Sony UK Director: America is a " land of cheap people" / " pity the Irish and places like Sweden"

Why is the PlayStation 3 more expensive in the UK than it is in the rest of Europe?

Well the first thing that is important is that I want the price to be as low as possible, because the lower the price the more we sell – we' re a software model.

If you take the product at the factory gates there are slight variations to price if you' re putting out a single sku product, but it' s very, very small. But then the differences start to accumulate. If you' ve got different shipping costs and import duties that makes variation in price. And that' s just getting it into a country. Then you have a look at the economic and financial situation in each and every territory. That' s where the differences start to vary massively.

If you take what' s considered to be the most expensive and the least expensive – consider the US with its massive land and cheap people. Then you look at the UK – a little island where rent and rates are at an absolute premium, and the cost of people is a lot more. The cost of retail is vastly more in the UK than it is in the US and that' s before you even stop to consider the US doesn' t have VAT at RRP, they put a small amount on afterwards. Whereas, we get stung by 17.5 per cent. And pity the poor Irish and places like Sweden.

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Except he fails to note that we actually get paid more so it balances out more than he seems to think.

Weird that they use the UK as an example again since I saw that the price was generally lower than in Belgium and lots of other countries in Europe. The recommended price in the UK is (converted) around 625 euro while over here it usually is 650. 17,5 VAT isn' t that much compared to the 21% in Belgium then and Sweden with its 25% even... Though in general Europe has it harder anyway I think. I don' t really know about the getting paid more thing. I' ve seen many US people make more than people here. And taxes are extremely high here too (many people pay more than half of their income) so there isn' t much left in the end.