With 600$ price, it' s obvious that many of us will choose to wait for a while.

PS2 debuted for 299$ - it' s first price cut was to 199$ and it was almost 2 years (19 months exactly) after the launch (we' re talking US here).

It' s hard to say if PS3 will follow in PS2 footsteps since the situation was different (PS2 price was OK at that time and Xbox wasn' t cheaper).

Xbox360 could pose a serious threat , especially if those rumored bundles will come out keeping 400$ price tag.

Still Sony is Sony and they can just do their thing without looking at this niche market that, in their eyes, 360 is.

600$ - that' s mucho dinero people, but most great games won' t be here untill 2008 (MGS4 :) ).I think that waiting 2 years for a slightly lower price of 500$ is still not that good.

Anyway what do you think?

When a new X-box and a Nintendo are announced?

They expect this machine to last 10 years.. That' s double a console' s lifespan..

I don' t see a price cut happening for ages unless things are really dire and Sony
are on the cusp of bankruptcy(sp?)...

Sony is dying and they are on the brink of falling apart. If the PS3 and Blu-Ray don' t take off then Sony is no more.

ORIGINAL: Rampage99

Sony is dying and they are on the brink of falling apart. If the PS3 and Blu-Ray don' t take off then Sony is no more.

You know...if that did happen do you think sony would go into developing like sega. I wonder who they would develop for though...

I really don' t see sony going under, because the ps3 wont fail, also for the price cut, unless they do a microsoft with eXBOX (maybe to aid sales) it' ll happen not long after launch or like you say it wont be one for ages.

Reducing the component costs will be really hard for Sony and they' re still bleeding money from CELL and Blu-Ray' s fate doesn' t look promising.

Sony can' t AFFORD to drop the price and absorb the costs because their games division has already had to borrow money from the bank to cover CELL' s development. The money they' ve made with PS2 has pretty much all gone into CELL and Blu-Ray' s development and Sony as a whole isn' t in a hugely enviable position (the rootkit scandal, lackluster sales of their Walkman range because Apple is dominating the MP3 player market, PSP being crushed by DS, the Immersion lawsuit, UMD' s bombing badly etc), and for a company that makes the bulk of it' s profit from it' s games division, it' s a make or break situation.

If Blu-Ray bombs then PS3 has a disadvantage because the cost of the drives and discs themselves will outweigh the profit made from them. If PS3 bombs (or has a really hard time) then it' ll probably take Blu-Ray with it and their dedicated players are far more expensive than Toshibas and have NO advantage other than the amount of film companies releasing on that format. But look at UMD. Everybody' s jumped ship because it' s no longer a viable format.

$600 for a games console is a risk, but as everybody now knows (and as people like Rampage and myself told you at the beginning of the year) it was always going to be expensive due to the technology and they can' t AFFORD to release it at a cheaper price without removing features.

The 6-12 months post launch will be a good indication of where they' re going, but don' t expect a price-drop in that until Christmas 2007 at the earliest.

Majik is saying it like it is. A price drop for PS3 is going to be much tougher then it will be for 360. It wouldn' t surprise me too much if we see the ps3 keep its original price tag for two full years. MS learned their lessen from Xbox and made the 360 easily capable of cost reduction. Sony did not do this, instead they made a real gamble by combining BR and CELL with PS3. Sony wants these two things to succeed on their own and were willing to raise the production costs of PS3 considerably in order to expand the user base of BR and mass produce CELL for cost reduction (of the actual proccessor).

IMO sonys strategy is selfish, one that only benefits themselves as opposed to the consumer.

There will be no price drop. There might be one though, and it will be all the way, when you pry the PS3 from Sony' s dead cold fingers!



DIE SONY DIE!

Is it over the top? or?

Sony took a serious gamble by not pushing to include at least some great titles
for launch (although that means the overall quality of said games will be better
right?). Don' t console manufacturers make most of their revenue on the total
amount of games sold at the beginning of a consoles lifespan?

As there are some goons out there going to buy a fully-priced PS3 with no games
on it at launch.

I really don' t expect a price cut until maybe minimum 3 years down the line.

There will be no price drop. There might be one though, and it will be all the way, when you pry the PS3 from Sony' s dead cold fingers!

Hilarious :)

As there are some goons out there going to buy a fully-priced PS3 with no games
on it at launch.

It' s hard to say what games will be available at launch - they' re suppoused to announce it month before launch.

HalfLife 2 alone is worth getting one (ofc it' s coming out for 360 as well, but PS fanboys don' t care)- I want it even though I' ve already finished it.

Saying about ps3/360 price cuts, isn' t the ps2 now and always have been (except maybe at 360' s initial launch price of £299) been more expensive.

When I worked in a shop with a games section i was always surprised that the less powerful console was still selling more even with a higher price point.

I look at it this way:

-If blu-ray takes off, which it might, then they can get themselves out of the hole, and push their new format, expect a price drop in a few years (late 07 at the earliest)

-If Blu-ray is a moderate failure, definately don' t expect any price drop.

-However, If Blu-Ray is a total flop, and the Cell doesn' t pull through in the least, (which I really don' t expect) expect a real price drop, as Sony is going to try to juice the most dough out of a failed plan.

Well...even with a price-cut it' s still gonna be around 600-700 for us in europe...yippie...

When I worked in a shop with a games section i was always surprised that the less powerful console was still selling more even with a higher price point.

Correct me if I' m wrong, but the " most powerful" console has never been the top seller. The top seller has always been the one with the most extensive third party support.

Intellivision and Colecovision were more powerful than the Atari 2600.
The Sega Master System was more powerful than the NES.
The SNES was more powerful than the Megadrive/Genesis.
The N64 and Saturn were more powerful than the PS1.
The Xbox and Gamecube were more powerful than the PS2.

Sales figures in some of these generations were closer than others, and definitions of " power" in consoles aren' t so cut-and-dried across the board, but I think there is a very clear trend.

ORIGINAL: Zoy

When I worked in a shop with a games section i was always surprised that the less powerful console was still selling more even with a higher price point.

Correct me if I' m wrong, but the " most powerful" console has never been the top seller. The top seller has always been the one with the most extensive third party support.

Intellivision and Colecovision were more powerful than the Atari 2600.
The Sega Master System was more powerful than the NES.
The SNES was more powerful than the Megadrive/Genesis.
The N64 and Saturn were more powerful than the PS1.
The Xbox and Gamecube were more powerful than the PS2.

Sales figures in some of these generations were closer than others, and definitions of " power" in consoles aren' t so cut-and-dried across the board, but I think there is a very clear trend.

Valid point but i was simply pointing out how the lesser powerful console was more expensive than a more powerful one.

Doesn' t the $600 ps3 comes with wireless and a bunch of extra shit, you can just get the $500 version you know.

I mean the wireless adapter for xbox360 costs $100, so an xbox360 with that included would boost the price to $500, only $100 less than PS3.

And the Saturn wasn' t more powerfull than the PS1. You fucking idiot, saturn' s 3D graphics are fucking atrocious.

Wow, Evil Man, judging a console just on the graphics of some of its games?

*Ahem* Heeeeeere we go.....

Saturn to PS1 Comparison:

Video RAM -

Saturn - 12 Mbits (1.5 MB)
Playstation - 8 MBits (1 MB)

Polys-Per-Second -

Saturn - 500,000
Playstation - 360,000

Audio -

Saturn - 32 Channels for Audio
Playstation - 24 Channels for Audio

CPU -

Saturn - Two 25 MIP Processors in Parallel (Theoretically 50 MIPs)
Playstation - 30 MIPs

Also, Saturn came with internal memory, whereas PS1 did not.

So, before you go making anymore brash statements in an attempt to undermine others, perhaps you should do a little research?

To get value for money for your ps3 (for arguments sake) you need to buy at least another controller for multiplayer, atleast 2 games AND 2 bluray movies. If you don' t buy blu ray movies you are effectively wasting 50% of the ps3s capabilities. So in effect the blu ray movies will be competing with ps3 games for your entertainment dollars (and as of this time blu ray movies aren' t that cheap either) if you are trying to get full value out of your ps3, and its ps3 games sold that actually make money for sonys playstation division. Considering this and the fact that each ps3 sold may actually cost sony upto US$300 per console, its not a pretty picture - to that add 360 which can go toe to toe with the ps3 and has a year head start and the unique Wii, the affordable alternative the picture gets bleaker.

So less money earnt through games sales due to - High initial price of ps3, Blu ray movies, possible high price of games, strong competition from 360 & Wii. I can' t see sony breaking even any time soon, if it came out first it would have been a different story, but as to the chances of the price drop - i feel that after 2 years in its life is an optimistic and quite realistic timeframe.

will sony die - well unlikely, but failure is definately a possibility. Had they made a ps3 a pure HD gaming machine at an affordable price and let cell and blu ray be sold on their own merits sony would have been in a much better position. Oh well, they still have some time to fix things before launch.

Doesn' t the $600 ps3 comes with wireless and a bunch of extra shit, you can just get the $500 version you know.

I mean the wireless adapter for xbox360 costs $100, so an xbox360 with that included would boost the price to $500, only $100 less than PS3.

Its a bad idea offering stuff like wireless included in the box if you have to raise the price 100$ to do it! i for one, dont need since i have a cable running to it in the wall, as other people have had before, to connect either the PS2 or Xbox.

I like having a cheaper console and buying the accesories i want. Thats why the 20gp PS3 model is utterly garbage, you cant upgrade the HDMI port!