PS3 Price Cut Still a Possibility?

[cracklint]

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 S 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
GIGABYTE GV-R435OC-512I Radeon HD 4350 512MB
A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Sony Optiarc Black 5X BD-ROM & 12X DVD Burner SATA
IN WIN Black Steel IW-BT566T.300BL Micro ATX HTPC Case
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400 Brisbane 2.8GHz 65W Dual-Core black edition
ASRock A780FullHD AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G Micro ATX AMD
392.94
w/shipping $416.33

this configuration in hybrid crossfire is comparable to the PS3 gaming capabilities. In addition has a drive that will play blu-ray at 5x and burn cds/dvds, also has full browser support, also comes with almost 3x more storage, and with shipping only costs $20 more than Sony's lowest priced PS3 while offering all the functions of a standard PC going beyound movies and games. Worst yet, average joe computer builder can build this thing and sell it without losing money.

 

[Tindytim]

[citation][nom]ditchman[/nom]I do agree that it was a bad move by Sony to remove the PS2/1 compatability.[/citation]
They only removed PS2 compatibility. You can still play PS1 games.

I'm more annoyed about PS2 games, because there are many prolific series that got started on the PS2. Seems like you could have boosted sales on current game by stirring interest from the previous ones.

 

[Guest]

All it come down to is this old saying:

Something is worth what its purchaser will pay for.

So PS3 being #3 in sales prouves that they are selling too high for what we think its worth. So a 50$ or even 100$ drop might not do the trick if the gaming experience is not there. All those nice feature about the PS3 are totally useless if the main purpose (gaming) is not any better than the competition.

For a40%more expensive console will I have 40% more fun

 

[demonhorde665]

wow sony is stupid , i just looked at systems at various stores online

ok first off the limited edition RE5 xbox 360 is right at 399 $ US

the cheapest ps3 i sa was at this sme price ok what does the RE5 come with

1. it is alimited edition model
2. free RE5 game (big plus that ist has a great free game )
3. 120 gig hard drive
4. buth component and HDMI cables
5. Mic headset
6. Ethernet cable
7. downloadeable streat fighter 2 HD remix


here is what the base ps3 comes with

1. 80 gig hard drive
2. controller
3. system
4. standard rca connectors

im nto goign to bothwer with mentionign the blue ray , its not a full quality blu ray palyer , and it shouldtn have even been put in teh console, real gmaers buy consoles for gaming not watching movies


as far as agaming value goes this is horrid teh most elite and limited edition of a 360 cost teh same as teh most basic ps3

its no wonder fewer fish are biting

i'd say a price i'd think aobut a ps 3 would be , around 250 for the higher end ps3 i'd say it should be at 399... if i ahd the money i'd prefer to spend my 400 of the limited re5 360 ... infact i'm wishign i had held out the limtied ed. came out jsut a few short weeks after i ahd already bought a arcade version of teh 360 but oh well , i'll save my money now and get re5 and perhaps a HD later

 

[demonhorde665]

[citation][nom]andybird123[/nom]And which do you think they'll make more money from in the long run, licencing blu ray and selling billions of players and discs, or selling a couple of million consoles and games?best selling PS3 game: MotorStorm - 3.3 million copies and after that the top 10 list quickly drops of to 1 millionbest selling DVD: 12.7 million copies and the rest of the top 10 list are over 10 million units eachHD TV is still pretty much leading edge rather than mass consumer technology (less than 5% of people I know have a HD setup)as people's CRT TV's break and more people get HD tellys, people will also switch over to blu ray from DVD sony will make a killing[/citation]


yes yes true sony will make a kiling of licenseing fees for blu ray , however , int eh long run they very well may have to step out of the console market because of this , soemthjign taht will cost them for many many more years to come than what biu ray's life span will be. i see the possiblity for a "dream cast" scenario, but with a reverse effect , taht beign the DC sold great when it started but sales got so horrible in teh end they ahd to stop making hardware altogether . with ps3 i see sales beign poor at first but taking off at teh end (albiet to late ) cosing sony to reevaluate the short term worth whileness of staying in the console hardware market. if the ps4 has the same issues then i can easily see sony killing the gaming hardware divison of thier company.

dont take this the wrong way i'm not a fan boy and the alst thign i want to see is less competition , i wish sega was still in the ahrdware buisness , hell the dream cast was their second most solid system ever in my opinion, it was a damn fine system too and i really wish that mine hadnt gotten blown out by a ligthening storm a year ago when a bolt came close to hitting our house it ahd many great titles was the first 128 bit system (current gen is 256 but people have stopped ranking generations by thier system buss these days). it also had damn fine graphics ,even after the otehr companies got their systems out teh DC still stood up to them on a graphical level and had it contiued i think developers would have still pushed better graphics out of the system.

just main point is as a gamer i';d ahte to see less competition due to sony's arrogance. but then again , sony only dove into game systems because of a dispute with nintendo not becuase they actually had a concern for gamers at the time.

 

[my2cent$]

$250 would be perfect and would compete with the other systems prices. Lets face it b-ray is the only thing even keeping the PS3 above water right now. The games and quality are the same if not a little better on the 360. Also you don't have to download 2,3,and 4 gigs of data to your hard drive on the 360 like you do on PS3 to play the exact same game (really dumb, Sony). Nothing is quite as enjoyable as waiting for 10 minutes of downloading before you can even start to play. This also causes you to lose prescious space you could be saving other media to. The game is supposed to be on the disc not your drive and the disc. I mean if Sony is going to keep doing this then they either need to get rid of disc and go to straight download or just use the disc, not both, thats dumb. Also I have noticed recently that 360 games are running at 480p, 720p, and 1080p while PS3 games are running at 480p and 720p. What happened to full 1080p Sony was so proudly sporting in the begining for the games? Point is I alrady have a stand alone Blu-ray player and it was a gift (cost me nothing). So why would I spend $400 or even $300 on a system that really benefits me in no way. Also I own a 360 and Yes I have played the PS3 extensivley. I would buy a PS3, but not at any price above the competitions console prices since I would really not be getting anything new from it. Sony needs to wake up and realize this, here is one example. Say someone buys you a b-ray player as a gift for Christmas, Birthday, Anniversary, etc (some b-ray players are under $250), then you go buy a 360. Makes sense and it would be about $100-$200 cheaper than buying a PS3 depending on which 360 you buy. Sony needs to bring the price down to $300 minimum and $250 would be outstanding.

 

[Guest]

Everyone uses the "Blue Ray" aspect of owning a PS3 as if it were a leg up on 360, and I agree, it's a good feature. However, I think that High Definition Digital Distribution (i.e. Netflix, Apple Tv) is more competitive price wise, and people are getting tired of storing up dozens of discs (DVD or otherwise) that they only watch once. Sure, Netflix when streamed delivers "only" 720p resolution, but it's bandwith limited. With devices like "Apple Tv" setting the standards of "download-able" digital distribution, it won't be too long before devices like the 360 are can download purchased 1080p movie to the hard drive for repeated viewing; all with out discs to scratch or lose! Sony is using their "Blue Ray" standard to try and make a mint on media. I have owned a PS3 since Sony released the MGS4 Bundle, and I have only completed that single game. I have tried a few others, all of which were disappointments. I really haven't had a good reason to own the PS3. I hope that Digital Distribution really picks up; that will make it easier to put on your iPod and it will make the market more flexible in general.

 

[Guest]

Whatever price cuts Sony implements on the PS3 will be met by more aggressive price cuts on the XBOX 360. Microsoft doesn't care about losing money on their Games division, they make so much money selling Windows. They will try to beat Sony at any cost.

 

[matt87_50]

wtf are you guys talking about "renders at 720p then upscales to 1080p for blurays" why would it do this???? it would be harder and more intensive than playing it at native 1080p!??!?!? i'm pretty sure you are mistaken, I have gone right up to my 1080p tv and blurays are clearly pixel for pixel matched

 

[my2cent$]

It would have to be around $250 for me to buy one. I already have a 360 and a stand alone b-ray player. The b-ray player was a gift and 360 was $200. Sony needs to realize that people are going to get gifts and stuff to be able to work around having to drop $400 out of pocket. 400 is fine if you want both and no one will buy you a 360 or a b-ray player as a gift. I would like to have one but I'm not going to spend more than what the other systems cost for a console. The PS3 at this point would not offer me anything I don't already have. Besides the 360 is running it's games at 1080p now, they look and run great, and you don't have to use your hard drive to store a game on it. It's crazy that you have to pay $60 for a game then load 2 or more gigs of info, taking 10 minutes or more, onto a hard drive when all the info is on the disc (PS3). You don't have to do that on 360. I have played the PS3 a lot because a family member had one. Yes, I would like to have a PS3 but it would have to be $250 before I would consider it.

 

[hercules]

drop to 300 and it is in my back pocket

 

[Guest]

PS2 at $79, kill the 80G, and make the 160G $333.

I for one have a 360 but no blu-ray. At a $333 I would go with PS3 for blu ray and nothing else. And hey, I don't mind having access to a few good exclusive plat titles. And then PSNetwork is free...

So I get this 160G PC for 3 hundo n some with blu ray and some online services that don't nickel and dime me (e.g. XBLive, Netflix, etc) and all of a sudden the PS3 is my home media/casual gaming/entertainment PC. For games, I have my xbox. For everything else, I have my PS3.

And as for PS3 being a sub par BRP, CNET rates them with the best (http/bit.ly/15h3fF):

"Some home theater die hards will insist on a standalone player, but everyone else should stick with the PS3 until standalones cost much less and perform comparably. "

High end BRPs are just loaded with features. The way I see it, the PS3 is loaded with more features than any of them...at a pretty decent price.

 

[ikoris]

I heard they might bundle a PS2 with a PS3 for $419.99, which seems pretty stupid because that is like selling a PS3 for the regular price and lowering the price of the PS2 another $80.00. The reason I believe this to be a stupid move is because the PS2 is the PAST, anyone who doesn't have a PS2 isn't going to cough up an extra $300.00 to get a PS3, they would probably get a PS2 because they can't afford a PS3. Therefore, Sony should just cut the bull-crap and drop the PS3's price by the $80 to $319.99. While anything over $300.00 is still a little steep for some people, I think it would give others a little kick in the rear to stop being cheap and get the most refined console on the market to date. So $319.99, final offer!

 

[Guest]

Quote "ImmortalJman 04/01/2009 5:00 PM. the only exclusive PS3 game worth playing is Metal Gear Solid 4" & "I prefer to watch my Blu-rays on a stand alone unit which produces true 1080p as opposed to the internally rendered 720p image which is then upscaled by the PS3 for output"

MGS4 only exclusive worth playing, really. Little Big Planet, Killzone 2, Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, Heavenly Sword to name a few off the top of my head.
720p upscaled! Do you even own a PS3. It outputs in true 1080p, not all games are programmed in this, but if you have a 1080p TV, & a 1080p game/blu-ray film, that's how it's output. Unlike the 360 can only natively manage (without upscale) 1080i.

Stop making stuff up.

 

[ta152h]

It's all speculative on what Sony can sell it for, because none of us know what it costs them. They may not be selling extremely well, but they are selling, and are very far from dead. On top of this, they won the war against HD-DVD and that's a lot more important than toys like game consoles. Virtually everyone has a DVD player, and those people will eventually move to blu-ray. Not everyone has a game console, or even wants one. So, if they lose this battle, and it won't be a binary win or lose, it will be more like they will have lost some sales, it's not a huge deal. I don't know why they'd want to sell a ton of these machines if they suffer massive losses on them, and might be content to selling moderate amounts while they wait for their component costs to recede.

What's clear is the system is already a good deal compared to the X-Box. The Wii isn't in the same league as either, and really is more competitive with the PS2 from a purely hardware perspective. It also shows that the sales of a console have everything to do with the current generation, and not the last one. Meaning, even if the PS3 doesn't sell well, that's not going to prevent the PS4 from selling well - there's just not that type of brand continuity. The Wii is your proof.

So, if you have two real latest generation consoles, and one is always breaking for some reason or another, and the other is more feature rich, has better hardware, and has free online access, isn't it worth a bit more money? When you factor in how much you will end up spending on games, and how much time you spend on these machines, is the initial cost really so important? Do you really want to buy an unreliable machine to save a little bit of money?

I think Sony needs to get across why their machine is a better choice, even at that price point. Maybe they can't, for the moment, lower the price too much, but they do a better job communicating why they are a good choice. I don't feel like they've gotten this message across successfully to enough people.

I am inclined that at $299 the console would sell much better, but I'm less inclined to believe this is something Sony would want. Clearly, they know it would spur sales, but equally, they aren't willing to lose so much money to do it. I think the PS2 price reduction is a good way to bide some time while their costs go down, and then we'll see the price cuts everyone wants. It's easy for software developers to tell Sony they should do it, it's painless for them. It's easy for consumers to say it too, it's less than painless for them. It's a lot harder for Sony to do it when they're the ones footing the bill. I'm sure they will at some point, but that point surely has something to do with their costs.

 

[hillarymakesmecry]

Sony should charge whatever it costs them to produce it.

 

[plbyrd]

Whoever said you cannot play HD movies on XBOX 360 hasn't done their homework. Microsoft has many, many HD movies available through XBOX Live Marketplace. And since the XBOX 360 does an incredible job upscaling 720x480 DVDs to 720P, I have zero incentive to care about HD movies. And then there's Netflix on the XBOX 360. The PS3 cannot touch the convenience of Netflix and Windows Live Marketplace on the XBOX 360.

 

[RTsa]

I might buy it for 200€.

 

[Mach5Motorsport]

The PS3 will never be a success like the PS1 or PS2. Yeah, maybe an unfair standard, but the expectations and hype leading to the often delayed PS3 and ultra expensive price will doom this console (which is quite good, but flawed) to third place sales status behing the Wii and 360 forever.

Sony could cut the price (about frickn time Sony) but it is still crippled by a small games library (compared to the 360) and a mearly adequate BluRay player.

 

[Guest]

Im willing to buy a ps3 till june of 2009 if it drops to at least 320 dollars, otherwise ill just save up more and upgrade my pc.