Merril Lynch: PS3 may cost TWICE as much as Xbox 360!!!

That's the thing that has me thinking.. how is $ony going to be able to put a very high dollar item in the system without passing some if not all of the cost onto us?? I have heard on G4 that most think Blu-Ray will put $ony into a bind with the price point because it still costs so much to manufacture.. Oh well, even if the PS3 is a $150.00 more when it comes out i'd still buy it if they have more games I like, 150.00 is a few dollars more than 2 new games now..

 

Why is it not good? Again, I don't think these are the prices ML expects Sony to price the console at (IIRC, I think they expected around $400). I also believe the PS2 had rumored costs around this (like $450 or so). This isn't exactly a big deal, IMO, and that's not even taking into account that their numbers are a bit strange (again, IMO).

As for the companies overall, I realize Sony isn't in a spot to lose too much money, but I doubt Microsoft wants to lose another 3-4 billion dollars on the Xbox 360 like they did on the Xbox. In fact, it seems they're really trying to find ways to keep costs as low as possible. Just because MS makes so much money doesn't mean they'll keep the Xbox 360 price way lower than the PS3 just to make sure Sony pays for it; they're in the business to make money, not lose it. And of course, Sony has to make absolutely sure that the PS3 succeeds or they'll be screwed overall; putting it at an outrageous price won't help them. Luckily for them, the PS2 is a freaking cash cow right now, and the PSP should be able to ease any losses by the time the PS3 comes out.

Again, not really any different than say the PS2. As for the components, I do question several of them. For example, I don't understand how they got to $165 for Cell and $100 for the Xbox CPU (I'll call it Xenon). The chip isn't that much bigger than Xenon (at least, not $65 more), and unlike Xenon, if Sony ever has some small defects while manufacturing the chip (say a few defected SPEs), they can still use them for other devices; if the only two of the 3 cores work on Xenon, MS basically has to throw it away. Throw in the fact that Sony will be making Cell themselves, while MS has to pay others to make Xenon, and I don't see how MS has that big of an advantage in CPU costs. You could also use similar reasoning for the GPU's as well (RSX and Xenos). In fact, I believe MS will have to deal with producing the actual GPU part in one place and the EDRAM for it at another, and then put them together. Given a similar performance, I think it would be hard for MS to have an advantage here, unless Xenos is WAY more efficient than RSX.

As for the Blu-ray drive, most of the costs will be the same as the DVD drive in the Xbox 360, only with a few modifications for adding Blu-ray support. I'm not sure how much that would be, but I wouldn't think it would be $75 worth. And again, Sony will be making BR drives for devices other than the PS3, which helps drive down costs.

The other parts are probably more or less correct, although either way, it wouldn't make much of a difference in the total price. I've said this a couple of times already, but the bottom line is that since Sony is making a lot of the parts themselves (and using them for other devices as well) while MS is contracting other companies to build their system, Sony is at a huge advantage when it comes to the manufacturing costs. So I guess if it somehow costs them much more...then it must be much more powerful.

I doubt it will be much of a problem for Sony to make the PS3 appear appealing, even at $400+. One thing often left out is that the PS3 comes with WiFi built-in, which costs an extra $100 for the Xbox 360. So it could be something like this:

PS3 @ $400
Very, very powerful
Wireless controllers/Bluetooth
WiFi built-in
Blu-ray support (for high-def movies)
Memory cards that aren't proprietary
Great games
Some extra junk probably (Spider-Man 2 on BR???)
No HD (I guess)

Xbox 360 @ $400
Very, very powerful
Wireless controllers
No WiFi (+$100)
No high-def movie support via discs
Proprietary memory cards ($40 for 64MB)
Great games
Some extra junk
A 20 GB (maybe only ~13GB useable) HD

I think it depends on the person, but the PS3 could be seen as a much better value, and I won't even get into the hardware power or game library aspects of the two, which could strongly favor the PS3.

Patience my friend. Sony has yet to unveil all their plans yet. They have to save something for later, right.

AFAIK, the only real optical disc format competing with Blu-ray is HD-DVD...and it is basically dead. I personally wouldn't buy it for just BR support, but DVD support helped both the PS2 and the format when it launched, especially in Japan; in fact, UMD, which I thought was a TERRIBLE idea, is doing amazingly well on the PSP for some reason. With a vast majority of support from CE companies, movie studios, disc manufacturers, etc., I'm guessing that it will either be Blu-ray as the standard or nothing.

And since early BR players might cost a little more than the PS3, I'm guessing most of those high-def junkies will be some of the first people in line to get a PS3. It will just be a bonus to them that the system also plays games.

Who says it won't be?

 

Not to get into this too much, but, time for a little...

"BREAKDOWN"

Sony took a large hit last time around, although not quite as large as Microsoft. PS2 first shipments were said to cost between 400-450 dollars to produce.

Sony has massive cash reserves

Revolution will come in cheaper than PS3 like GC came in cheaper than the Xbox and PS2. It could have been the second console everyone sprung for immediately, not the Xbox. But we all know what happened.

Can't really touch this part, as there isn't much fact to debate here, mostly just opinion.

 

I guess no one remembers the Sega Saturn or the Sega Dreamcast.

 

They've tried this long to forget, don't ruin it for some people

 

DC was the bomb. Great system backed by a crap company. MS has the brains behind the DC in their company no?

 

I know they have Peter Moore. I'm not sure if anyone else in MS was with Sega at the time though. Wouldn't doubt it.

 

So, they're saying the PS3 may cost twice as much as the XBox360 by the end of 2006. This has a built-in 1 year price drop for the XBox360 while the PS3 will not have been out as long. What's the price difference at launch of the PS3? Who knows?

As it stands I think I'm still going to wait for the PS3.

 

Sony outhyped the dreamcast, and Sega was piss-poor at promoting their own system to begin with, so the DC died. Which was a shame, considering it was such a solid system.

Hence, the reason when Sony builds up it's hype to try and bury a competing system, it is referred to as trying to 'Dreamcast' it.

 

The SS and PS1 launched near each other in Japan, but I believe the SS had like a 5 month advantage over the PS1 in NA. Hey, you didn't say they had to be THAT far behind. Also, not that it really matters, but I believe the SS was selling way more than the PS1 early on, so it wasn't a "turd." In fact, I bought it over the PS1. I had some great memories playing Panzer Dragoon, Dragon Force, Nights, and a few other Saturn classics.

The DC had a pretty big time advantage over the PS2 (~6 months in Japan and ~1 year in NA, IIRC). As said, it was a great system (IMO), but the guys in charge made some bad decisions. Of course, Microsoft is immune to those.

Actually, MS seems to be doing what Sega tried in a way: cutting short system cycles and trying to undercut the Sony console in price. Of course, I know there was MUCH more to the demise of Sega (console-wise) than that, but that's also why I'm not thinking the 360 will end up like the DC. 5-6 years from now, I'm sure the 360 will sell quite a bit of consoles, cutting into Sony's marketshare; however, I don't think Sony's in trouble just because the 360 is launching 6-12 months earlier. FWIW, this is also the first time a MS console won't be the most powerful (and vice versa for Sony). There are advantages and disadvantages to launching early/late.

 

"…The PS3 will not only be significantly more costly than Xbox 360 at launch, but will continue to operate at a cost disadvantage for several years. … We think that the Xbox 360 could be selling at half the price of PS3 in the latter half of 2006."

to me, this is the key...If we're talking launch, then its a no brainer...However, Its usually hard for people to get use to paying more, when they just paid less a couple of months before...That will not increase sales...Sony products are crap...