Retailer Confirms PS3 Price Cut

Joebob · 6 Jul 2007 at 08:23

KOTAKU said:
Following up on the report that the PLAYSTATION 3 would see a $100 price cut taking place the week after E3 2007, GameDaily has confirmed with "a merchandising manager at one of the world's biggest retailers" that the 60 GB version of the PS3 will indeed drop to $499, starting on July 12, one day after Sony's E3 press conference. GameDaily also reports that the new price is indeed indicative a retail-wide price drop, not a Circuit City specific sale, as a handful of speculators have posited.

Hopefully this will be a worldwide price cut and not just the US. They could do with shaving about £125 off the RRP of the UK price IMO.

Joebob · 6 Jul 2007 at 08:52

wedgie said:
Agree on both points.

I'm not sure the PS3 would sell that much more at the current price, even if it did have a decent catalogue of games.

Agreed. I think it's definately the price which is holding back sales rather than games. For anyone who doesn't own a 360 then theres quite a decent amount of games out for it already with more due out very soon.

Joebob · 6 Jul 2007 at 12:26

Nickg said:
ye they say that to keep demand high until they cut the price.

no plans doesnt mean they arent going to plan to do it

True, do you not remember how Microsoft said there would be no revised 360 with HDMI?

Joebob · 6 Jul 2007 at 12:27

KNiVES said:
Sony would operate at a HUGE loss if the price cut for the European PS3 were to go higher than £50.

I'm pretty sure I read that their production costs have dropped significantly so maybe they wont be losing any more than they were at launch.

Joebob · 6 Jul 2007 at 14:19

SK07 said:
Hopefully they do cut it. But in all honesty Sony released the PS3 way too early. Blu Ray isn't even here properly yet. It's too early, and even though it's future proof it's not now.

Now there's a plan - don't release any Blu-Ray players until the format has been established in the shops :confused:

Joebob · 6 Jul 2007 at 15:42

Jihad said:
Cover the vents on the 360, sorted.

put duct tape over the vents and just tell them it was to stop dust getting inside

Joebob · 8 Jul 2007 at 20:48

shiner said:
Anything concrete regarding PS3 official price cuts yet?

Nope. the rumour is that something will be announced at E3 next week.

Joebob · 8 Jul 2007 at 20:49

mrk1@1 said:
The PS3 is simply too expensive over here and relatively elsewhere, coupled with the fact it has very few games.

Consumers are wise to the fact its not anymore next gen than the 360.

Having read the news and responses on a few more forums today, appart from the blind ignorant fanboys, the consensus is the PS3 is too expensive (good value is a different thing), not enough games compared to the 360, and with the age old reliabilty argument dieing a death this week due to MS's new warranty support, it has very little to support its self in the market. BR is not enough of a selling feature as they hoped it would be by the look of it as predicted.

Imagine if MS did a 360 GTA4 bundle premium for ~ £200 come the end of the year....PS3 would be left treading water (probably will be anyway).

So even if the PS3 reaches the £300 point (which it already is/should be in dollar terms ) I doubt it will help matters.

I couldn't disagree more with most of what you said, but then we all have our own views on what the future holds

Joebob · 8 Jul 2007 at 20:52

KNiVES said:
Sony Japan denies there will be any price cuts. It's not going to happen I'm afraid.

Of course they will deny it as they dont want sales to stall on the lead up. Remember when MS said they were definately NOT making a revised 360 with a bigger HDD and HMDI? Same thing!

Joebob · 8 Jul 2007 at 21:01

KNiVES said:
The problem isn't about it being bad value per se. It's a well built piece of kit that runs and looks lovely. It's just expensive that's all. A lot of people won't pay 400 or so for a console no matter how shiney the games are, especially if there are competitors offering the same thing for much less. As another poster said earlier, there is a difference between being expensive and being bad value.

I agree. I don't think it's a lack of games which is holding back sales but the price. I dont think that if 360 did drop the price at the same time as Sony it would make too big a difference either. There are a lot of people who decided they want a PS3 a long time ago and are just waiting for it to become affordable to them.

Joebob · 9 Jul 2007 at 19:55

mrk1@1 said:
What exactly do you disagree with?.

Sorry, I should have explained more why I disagreed with your original post.

mrk1@1 said:
The PS3 is simply too expensive over here and relatively elsewhere, coupled with the fact it has very few games.

I agree with the fact that it's too expensive, but I think it has a decent selection of games for this far into it's launch and there's a whole lot of good games due out soon.

Consumers are wise to the fact its not anymore next gen than the 360.

I completely disagree with this statement too. Firstly I think a lot of consumers still beleive all the hype about the power of the PS3 being far superior to the 360. There may be some 'well read' consumers who actually do a little research before buying into products, but the vast majority don't. I actually beleive that the PS3 is more futureproof than the 360, but next gen just means next generation so Sony could have released a PS2 with an updated graphics chip and some more ram and it would still be next gen.

Having read the news and responses on a few more forums today, appart from the blind ignorant fanboys, the consensus is the PS3 is too expensive (good value is a different thing), not enough games compared to the 360,

agreed.

and with the age old reliabilty argument dieing a death this week due to MS's new warranty support, it has very little to support its self in the market.

the 'age old reliability argument' is far from over. Just because they give an extended warranty doesnt make the problem of 360's breaking go away. you will still get people being peed off with MS once they are on their third console, regardless if they had to pay for repair or not. This is something MS should have offered once they realised their was a problem, but as far as a lot of people are concerned it's too little too late.

BR is not enough of a selling feature as they hoped it would be by the look of it as predicted.

I think BD is still a big selling feature. A lot of people will hesitate to buy a High-Def player when there is a format war on, but now that BD is pulling away from HD-DVD you will see more people start to think about commiting to buy a player and if they get one built into a games console then all the better. There are plenty of people on these forums and a lot of people I know who have bought a PS3 over a 360 because it has a BD player built in.

Imagine if MS did a 360 GTA4 bundle premium for ~ £200 come the end of the year....PS3 would be left treading water (probably will be anyway).

That definately would sway some to buy the 360 but I think you underestimate how many people dont even bother to look at the price of a 360 as they know what they want. They had a PS1 and a PS2 and now they want a PS3, but they just need to wait until it comes down to within their price range. Sony has massive brand loyalty, remember that they sold over 100 million of each of their previous generations of Playstation - even if 50% of them want to carry on along this route then Sony are laughing all the way to the bank.

So even if the PS3 reaches the £300 point (which it already is/should be in dollar terms ) I doubt it will help matters.

I agree that it should be at the £300 price point already. Their is bound to be a price drop at some point before Xmas and then with a lot more decent games being out we will see how well it does - until then it's all speculation anyway!