with updates; the last major update (1.80) included a number of fixes. With the track record so far with PS3 updates, I expect to see more improvements in the near term.

I think a lot of folks mustn't realize how easy it is to replace the hard drive in the PS3. There's a slot on the side you can open, and yank the disk right out. Put in the new one, and the PS3 will tell you it needs to be formatted. Done. And the cool thing is that you can plug in a USB hard drive first, back up all your data, upgrade the drive, and restore everything back on. Cool stuff.

Alternatively, you can just plug in an external USB drive and use that to store all your images, music, and videos.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[Deathlizard]

I don't know much about the emulation, since I don't own a PS3 let alone a European one, but I would think that hardware would be better and more reliable than software in many cases. as for the points.

A) If the emulation is good than yes, it wouldn't matter, however the emulation would have to be a total emulation including hacks and bugs that may have existed in the previous PS2 architectures. some games may use unorthodox methods to squeeze maximum performance out of the PS2 Hardware. The emulation would have to take this into account.

B) this would result in lower prices and possibly more units produced per month and not necessary result in hardware more prone to failure, Especially since the PS3 has had a good hardware record so far with the EE on board. Currently supply is not a problem so they are doing this to save money. Something they should be passing back to customers (in a price cut) as soon as they can.

C) This actually would be more of a problem under emulation than hardware. the EE anymore is small. very small. just look at the new PS2's. These new EE units put out much less heat then their predecessors or the PS3 hardware. if you have the hardware system, then that's less work that Cell and RSX would have to do in order to play the game, which would result in lower temperatures. Under emulation, Cell and RSX would be doing the heavy hitting and would result in much higher temps when you play a PS1/2 game.

I know that hardware can have problems too. The Newest PS2's have compatibility problems since they changed the systems. The PS one's also had minor incompatibilities, And I know that emulation has an advantage when it comes to updating it to increase compatibility. if Sony thinks they can emulate the previous systems better than hardware, then more power to them, but considering that the 360, which is doing emulation, doesn't have a high degree of compatibility, and that emulators I have seen in the past run into compatibility issues, I would rather have a hardware interface to fall back on rather than not.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[cbreaker]

Sony DOES think they can do compatibility with emulation because they're doing it. They have already achieved over 90% compatibility with the many thousands of PS2 and PS1 titles. Many of the titles that don't work, are unpopular games. But even games on their compatibility list with only one "box" run allright.

You can't compare the Xbox "emulation." It's not the same thing. The PS3 is similar enough to the PS1/2 that it can emulate. The 360 doesn't; it can't emulate a 733Mhz P3 fast enough. The games that run, run via recompiled binaries and support files. If the game isn't on the (very short) list, it won't run, period, because they're no emulation going on. When you download an "emulation profile" you're downloading a new version of the game.

Plus, the original PS3 with the extra chips isn't perfect either, but it's damned good. In the end, Sony has been providing continual updates to the software emulator and this isn't likely to change. They'll keep improving the software as they have been since release.

Besides. If it were THAT important to have absolute 100% compatibility (even though that's almost never been achieved with any other product ever) then maybe you should consider grabbing a PS2 on e-bay for like $40.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[ShaggyIan]

It's nice to hear someone else say that. I'm about 35 hours into TP, and I'm enjoying it, but I never understood everyone saying "it's beautiful!" It looks better than Ocarina, and it should, but it's not beautiful.

I've said for a while, folks who Wii-bash or get bored with it tend to do it for the same two reasons: 1) The graphics aren't "up to snuff" and 2) There aren't any "hardcore" games. My only reply to that is, "Yeah, So?" That's not what the Wii is about.

I'm amazed by how many folks bought a Wii and then bitch that there are no 1080p FPS games for it. It's like buying a Chrysler and bitching that it doesn't drive/look/etc. like a Mercedes.

Re:Emotionless PS3

[tepples]

The PS3 hasn't had a breakout game yet Aren't there enough breakout clones on Linux? Or does the PS3 video chip or PS3 Linux hypervisor have some sort of bottleneck that makes them not run smoothly?

Re:idiots

[pokerdad]

why not mention that it's a ps3 in the headline? is this yet another lame attempt from the powers that be to get more clicks by having misleading/badly writen headlines?

While clearer headlines are nice, come on, the 60GB ps3 has been talked to death here lately

Seriously Sony...

[Geek_3.3]

Why is it that every time you almost convince me to buy a PS3 do you have to do something like this? Well, I suppose thanks are in order, since even a $500 upfront cost is still kinda steep and I didn't quite have the disposable income to blow on that just yet.

All that said, I *will* likely buy a PS3... but not a nanosecond before there is a compelling game for it that will not be out for the Xbox 360. ( Yes, I'm looking at you, Square-Enix.) Hopefully, by then, the freakin thing will be at the $399 price point that I wanted in the first place.

Re:Seriously Sony...

[cbreaker]

If you own an Xbox, and you don't really want a PS3, then don't buy one and be done with it. $100 more then your budget? You settled on the 360 for whatever reasons, so be happy with that system. It's almost as good at playing games as the PS3.

I don't understand your problem.

Re:Wow...

[DrXym]

what a great way to destroy all the good will they created by the price cut! But then again they say it's better to have loved and lost... or something like that.

Think about if for a second. Sony have a new 80Gb model and they have remaining stock of the 60Gb. Of course they're going to shift the 60Gb models first. That does not mean that when they've done with those consoles that the price goes straight back up. Instead an unbundled 80Gb console will step in at the same price to replace it. This should be obvious especially when Christmas is 5 months and counting. Whether Sony come out and say it or not is irrelevant - it's clearly going to happen. They probably aren't saying it because they have those 60Gb models to get rid of first.

Re:Wrong

[MeanderingMind]

The current 60 gig PS3 is now out of production and is now $499 as anyone can see

Right, but that's not the issue.

There will be a 80 gig model that is introduced next month that will have partial software emulation - right now European PS3s with EE emulation are at ~90 percent PS2 compatibility. As the remaining stock of 60 gigs get sold the 80 gig will come down to the same price as the current 60 gig model.

This is. Sony has not said, by any stretch of the imagination, that they intend on lowering the price of the 80gb model. They may do so, but we have no guarantee.

As most people know, harddrives don't really drop in price they just get larger capacity for the same price and eventually the low end drives start to become more expensive. That is happening with the 60 gig laptop drives and Sony is moving on to the cheaper in bulk 80 gig drives. So costs will be about the same for the larger harddrive. The removal of the EE hardware and the usual manufacturing cost cutting, including 65nm later this year, will mean the 80 gig PS3 model will be actually cheaper to manufacture than the current 60 gig models.

So by the time you can't get a 60 gig anymore 80 gigs will have moved down in price to $499.

Let us assume for the moment that you're right, 60gb laptop drives are increasing in price to the point where soon they will be more expensive than 80gb laptop drives. Here's a look at current prices.

Via Newegg:
Western Digital - 60g: $47.99
Western Digital - 80g: $59.99
Hitachi - 60g: $49.99
Hitachi - 80g: $54.99
Seagate - 60g: $49.99
Seagate - 80g: $59.99

So, the prices are somewhat close, ranging from $5-$15 difference with the 80gb drives consistantly more expensive. This gives some credence to the theory that soon the 60gb drives will be more expensive as they cease to be manufactured.

However, the following was in the article summary:

In America, yes ... what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD $599 version with one game.

There are a whopping 18 days left before the 1st of August. I find it hard to believe by any stretch of the imagination that in so short a time...
A) The price difference between 60gb and 80gb drives will be significantly in favor of the latter.
B) The 65nm proccesses coming "later this year" will arrive and have an effect.
C) Sony will actually think to pass the benefits onto the gamer rather than themselves.

If the price of the 80gb model drops, it's more likely because they'll unbundle the game. Sony could pleasently surprise us, but I'm not counting on it.

So, let me get this straight....

[nweaver]

Sony is phasing out the 100% backwards compatible model, replacing it with a model which STILL costs way too much at the original price, only gains a "who cares" game and 20 GB of hard drives space...

While at the same time, replaces the quality backwards compatibility with a incomplete software layer...

Now tell me why I shouldn't just get an XBox instead. The hardware may be unreliable, but Microsoft will at least fix it when it breaks.

Re:So, let me get this straight....

[caffeinatedOnline]

I think a better question is how much is Sony paying you for your service?

Re:So, let me get this straight....

[nweaver]

I don't care for racing games: Motostorm is "Ohh, pretty, Ohh Shiney", but I wouldn't play more than an hour of it.

So yeah, its a "who cares" game and a feature reduction (because if the software compatibility was so superior, why aren't they running it on the 1.0 hardware when appropriate?).

Bad headline

[DoofusOfDeath]

It's only a fire sale when Sony is selling laptop batteries.

Re:Bad headline

[Froodulous]

ba dum, pssh.

PS3 is Top Seller on Amazon

[Dr Kool, PhD]

The consumers don't seem to view this price cut as a farce. PS3 is the NUMBER ONE seller on Amazon right now:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/videogames/

How about Xbox 360? It's #20, behind such consoles as PS3, Wii, DS Black, PS2 Black and PS2 Silver.

BTW the article summary is 100% FUD. If it were written by paid Microsoft shills I don't see how it would change from its current state.

Re:PS3 is Top Seller on Amazon

[GrayCalx]

Good thing every gamer buys every console and video game from Amazon so that we can use it as a accurate view of the industry.

Re:PS3 is Top Seller on Amazon

[GrayCalx]

Spin some more, paid Microsoft shill.

Boy do I wish. You're the one taking sides not me, I wish Sony and MS all the luck in the world. I own my console already, what do I care about price drops? I'm not buying another one.

But if you're interested go review Circuit City's sales records for the previous month where the 360 outsold the PS3. Using your logic Microsoft is doing better than Sony. Obviously any rational human would realize thats but a sliver of the over-all picture. You'd think even a doctor who can't spell cool could figure that out.

Re:PS3 is Top Seller on Amazon

[AK Marc]

PS3 is the NUMBER ONE seller on Amazon right now:

Could that be because they have PS3s in stock and no Wiis in stock? What are the sales numbers at large online places with both Wiis and PS3s? Oh wait, there isn't one with Wiis in stock because they are still selling faster than they can make them, despite production that is much higher than the PS3 sales. So yes, the PS3 is selling faster at a place with zero Wiis in stock.

Re:PS3 is Top Seller on Amazon

[Poltras]

http://vgchartz.com/ and more precisely. 'nouf said. Take your facts from the fact list, please. PS3 has only outsold Xbox360 once on momentum (europe). This is world-wide, though if you look at american sales (because your stats weren't from amazon.co.jp or uk)... well I'll let you judge.

Re: The PS3 could be $300... Here's how....

[trdrstv]

Sony is making the same mistake they made when the PS3 first launched, they're trying to cram too much into the system. Your average customer is not someone who wants $600 package deals, however value-worthy they are. They had the opportunity to have a system, the 20gb version, as low as $400. Maybe its "gimp", but that would certainly give the Sony crowd something to fire back about system costs.

If Sony says that the difference between the 60 gig and 20 gig version was $100 then in your example the 20 gig could be $399. I agree with this but I'll go one further. Since I never valued the Wifi, card readers, or extra hard drive space I would be more prone to buy "teh gimped" one anyway... How about we cut the price some more with other features I may or not want/need?

To get it out of the way; Blu-Ray stays as does the Cell processor. At this point pulling it out gets you nowhere and would break backwords compatibility so they are off the table.

How about we remove the 2 things included in the 20 gig that most people threw out anyway? The 20 gig hard drive and the Composite cables. I would still make the "A HDD of 20+ gigs" a requirement for the system, as it is user replaceable but don't include the original HDD to get thrown out. The composite cables will only save a few cents, but there is no point in including it so don't.

To avoid any "Retail confusion" from grandparents or something that don't understand the system will not work out of the box (until a HDD is added) sell it exclusively through the PlayStation online store. You can have 5 check boxes that confirm "Yes I understand I have to buy and install my own HDD with no assistance from Sony for this to work." before you can place the order. That also cuts out the distributors and retail partner's cut of the selling price.

Still don't think that's worth $100? Pull the PS2 chip. They were going to do it anyway, but from a consumer standpoint the emulation isn't as good as hardware support, but we acknowledge that upfront and accept it because it saves us money.

One other thing that could help drive costs down. FIRE THEIR MARKETING TEAM! Seriously. The "This is living" campaign in Europe probably hurt the PS3 more than anything MS, or Nintendo could have done and the American campaign wasn't much better.

If Sony made these few changes they would be a real contender this round, and I suspect that "Direct from Sony" SKU would be the best selling SKU from the point of its inception.

Meanwhile international prices dont move

[cheekyboy]

I bet the aussie price will be $987 for a long time, they might delay the price cut till dec, and even then probably only
by $100 au, which would be more like 85usd. Even now it has a 40%+ 'markup' here.

Re:Meanwhile international prices dont move

[Froodulous]

Thank you. I am sick of the overpricing of the PS3 outside of the US and Japan. In the UK we pay £425 (~US$850) for a console with the emotion engine taken out. As a PS2 owner, backwards compatability is important to me, so if one of my favourite games is in that 12% of games which don't work, I'm going to be irritated.

Re:Meanwhile international prices dont move

[Maxwell]

It is $550CDN in Canada now, down from $700. So we got a $150CDN price drop.

The price aren't inflated outside the US. The US dollars is worth 33% less than it was just4 years ago. Can we please get off the US dollars as a benchmark? Their time is over on the worldstage, OK? Use the Euro. or the Yen. Heck since the PS3 was release, the US has lost 0.06 against Canada. So the "canadian" price of $699 kept going 'up'.

I call BS on this one.

[Karganeth]

Sony "The price cut is going to end when the stock runs out!"

Customers "OMG LETS BUY THEM QUICK!"

Later...

Sony "The stock has been all sold. We are now dropping the price of the 80Gb model."

Re:I call BS on this one.

[DeeDob]

Sony "The price cut is going to end when the stock runs out!"

Customers "OMG LETS BUY THEM QUICK!"

Later...

Sony "The stock has been all sold. We are now dropping the price of the 80Gb model."

I'll just say that you ASSUME there will be a price cut on the 80Gb model when the 60 are gone. People can expect it, but Sony has done little to make them trustworthy of anything. A week ago, people rejoice about a general price cut. Now people are not even sure the price cut will last. Should we really have trusted them in the first place to say there was a price cut?

In this case Sony is toying with it's customers minds, which they don't like. Do you trully want to buy a "lesser" 60Gb PS3 right now or wait until the 80Gb and an "assumed" price-drop for it near the end of the year that may never come? Toss a coin and make your decision. Nothing like "gambling" your money and entertainment time because you're in the dark about a product.

The fact that they removed BC compatibility (to an extent) doesn't help things either. I will make a prediction that you will see TONS of those in PS3 forums:

Topic: Game XYZ does not seem to work in my PS3.
Topic: Game ABC crashes frequently.
Topic: Bug in emulator for game FGH.

Look at the emulation scene on the 360 and it's complaints. The same exact model is being adopted by Sony for it's PS3. The things is that they announced that model over 2 years ago and they said that the EE engine being in the PS3 was only temporary, but it still is annoying that they are removing features from their console after launch.

Re:I call BS on this one.

[nickyj]

Let's fix that:

Later...

Sony: "The 60GB stock has been all sold. Maybe now we can turn a profit on these suckers with another upgrade."

Stop with the "Software Emulation" FUD

[Dr Kool, PhD]

Software emulation of the PS2 games is BETTER than the hardware Emotion Engine for the vast majority of users. Software emulation allows for 1080p upscaling, with the hardware emulation you're stuck at 480p. Europe has received only software emulation in their PS3s and there are few to no issues reported.

Bottom line is software emulation on PS3 works better and has more features than hardware.

Re:Stop with the "Software Emulation" FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect.

The North Americian Playstation 3 (which contains the Emotion Engine) does support 1080p output.

Re:Stop with the "Software Emulation" FUD

[cmdrpaddy]

The North Americian Playstation 3 (which contains the Emotion Engine) does support 1080p output. And not only that the North American PS3 supports more games. The software emulation in European PS3s has a large list of games that have "Should play on PLAYSTATION®3 with noticeable issues".

Re:Stop with the "Software Emulation" FUD

[Nazmun]

Ugh, the European PS3's rendered in 720/1080p (I forget which but I definetly remember that it was rendered) massive difference from just upscaling. It was found out last year that the U.S. ps3's couldn't ever render higher then the original resolution and I've been wanting a software version ever since. Mostly since sony also continually updates their emulation software to add more and more titles, 88% is well over a thousand games.

Re:idiots

[mikkelm]

Not really. Storage, for example, is usually measured in powers of ten, while filesystems work in powers of two. It's rarely completely unambiguous without detailed knowledge of what the units are being applied to. Of course, if people would just use Kibi, Mebi, Gibi, etc. for powers of two, things would be a lot easier.

Insanity

[Jaaay]

Both Sony and MS seem to be whatever they can to destroy their positions, only Nintendo seems to understand it's better to have one standardized system at a standard price than several models at several prices with different functionalities and compatabilities. This is a bit like how Sega self-destructed with the 32X/MEGACD. You ruin the whole advantage of having a console instead of a gaming pc once you start getting a choice of consoles with different abilities and different available upgrades.

Re:idiots

[vigmeister]

True that... I also love the sound of 'gibibytes'. Regardless, that's why is said 'in lay contexts'. It really doesn't make a difference to your avg joe except those who go "OMG! I paid for 40 gigs and I only got 34.6gigs" without realizing that a good bit of that difference is due to a factory partition.

Cheers!

It didn't matter in your case

[paladinwannabe2]

You already had all 3 games systems. Would having Link available cause you to purchase a GameCube with Soul Caliber 2 instead of purchasing Soul Caliber 2 for XBox?

Re:It didn't matter in your case

[SparkyFlooner]

No, but in those wonderful .02% cases where someone is looking at a 360 and a PS3 to play GTA4 on, it may mean everything.

Re:It didn't matter in your case

[ravenshrike]

Except any exclusive content is NOT likely to feature a cameo at all, ergo, it's much, much less of one.

Wrong again - the PS3 uses SATA hard drives

[BcNexus]

The PS3 uses SATA hard drives. So ignore those prices, they are for PATA-6 drives.
http://www.gamersreports.com/article/43/

Re:Wrong again - the PS3 uses SATA hard drives

[MeanderingMind]

My mistake, here are SATA prices.

Hitachi - 60gb: $73.99
Hitachi - 80gb: $79.99
Fujitsu - 60gb: $49.99
Fujitsu - 80gb: $58.99

The point remains, there's still a significant price difference between analogous drives favoring the 60gb as cheaper, one that isn't likely to completely reverse in 18 days.

Re:idiots

[mikkelm]

Downloading files and buying computers is something that laymen do, so it is most certainly does fall within that category.

*yawn*

[WhiteWolf666]

Have any of you ever tried to buy a car at a dealer?

"This is a *special* price! It'll go up next week!"

Yeah. Right. I'll believe it when I see it; Sony won't shoot itself in the foot like that. This is just a marketing ploy to drive sales just a little bit more.

Re:*yawn*

[Chris Burke]

Heh. Like those television adds that say "call in the next 20 minutes and we'll give you an extra bottle of Holyshit Sauce free!"

Re:Wrong

[Chris Burke]

As the remaining stock of 60 gigs get sold the 80 gig will come down to the same price as the current 60 gig model.

What makes you think that?

As you note, the price of the 60 gig drives hasn't gone down, so that isn't why the price dropped. The price of the 60 GB model dropped because they want to clear out the inventory to make room for the 80 GB model. The 80 GB drives will cost the same as current 60 GB drives. So Sony doesn't get to make cheaper PS3s, the only reason the 60 GB model was discounted is to clear inventory, so on what basis do you think the 80GB drive is going to drop to $499 in the near future?

Re:Only Zonk

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"would post a $100 price drop and turn it into an his usual anti-sony campaign."

Ha! If you think Zonk's behind Sony's bad PR, you've gotta lotta back reading to do, my friend.

Special Edition

[WiseWeasel]

I'm still holding out for the OMG PONIES!!! edition 360/GTA4 bundle...

Dont Panic

[grapeape]

3.6 Million PS3's have been sold so far and 5.5 Million have shipped so there are just a little less than 2 million out there of the old kind not to mention the ones that are sitting in warehouses waiting to ship. Its not like they are going to run out soon. This is the video game equivalent of the car salesman on tv telling you that everything is marked down and must go but hurry before their all gone. Just a feeble attempt at moving inventory, nothing more.

Re:Wrong

[DrXym]

This is. Sony has not said, by any stretch of the imagination, that they intend on lowering the price of the 80gb model. They may do so, but we have no guarantee.

No, they haven't said it and it's easy to see why. If Sony came out and said an 80Gb unbundled modelwas appearing in a few weeks, would you go out and buy the 60Gb one on sale? No of course not.

I think it's fairly likely that once 60Gb goes that 80Gb will step right in to replace it. Maybe not the very day the 60Gb disappears from the shelves but soon. Sony are not going to end up back up at $600 for Christmas. They'll definitely have an unbundled console for $499 (or maybe less) and a bundle. They'll try to sweeten the bundle enough to get those who can afford it to buy it. You can imagine the sorts of things they could throw in a bundle to justify the $100 extra - rumble or an extra controller, a game, a blu ray disc, free PSN store credit, bluetooth headset, an HDMI cable and so on.

Took my words from yesterday, except

[sysadmintech]

Not only the PS3, but also the PSP price drop. But the PSP price drop is more like the PS2 to slim PS2 because they took away features. Ports are features.
But I disagree that people will run out and buy up the old stock. This is just a marketing ploy by the Sony supported media. Content sells consoles. If Sony and MS only produce sequels to content then they will only attract gamers who already attracted to the original content. Fans of Sony and MS exclusives have already bought.
There is very little that you can believe coming from Sony and MS these days.
Further rant: Nintendo ended up doing very similar to what I projected they would do at E3. A new catch phase "Games are for everyone", is very similar to "Games are for children" from 2 years ago. While my guesses at the new controllers they would release were incorrect, they did release new controllers. And while I didn't predict a remake of the zapper, I did say that Time Crisis 4 (which comes with a gun) for the Wii would be a huge winner because of the Wii mote and Nun-chaca. Nintendo marketing Wii to Moms at conferences where mothers attend, pre-schools and retirement homes is my "genius move" by Nintendo of '06. The "collection of mini-games" (i.e. Brain Age, Wii Play, Flash Focus) will pan out as huge winners in '07.

Re:Wrong

[MeanderingMind]

I'm not sure of a better way to engender the ill-will of gamers than to announce a price drop in this fashion. If they wait until the holiday season, it wouldn't be so bad. But for them to charge $600 for less than a month and then, when August 1st hits, drop it $100 after convincing people to buy the 60gb version at that price... that would easily tick off a lot of people.

I understand that if Sony plans on acting in either fashion, it doesn't make sense for them to say so. However, I don't believe that we can say one way or the other what's going to happen. It is not guaranteed that once the last 60gb PS3 is sold the 80gb will fall in price, nor is it guaranteed that it won't.

Re:Wrong

[MeanderingMind]

I'm willing to go with a $499 80gb model at Christmas. I'm mostly reacting against people who claim that very shortly after the 60gb model is sold out the 80gb model will drop in price. I don't see it as a good PR move, and I'm willing to give Sony enough credit that they wouldn't do something that would easily tick off everyone who had just run out and bought 60gb models.

Sure, Sony might just be sealing their lips until it won't hurt the firesale on 60gb models, but until it actually happens I think we shouldn't assume it will.

Lol at the update

[shoptroll]

"Okay ... it's really challenging to understand what's going on when Sony as an entity is saying two different things."

You'd think by now we'd just stop listening to Sony. This whole price drop has been a massive case of corporate communication gone awry. Then again, this is pretty much par for the course with Sony right?

Too Little, Too Late

[WillAffleckUW]

About 9 months too late, in fact.

Even in the US the PS3 is getting beat 4 to 1, and when you look at the actual game releases and quality of games, it's surprising that anyone even wants the PS3.

This is a Price Cut

[Ellery01]

As referenced by the updated article, this claim by the SCE Europe president has been refuted by the SCE America PR. Sony announced this as a 'price cut', not a 'clearance'. It would be an obviously stupid move of them to force the consumer back up to the $599 price, it will not happen.

Re:This is a Fire sale...

[trdrstv]

As referenced by the updated article, this claim by the SCE Europe president has been refuted by the SCE America PR. Sony announced this as a 'price cut', not a 'clearance'. It would be an obviously stupid move of them to force the consumer back up to the $599 price, it will not happen.

Did you miss this part?

Nevertheless, Kaz Hirai himself says the one SKU strategy is the plan. He told Scandinavian website VGTV, "[We do not] have a 2 SKU strategy in the US, we learned very quickly customers respond better to having one SKU than two. We dropped the price on the 60GB model, as you know that model is no longer in production, once it's no longer on store shelves it will just be the $600 SKU."

Pick those nits

[Alzheimers]

Looks like, from the list, that if you want to play the PS2 FF games, how well it works is pretty much a crapshoot, depending on what version of the game you happen to have. FF9 has "minor issues", FF8 has "noticeable issues", and FF7 isn't on the list at all

FF VII, FF:Tactics, VIII and IX are all PS1 games. FFX was the first PS2 based Final Fantasy, along with FFX-2, FFXI (required the PS2 network adapter and hard drive so it probably won't ever be compatible), and FFXII.

Re:Pick those nits

[Orion_]

Heh, I suppose that was a little unclear -- let me revise my statement to say what I meant:

Looks like, from the list, that if you want to play the PS2 FF games, how well it works is pretty much a crapshoot, depending on what version of the game you happen to have. Among the PS1 games, FF9 has "minor issues", FF8 has "noticeable issues", and FF7 isn't on the list at all.

Re:Pick those nits

[CronoCloud]

Actually FFXI IS compatible with the PS3, they added support for creating a PS2 HD partition on the PS3 HD.

Re:idiots

[ShaggyIan]

But it doesn't matter to them. Because so far (that I'm aware of), no one has tried pulling a fast one playing with suffix.

I love trying to explain the difference between MBps and Mbps to non-technical folks and watching their eyes glaze over. They call them Megs. Their iPod has Gigs. They don't give a fuck about the rest of the word.

Does it affect them? Yes. Does it matter? No, not really.

Re:idiots

[mikkelm]

It certainly matters enough for there to have been endless of class action lawsuits and confused calls to customer support by customers wondering where their megabytes went. It's well-established common knowledge that the very visible confusion surrounding base 2 and base 10 measurements extends to storage and filesystems as well.

Re:Wrong

[prockcore]

I think it's fairly likely that once 60Gb goes that 80Gb will step right in to replace it.

Why? It didn't happen with the 20gig. It took 4 months for the 60 gig to drop in price after the 20gig was discontinued, and the only reason the 60 gig has dropped in price is because it has also been discontinued.

Following that pattern, the 80gig won't drop in price until the 120gig comes out.

80GB are cheaper to produce

[SuperKendall]

The 80GB models lack the hardware emulation the 60GB models have (and hvae a few other tweaks to make them cheaper to produce as well). Also, Blu-Ray diode prices have fallen quite a lot - so new PS3's a great deal cheaper for Sony to manufacture.

Yes it is, it is a clearence for sure.

[axia777]

Sony seems to be getting stupider and stupider. I don't know what the holy hell is going over there but I am sure that all of the execs at Sony have lost their mids COMPLETELY. Here it is folks. This $499.99 price tag? Just a clearance of the 60 GB model which is now going out of production. At that point all the 60 GB models will be for sale until they are all gone. Then it is back to $599.99 for the 80 GB model. make of it what you will. I am mystified and rather pissed at these game they seem to be playing with us. Is this Stringers doing? WTF is going on? Here is the link from Gamespot and Game Daily: Gamespot: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6175011.html?om_act=c onvert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;2 Game Daily: http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1679 1 This bullshit pure and simple.

Re:idiots

[ShaggyIan]

I'm sorry, but I consider myself to be partially educated.

Please point me to some of that "common knowledge", and I'm looking for something "layperson".

Not only do I work in IT, but I also work in news, and I can't say I've seen a story about any of this that was really laypeople, and not some techy class action lawyer wanting to get rich.

Microsoft's real game division

[tepples]

Yeah, Microsoft has to worry more about the fact that their game division has never done anything but bleed cash. Xbox is not Microsoft's game division. Windows is. Without the abundance of exclusive games for Windows, a lot more people would have already switched to Mac OS X or Ubuntu.

Re:idiots

[mikkelm]

If you consider yourself partially educated, then surely you're able to use google. Article after article pops up.

Not only do I work in IT, but I also work with people who have done tech support on consumer products for years in the past, and the list of anecdotes involving precisely that misconception is practically endless. Most of the people I know who could be considered laymen have asked about this after purchasing computers.

I'm sorry, but if there is any basis in your claim to be partially educated, I wouldn't need to point out common knowledge. You would know it if you had experience, and you could google it if you were educated.

Re:idiots

[mikkelm]

"Kibi" sounds no more ridiculous than "Yotta" or "Zetta", and using base 10 SI units for base 2 measurements is obviously neither adequate nor convenient when they're the cause of as much confusion as they are. Kilo is 1000. Kilo is not 1024. Using it to represent 1024 might be convenient to someone who has more ease typing "Kilo" than they have typing "Kibi", but for everyone else, it's neither convenient, adequate nor practical when you end up having to explain which of the two colloquially interchangable meanings you actually meant.

Re:idiots

[ShaggyIan]

3/4's of what comes up on Google are technical people talking about it, and the two major lawsuits (both of which were more about money than anything). Really didn't get any news articles about it in my results, but our search may vary.

That George W. Bush is President is common knowledge. That General Motors makes cars is common knowledge. That General Motors did significantly more business as a lender is probably not common knowledge.

The fact that every once in a while (usual when they just replaced a HDD in a PC) someone stops by my office and questions the discrepancy in size tells me that it is NOT common knowledge. If it was common knowledge, they wouldn't be asking me. The fact that your tech support friends get calls from irate consumers says that it is not common knowledge. They wouldn't be pissed if they already knew it was coming. Do you think those pissed off customers really listened closely to a base2 explanation and took it to heart? Do you think they even know what base2 is, even after talking with technical support?

It is common knowledge to technical people. It might be common knowledge to others someday, but most of them glaze over when you start talking about base2 vs. base10, and don't care anymore. As someone who works in news, I can tell you why you won't see this in most news sources. It's boring, and it's technical, and most folks don't care.

Again, you are pointing out common knowledge to you and me and most of the folks on /. You are not pointing out common knowledge to the layperson.

So, wanna keep attacking the quality of my education? Or would you rather evaluate the quality of your own questionable rationale for what constitutes common knowledge amongst the laypeople? I'm guessing you'll go for my education again.

They still "should play on PS3"

[tepples]

"Noticeable issues" may include some textures that are off-color. The point is that the titles still "should play on PLAYSTATION 3", which is a lot more than Microsoft can say about Xbox titles on Xbox 360.

The console advantage is party multiplayer

[tepples]

You ruin the whole advantage of having a console instead of a gaming pc once you start getting a choice of consoles with different abilities and different available upgrades. The advantage of a console over a gaming PC is that publishers are willing to release party-style titles and other games that are designed to run on a 30" screen, with two to four players per screen, instead of games that require a family with four gamers to purchase four PCs.

Re:idiots

[mikkelm]

Wow. I've never seen anyone be so detailed in explaining something that any normal person would have gotten past. Nor have I ever seen anyone as surprised at the fact that people who feel that they're getting less than they're paying for would want financial compensation. The fact of the matter is that class action lawsuits usually only happen once. Luckily, there are countries in the world that are in fact -not- English speaking, and a good deal of these countries have had exactly the same kind of lawsuits as well.

It's common knowledge to technical people. Yes. Welcome to slashdot. Most people here work in IT, the discussion here is between IT professionals, and we are discussing the commonly occuring situation where we have to explain units used in computing to laymen.

It is common knowledge to IT professionals that the storage/filesystem base2/base10 is a source of confusion and vexation for consumers. If I by saying "common knowledge" had meant that it was common knowledge to anyone regardless of background, then it obviously could not be a surprise to the people that I am talking about. Logical deduction would tell you that I must obviously be referring IT professionals who help answer these consumers, which, gasp, is what we are, and the point of view we're discussing this topic from.

It's common knowledge to IT professionals. Good, apparently got the obvious. You don't need to explain to me what I'm saying when you finally understand it if you're slow on the uptake.

Ending your explanation, you're finally coming around to understanding what it is that I am saying. Congratulations. You wasted a good few posts on failing to comprehend what most anyone with a modicum of ability to deduce would have.

I guess you guessed right.

Re:idiots

[ShaggyIan]

So lets sum up. My mistake was thinking that you might know something I don't (namely that the problem was becoming mainstream), and asking you to elaborate.

Your great contribution was to insult my intelligence, tell me to Google, and assuming that your writing ability accurately portrays anything useful to anyone else. Instead of answering my question with "no, that's not what I meant", you felt it more appropriate to rant and suggest I go look for something that you later say doesn't exist. So yeah, I finally came around to what you were saying, which was, um, nothing. Silly me for thinking there might have been more substance.

So let's add "thinking you might have something worthwhile to say" to my list of sins, shall we?

Have fun in whatever happy place you spend time at after you think you bested some witless buffoon. I'm guessing you're there a lot.

Re:idiots

[mikkelm]

This really is an amusing post considering that what I had to say, and what you agree with me in, was that confusion exists both between bit/byte bandwidth measurements and base2/base10 storage measurements, and not only with bit/byte bandwidth measurements as you first proclaimed.

If making you aware of your mistakes in a neutral and well-meaning manner can provoke this kind of reply from you, and if it isn't "worthwhile" to you to be informed of any inaccuracy in your claims, then I'm sure you're a great guy to be around. And that you're right all the time. And that whoever doesn't agree isn't worth listening to.

I'm thinking that that happy place you're referring to is where you're headed as I post this.

Re:Wrong

[MeanderingMind]

I'm impressed. That's an uncommon admission for an AC.

Kudos.