I was driving around listening to CNBC on XM after I made this post and I'm now wondering if they blundered and just heard that it's cheaper to produce - NOT that there will be a pricecut. When the story "broke", they said it was a pricecut and even said so in the crawler on-screen. When I heard it on the radio, they didn't mention a pricecut, but that some firm said it was cheaper to produce. So I don't know what the actual story is. CNBC gets on my nerves....
figured it was too good to be true. That, plus I hadn't heard of it anywhere. I believe the latest news was that sony wasn't losing money anymore on each PS3 made, but was breaking even. Supposedly.
Yah they cut 35 percent production cost by taking out backwards compatibility. No price cut yet although they desperately need to! Crisco gimme your rpg list! List your fav rpgs! What happen to that rpg thread.
there was a fairly big article in the wsj today about sony and its gaming division: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123050978162738293.html shocking how fast they've screwed up this part of their business, really.
I was going to hold off on buying a PS3, but my PS2 crapped out on me. I was going to buy another PS2, but figured why spend another $100 on a system and put that towards a PS3 instead? I still play the PS2 version NCAA Football 07 (I tried 09 on PS3 and I can't get into it) and there are a few PS2 games I want to play.
Yeah, sounds like the story was about iSuppli's new estimates for PS3 production costs...which doesn't really mean anything. Cutting the price now would be bad timing, but they'll likely cut it soon. Likely around February or March, around the time KZ2 and a few other games come out (not to mention the FF13 demo..is it sad that this had to be mentioned?). Maybe around April, as Pachter is predicting, although with all the "doom and gloom" reports, don't know if Sony wants to wait that long. Hopefully no new crazy SKUs though... I haven't kept up with production details in a while, although I was under the assumption that they were either breaking even or close to breaking even (at least on the $499 SKU) for a little while now. But as the article points out, they were really trying to get by the holidays w/o cutting the price. They did have a strong games lineup, but I'm guessing that plan didn't work out as expected. I just looked it up, and R2, MS2, and I'm guessing LBP all "sold" 1M+ WW, which isn't too bad I guess (all likely made or will make Sony a profit), but they probably could have (and should have) sold more. For example, LBP is the 2nd highest rated PS3 game, but I don't think it quite sold the numbers the other top 6 or 7 games sold . Regardless, they didn't seem to push system sales nearly as much as a price cut would have pushed sales. As for PS2 BC, I definitely appreciate it, and it was one of the reason's I got one early on (same thing that happened to Poloshirtbandit happened to me pretty much). My top two games of the year are PS2 games, and I'm in love with the PS1/PS2 compatibility features of my PS3 (faster load times IIRC, upscaling, virtual memory cards, etc.). I'm hoping that Sony brings it back in a software update at some point, but it doesn't sound like it is a high priority at Sony. I'd love some downloadable PS2 games...or at the very least, more downloadable PS1 games. Either G4 made a mistake, which isn't hard to believe, or they were maybe talking about FFvs13 (the "other" FF13 game), as SuperStar pointed out.
Not sure a price drop will help much. Wii is still overpriced imo, and it's selling like hotcakes because it has that 'it' factor. It also tarnishes the Playstation brand by diluting its official value. By surfing on a dealsite, one can sign up for a Sony Card, get a $150 discount and combine that offer to get an 80GB PS3 for as low as 200 (170 in one questionable Dell deal).... I thought owning a Blu-ray player plus a machine can play games was the greatest value for the edumacated gamer?
Don't think the Wii and PS3 are really that comparable in that regard. Two different machines aimed at two different audiences. Although if a price cut is only helpful if it can get the PS3 to sell as much as the Wii, then yeah, it won't really help much. Unless maybe it is a $200+ price cut or something. I think they're just concerned about maximizing profits and selling roughly on par with the 360, at least in US (they should be concerned about selling much more than the 360 in Europe and Japan/Asia). That should more or less satisfy publishers, and keep the userbase large enough for their own 1st party studios to succeed.
Wii was an awesome marketing move. My brother for instance LOVES video games but will not touch a modern game because they are much to complicated. After he went through the retro phase of buying all the old school games he just stopped playing. I bought him a Wii for his birthday and he loves it. Console games and machines have gone so far into the high performance realm that they left open a whole for a new "fun" market.
I got my son another PS2 for Christmas because his first one broke. The online capabilty was the reason and if/when I get him a new PS3, it probably won't be backward compatible. Sony really messed up big time with the PS3. It's almost tragic. I expected to get a PS3 for my son next summer for his b-day but I don't know now. The Wii and PS2 may have to be it for quite some time unless the PS3 has a giant price cut. Question for the experts: At what point will the PS3 go into a death spiral? When will it makes sense for enough developers to cut the cord and just focus on the Wii and 360 because their relative game sales will be so much higher than the PS3? With popular existing franchises, I know they will continue on the PS3. But for new ones, maybe not.
Wasn't there a price drop scheduled for March? I bought one about a month ago and returned it the next day just because of that. I believe there was a thread made about it too, I just can't search it.
I think you are totally wrong, the PS3 is awesome and super popular with the Home Theater crowd. It is so much faster than the other players out there and with Playstation Store offering on demand movies (cheaper than Comcast) it will be around for quite a while.
They should be concerned about delivering more quality games for their target audience. Price wouldn't matter as much if your friends are pressuring you to buy one and you're itching to get one after visiting the house of a friend who already owns one.
Good point. This is the only thing stopping me from getting one. As it is, you'd even have a bluray player with a good gaming console if they could generate more game interest, I guess.
Does anyone have links to that information about getting the PS3 at a discount with a Sony card or whatever? I'm buying one and I'd like to get it as cheap as possible.
It was during an interview with some guys from IGN, talking about the big thing in 2009, and the guys from IGN were talking about Sony making a huge comeback with a number of exclusives coming out next year. Though it appears the Sony version will still launch before the Xbox version, but I don't mind waiting.
Not anytime in the foreseeable future from what I could tell. Sales would have to be split like 80-20 or 90-10 I think before this became an issue. I haven't paid attention to some recent multiplatform releases, but I believe that in general, most 360/PS3 releases have been split 60-40 or maybe 65-35. Some games are exceptions, including a few that have splits in favor of the PS3 version (usually those that have been associated with PS in the past, and/or those that sell well in Europe and/or Japan). As it is, publishers seem happy with putting effort into porting and releasing a game a year later on the PS3 (like BioShock), just to get some extra sales from the userbase...not to mention allowing the sequel to appear on both consoles instead of just one, at least in the case of BioShock. Certainly wouldn't be getting those if publishers didn't respect the PS3's userbase. Now if we were talking about exclusive DLC or something like that... That was basically the plan for the 2nd half of 2008, and we see how that helped sales. When the system costs $400+, price does play a factor from what I can tell. I certainly don't see how they could deliver any more quality games that would convince people to disregard the price tag, especially given what is available already (if MGS4/LBP/Uncharted/etc. doesn't convince them, what will?). As it is, I think people are just content with playing these games at their friends' houses (in fact, I've seen several posts alluding to this when LBP came out). I do think that this is important in getting people to want a PS3 though. I get the impression that there are a lot of people that would like to own one, but they don't want to pay $400+ for it. Price would have to be <$300 or ideally <$200 for this to stop being much of an issue IMO. FF13 will be released on both consoles in the US at the same time. They'll hold back the PS3 release if the 360 version isn't ready. Unless you mean the Japanese version of FF13, which will be released only on the PS3, and prior to any US version. Actually, that might be what they meant since FF13 won't be coming to the US in 2009 (I'm hoping it comes out in 2010). Might have been talking about how an exclusive FF13 in Japan would help the PS3 out. They don't publicly announce price drop ahead of schedule. If there is a price drop in March, we'll officially find out in March...or maybe late February. Now there is speculation that there will be a price drop in March or around that time. I personally think the chances are pretty good.
