Sony Firm On PS3 Pricing

Reuters has some last minute discussion on the high price of the PS3, as well as their plans for shipping 2 million units by December. From the article: "'We are very comfortable with the pricing we have announced and have gotten tremendous support from retailers for that price point,' Hirai said on the sidelines of the Dow Jones VentureWire Consumer Technology Conference. 'So it is full steam ahead with the pricing of $499 and $599.'"

That's good...Good, good for them

[Control Group]

'We are very comfortable with the pricing we have announced and have gotten tremendous support from retailers for that price point,'

Well, it's certainly comforting to know that the stores like the price.

I wonder if the consumers will.

The REAL question is....

[Rockman-X]

...after the "hardcore" gamers (who think the console is worth the price) have bought their PS3s, will the general public (parents who will buy a game console for their kids) be "comfortable" with the price? Heck... will they even find one in the stores, since Sony doesn't seem to be capable of building the machines in time? Yeah, perhaps the price right now is just a minor issue for Sony.

Department

[Durrok]

from the going-to-have-to-bite-the-bullet dept

No we don't.

Consumers are weird.

[thatguywhoiam]

This is not a justification for the PS3 price. I think its high. But I do think this phenomenon is interesting.)

Fabulous new mobile phone, lots of bells and whistles = people happily pay $500

Fabulous new video iPod, lots of nice features = people giddily pay $500

Fabulous new game console, nex-gen features = people freak out, say $500 is way way too much.

If you're wondering

[Anonymous Coward]

How early adopters feel about the price, head out to ebay or amazon's product forums for the ps3 or your local BestBuy. Now, that's early adopters, they'll literally pay almost anything to get their hands on one. I've never understood why people make such a big deal out of the current price, up to xmas, they will have absolutely no problems selling every unit they produce. The REAL question is how quickly and by how much can they drop the price to start attracting the "average" consumer. If it's still $599 this time next year, they're doomed.

Re: In other words

[Hijacked Public]

by jimstapleton (999106) on Thursday November 09, @03:03PM (#16788335)
so, basically, the standard capitolism mantra: "Screw the consumer"

You are so correct. I would much rather the government just took my money at gunpoint, delivered a PS3 to my home whenever they got around to it, and called that a service.

RIP PS3

[Gnostic Ronin]

Of course they're not worried about the price. They can't even make any ps3s. I think they're gonna try to get as much as they can out of the overpriced DRM-machine before they give up on it and concentrate on making exploding laptop batteries.

The people who are most excited about Sony's complete lack of credibility are the XBOX360 people and the Wii people. Sony's already lost most of it's fanbase, and by the time the ps3 is actually available, most ps2 owners will have already bought another console. It only makes sense when you can buy a 360 and a Wii plus a Wii game for less than the unavailable ps3.

Re:Consumers are weird.

[CurbyKirby]

An 80Gig video ipod is $350, which is comparable to the cost of previous high end portable players.

A next-gen console with next-gen interface from Nintendo is half the cost of a PS3. At $250, it is more similar to the prices of previous consoles. than $500.

You might argue that the PS3, at launch, offers enough to justify the $500 price tag. With fewer launch titles than the Wii and the ability to play the 55 movies currently released for a format currently embroiled in a format war, I'm not convinced. [wikipedia.org]

Re:Good Price

[twistedsymphony]

You have to remember that with Blu-Ray, the PS3 is easily worth more than Sony is charging, as evidenced by the fact that Sony is taking a loss on each one sold.

For that to be true you also have to believe that the Blu-Ray players being sold are actually worth as much as they're charging. For me... not so much They have WMVHD-DVD players for about $200 which can decode the H.264 based codecs. Which leads me to believe the rest of the price of those players is Blue Diodes + Brand names.

Re:One quote sums it all up

[Stormwatch]

"The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." (1 Timothy 6:10)

"To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money -- and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it. --- AYN RAND

It's too bad we can't reply to threads

[WillAffleckUW]

Because then I'd say that Sony continues to not grok that we have other choices - xBox360 and Wii for example - that mean that $600 USD is indeed far too high, when we can get more cool games without a useless Blu-Ray laser device 90 percent of us don't need in the first place.

Plus, given Sony's prior track record, and high record of first-release failure with tech (remember the first PS2 boxen?), why should we want to pay for such things?