PS3 to Break Even this Year

[Zenien]

ABC has an interesting article about Howard Stringer, the CEO of Sony. It talks about profitability and whatnot, but the most interesting line was this one:

Startup costs for the PlayStation 3 have been hefty but Stringer said he expects the game console to break even by the end of the year.

The PS3 is the most expensive console on the market today, and Sony is subsidizing it. We don’t know how much, but I’ve heard numbers like $200 thrown about. If Sony can break even on every PS3 sold by the end of the year, that would be a good thing for Sony.

There was a similiar furor over the PS2. Everyone thought the PS2 was losing money at a time when the PS2 was actually making Sony money. It became profitable pretty quick.


We’ll have to see how Sony fares this time around.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer talks about profit

 

[WeeZiTe]

Today I saw 46 PS3's in Best Buy and 3 in Target generating NO interest..

I'm sure they will.

 

[Spider-Gamer]

Today I saw 46 PS3's in Best Buy and 3 in Target generating NO interest..

I'm sure they will.

For the past couple days I have seen the same three PS3s at Target.

 

[Zenien]

A lot of stores have PS3's in the back y'know, they'd just replace the PS3's as they're sold. A lot of stores don't want to take up all their space with every single PS3 unit.

Anyway he's refering to the cost to Sony of the PS3 being sold to a customer. Right now PS3's are sold at a loss. By fall they won't be.

Both the PSP and PS2 make money on hardware FYI.

 

[Fran]

No. F***ing. Way.

 

[Fading]

Honestly great news 'if' true and not just hype. It's great if your a PS3 fan or just plan on buying one as that 'could' mean a price drop sooner than later. It's good for ppl not wanting to get a PS3 because it means the cost of Blu-ray has most likely went down meaning Blu-ray players themselves could be cheaper to make and therefore get cheaper themselves.

My guess is if they don't early this year, they will break even late this year. As more systems are made and more Blu-ray diodes (or whatever their called) are manufactured, they'll find cost cutting methods and get the price down.

 

[Zenien]

Sony is very good at driving down cost very quickly, but even I was suprised to read that.

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

i strongly doubt it. i'll eat my words when the end of the year hits, until then stringer is blowing smoke out his ass. it took MS a year to start making profit on its console(although small) at a very low lost compared to sony . with the hit sony took on its console it should be at least 2 years to start seeing profit.

 

[AssMan]

At least we know Sony is planning a price drop. I did not expect it to happen so soon. Maybe they will drop it down to match Japans 400 or so price of the system

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

the only way i can see a price drop happening is if they get rid of the blue ray. a premium package that includes blue ray and another package that does'nt. thats the only way i see it working.

 

[Ice-man]

some of us knew manufacturing coast will go down, and if manufacturing does happen to drop enough, than we can probably expect a ps3 price drop. they could probably sell the system at 400 - 450.

they'd still make alot of money, they can pay more developers for exclusivity rights, and so on.


they should also think into making a dvd only ps3, that just uses newer dvds that could have up to 15 -20 gb on single or duel layerd disk.

they'd save a hell of alot of money.

 

[BatMatt]

the only way i can see a price drop happening is if they get rid of the blue ray. a premium package that includes blue ray and another package that does'nt. thats the only way i see it working.

Except because all PS3 games are printed on the blu-ray format, that will never happen.

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

unless sony sent out a memo to the devs to make two versions of a game. blue ray and regular.

 

[Fran]

Ummm... no.

That would double the cost of making the game itself, (copying it onto discs), because making two different versions of the same game will just cost more money.

 

[BatMatt]

plus the difference between the two games would be incredible since the blu-ray has much more storage capacity

 

[Spider-Gamer]

A lot of stores have PS3's in the back y'know, they'd just replace the PS3's as they're sold. A lot of stores don't want to take up all their space with every single PS3 unit.

Anyway he's refering to the cost to Sony of the PS3 being sold to a customer. Right now PS3's are sold at a loss. By fall they won't be.

Both the PSP and PS2 make money on hardware FYI.

Thats what I thought at first , but I asked the electronics area manager (I used to work for Target) and told me they were the same ones since I last came in.

 

[guitarsingerguy]

Thats what I thought at first , but I asked the electronics area manager (I used to work for Target) and told me they were the same ones since I last came in.

The EBGames next to where I work has the same 9 PS3's they've had for two weeks.

 

[WeeZiTe]

A lot of stores have PS3's in the back y'know, they'd just replace the PS3's as they're sold. A lot of stores don't want to take up all their space with every single PS3 unit.

Anyway he's refering to the cost to Sony of the PS3 being sold to a customer. Right now PS3's are sold at a loss. By fall they won't be.

Both the PSP and PS2 make money on hardware FYI.

Yeah, that must be it.. They must've had someone standing next to the display to replace a PS3 everytime one was sold. Silly me, I should've thought of that before!

 

[Fran]

"A PS3 WAS SOLD!!! THERE'S 59 OUT THERE, WE'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE 60!!! GET IN THE STOCK ROOM STAT!!!"