PS3 Price Cut CONFIRMED

[Havok83]

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/1354.html

We seem to be running around in circles covering this topic at least once or twice every week, but the more confirmations of a PS3 price-drop we get, the merrier. We've had numerous high-profile executives comment on the status of a price-drop, but none of them as high as Sony CEO, Sir Howard Stringer. Speaking to the Financial Times again, Stringer states a plan on 'refining' the price of the PS3.


Off the bat, the interviewer asked Stringer about the PlayStation 3, Stringer was quick to give kudos to Nintendo: "I would be the first to say to you that Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise and a very good business model compared to ours... Because it's cheaper."

"While people have not bought as many PlayStation 3s as it looks, it is no different from PS2 and PS1 in terms of percentage of sales. I think that the public would like the cost to be lower, there’s no question about that." When the Financial Times reporter asked Sir Stringer about what price-point the price-cut could entail, "That’s what we’re studying at the moment; that’s what we’re trying to refine," said Stringer.

When asked if we'd be seeing a price-cut before Christmas (holiday season), Stringer boldly stated "Yes, of course." He commented on the PS2's continuing success, as well as the PSP's "upward spiral" thanks to its price-cut.

"So I think PlayStation 3’s travails are usually solved by time. And it will have an instant gratification environment, not only in life but in the press as well as everything else. It’s a good story right now, 'Will PlayStation 3 get to Christmas?' And the answer is, of course it will get to Christmas."

On the topic of potential being used by the PlayStation 3's developers, Stringer said: "It takes a long time for producers, and more time because of the cost factor, to embrace the full bandwidth of PlayStation 3. It’s only using 20 per cent of it right now. And producers will always wait to see how it’s going, and once they use the full bandwidth the games experience is stunning."

You can read the full transcript here (you may have to sign up to read it. Use bugmenot.com to bypass): http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ebccb53a-1a9b-11dc-8bf0-000b5df10621.html

 

[L.A.]

Im hoping for a 100 price cut.

 

[Speedball]

I hope it happens soon.

 

[Havok83]

Im hoping for a 100 price cut.

Im not sure it will be that drastic but it will be nice. Im hoping for at least a 50 dollar drop

 

[L.A.]

Im not sure it will be that drastic but it will be nice. Im hoping for at least a 50 dollar drop

100 > 50!!!

 

[Havok83]

100 > 50!!!

well duh, but Im trying to be pratical here. I doubt that the first price drop willl be that drastic. For all we know they could be dropping it $25 bucks. Id settle for at least 50 but would gladly accept anything more

 

[Jennifer Walters]

It needs 100 dollar price cut before I even think about touching it.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Im not sure it will be that drastic but it will be nice. Im hoping for at least a 50 dollar drop

Serioulsy $50.00 is not big enough. Sony needs a $100.00 - $150.00 price cut in order to better compete with the Xbox 360 and Wii. Anything above $500.00 is too much.

 

[Zenien]

At most I think we'd see a 100 dollar price drop. Sony is losing a ton of money on PS3 but at the same time they do have a very aggressive cost reduction plan in place. Maybe they're just going to reduce the price down to 499, pack in a game and be losing about the same money then as they lost on a 599 PS3 when it launched.

 

[Havok83]

Serioulsy $50.00 is not big enough. Sony needs a $100.00 - $150.00 price cut in order to better compete with the Xbox 360 and Wii. Anything above $500.00 is too much.

they are already losing money with the PS3. A price drop of 100-150 would be best for the consumer, but not necesarily for Sony. I can see them dropping the price 50 and including extras to compensate the difference such as HDMI cable, a better blu ray disc, maybe a game, headset, etc... But hey what do I know. Guess we'll have to wait and see this fall. Im not gonna get one till then and I sure hope it is a $100 drop

 

[Spidey-Bat]

They should drop it $60 so you could at least afford another game.

 

[Timstuff]

I think the price drop will be no less than $100, but no more than $150. The PS3 is a considerably higher-end piece of hardware than the Xbox 360, so it would be kind of ridiculous to expect them to be the same price. My guess is that Sony will price it to be comparable with the Xbox 360 Elite bundle (which puts PS3 at a much better value because of Blu-Ray and Wifi). $469.99 sounds like it'd be the sweet spot.

 

[XtromaniaK]

I think the price drop will be no less than $100, but no more than $150. The PS3 is a considerably higher-end piece of hardware than the Xbox 360, so it would be kind of ridiculous to expect them to be the same price. My guess is that Sony will price it to be comparable with the Xbox 360 Elite bundle (which puts PS3 at a much better value because of Blu-Ray and Wifi). $469.99 sounds like it'd be the sweet spot.

All I have to say about this is..

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!

 

[Arkady Rossovich]

There is no choice,its too expensive for most to buy.I doubt there was a choice with the lacking sales to begin with.

 

[Zenien]

All I have to say about this is..

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!

It has a high end expensive custom designed CPU, a next geneneration expensive optical drive a hard drive that comes standard with the console, an expensive internal cooling system, XDR ram, Ports and Card readers up the ying yang. That's waht he's saying.

 

[XtromaniaK]

It has a high end expensive custom designed CPU, a next geneneration expensive optical drive a hard drive that comes standard with the console, an expensive internal cooling system, XDR ram, Ports and Card readers up the ying yang. That's waht he's saying.

Fun, though that doesn't make it higher-end so much as very expensive. Higher-end would imply that there is some large performance gain out of all of that.

 

[Zenien]

Actually all the stuff I listed does make the PS3 a higher end peice of electronics... It has features and abilities beyond the stabdard Xbox 360, like a Blu ray player which gives you a huge quality difference over standard DVDs while being really expensive to include, higher capacity discs. All those little things like ports, Cell, the high performance 3.2 ghz XDR ram, an expensive but extremely efficient interal cooling system, the motherboard etc, the build quality is a lot better.

 

[XtromaniaK]

Actually all the stuff I listed does make the PS3 a higher end peice of electronics... It has features and abilities beyond the stabdard Xbox 360, like a Blu ray player which gives you a huge quality difference over standard DVDs while being really expensive to include, higher capacity discs. All those little things like ports, Cell, the high performance 3.2 ghz XDR ram, an expensive but extremely efficient interal cooling system, the motherboard etc, the build quality is a lot better.

I would guess. Though you have yet to see any performance gains out of it. Thus it being expensive and not really "higher-end" beyond the extra [stressing that word] features that come standard. Hence my point.

 

[Zenien]

Your point has been invalidated by your own admission.

So a Bravia 1080P isn't higher end then a Sharp 1080P Sharp?

Jebus man get this through your head, it's not about texture resolutions in games. Having better build quality and more features make something a higher end peice of electronics. You don't have to have the software developers showing that difference to make the hardware superior or not. Everythign about the PS3 is highr quality aside from the GPU, every inch of the design to the features it supports, the 360 is a poorly built peice of hardware that has a more easilly acessable CPU and a beefier GPU but overall the PS3 is a way higher end peice of electronics for reasons anyone can see this isn't fanboyism it is a fact.

Arg.

 

[XtromaniaK]

So a Bravia 1080P isn't higher end then a Sharp 1080P Sharp? Jebus man get this through your head, it's not about texture resolutions in games. Having better buuild quality and more features make something a higher end peice of electronics. You don't have to have the software developers showing that difference to make the hardware superior or not. Everythign about the PS3 is highr quality aside from the GPU, every inc of the design to the features it supports, the 360 is a poorly built peice of ahrdware that has a more easilly acessable CPU and a beefier GPU but overall the PS3 is a way higher end peice of electronics for reasons anyone can see this isn't fanboyism it is a fact.

Arg.

You mistake higher-end and having extra frills. Higher-end has always been a term used to describe a piece of hardware that performs at a level above that of a competing piece of hardware. It has extra features not essential to the performance or operation of the hardware, and that's cool. I respect that. It does not mean it is a "higher-end" piece of equipment.

Also, the "poorly built piece of hardware" comment really doesn't help your position at all. It just shows how much of a fanboy (girl?) you're being about this. Cool down.

 

[Zenien]

If you had two peices of hardware the were performance wise basically a wash the better built hardware is higher end. Having a dramatically higher end optical media drive isn't a frill having better performing ram isn't a frill, havign a better motherboard and cooling system isn't a frill, having a highly specialized high end CPU which outperforms XCPU in a lot of ways and has dramatically more power to leverage isn't a frill, just like the 360 having a moe powerful GPU isn't a frill and everyone and their mother knows the 360 is a poorly buillt peice of hardware with a high failure rate.

How. can. you. not. understand. what. higher. end. means.

 

[XtromaniaK]

If you had two peices of hardware the were performance wise basically a wash the better built hardware is higher end. Having a dramatically higher end optical media drive isn't a frill having better performing ram isn't a frill, havign a better motherboard and cooling system isn't a frill, having a highly specialized high end CPU which outperforms XCPU in a lot of ways and has dramatically more power to leverage isn't a frill, just like the 360 having a moe powerful CPU isn't a frill and everyone and their mother knows the 360 is a poorly buuilld peice of hardware with a stupidly high failure rate.

It's only higher-end if the parts can perform at a higher benchmark. The parts are "higher-end", but the collective piece of hardware is not. I can load my computer up with "high-end" parts. Let's say we're comparing Dells and Falcons. I can have a Falcon with slightly "lower-end" parts than the Dell and it can still manage to perform at the level of or above the Dell. That's because the Dell isn't as efficient as the Falcon. You're trying to argue that the console is higher-end because it's parts are higher-end, but then the Xbox 360 is poorly built because some of it's parts are lower-end? Here's the kicker though: It performs at the same level as the PS3, for all we can see and have seen. So apparently it can't be that "poorly built" if it's performing up-to-par with a machine that has higher-end parts that can't seem to give it that much of an edge.

I admit that the air-flow and cooling system in general was overlooked. That was a poor design decision. But that doesn't mean the console in general was "poorly built". In short, the parts may be "drastically" higher end to some extent, but apparently the worksmanship and effectively the console is not. Please don't let your Sony fanboy-ism make you look dumber than you are. I know you've got some sense up there.

 

[Mr Jide]

It needs 100 dollar price cut before I even think about touching it.

The ps2 is still being sold for about 100.

 

[Kritish]

It’ll never be a threat to the 360 or Wii until it lowers itself down to around $300.

 

[Havok83]

It’ll never be a threat to the 360 or Wii until it lowers itself down to around $300.

not gonna happen for at least 3-4 years