Official PS3 Price Cut coming soon?

Fillumgeek

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There are a number of reports today saying Sony are considering a price cut in light of sales that are some 2 million less than predicted sales up to the end of financial year (April 2007).

One source here: http://www.digitmag.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=7762

It's just my take on this, but those who've bought alread, good luck to you as you are already enjoying your games, but those waiting for triple-A titles towards the end of the year will be able to buy this console for less- that's fairly certain. Sony has to shift more units to claw back market share and overcome disappointing sales in Japan/US.

If they do this, they can make the PS3 the mass-market hit (and quickly too) that can sell 100 million units which can only benefit everyone.

Watch this space over the coming months (or even weeks). I'm a fan of the consumer btw, not any particular brand or corporation!
 
Interesting read, however, i can't help but think that Sony would lose face if they cut the price too soon after launch. It would be like admitting a mistake.
 
But if they don't cut the price they're dead in the water.

They've already stated that rumble is old and last gen yet come to an agreement with Immersion and I'm pretty confident rumble will be back - it's already back with update 1.7 on old controllers, if it was truly last gen like Phil H says then why have they bothered to enable it?

They lose money on every console sold and have even cut Sony jobs in a European factory by 8% and removed the emotion engine to curb cost. If they don't sell enough they won't make enough return from games sales - if they take a bigger hit on the games consoles more will get sold and they'll eventually make it back. It's obvious, the supply is there but the demand isn't. Everyone who wants one has one, cut the price and increase your market of people not willing to pay so much (especially with the Elite on its way).

But they won't cut it yet, they'll cut it to coincide with some massive games - so as to ease the loss.
 
Sony really messed up on the pricing, its the most expensive console ever and in this day and age of ever increasing taxes etc the market for them at that price is getting smaller I think, parents wont go out and buy them for their kids like before as its just too pricey.

The big mistake in this is that they included BR into the machine, thus forcing people to buy into it, me personally I love BR but it would have been much better for them to do what MS did and offer a seprerate device for that purpose. All this talk from people that certain games can only be done on BR is crap, Sony included BR as its their own format and want it in as many homes, thus gambling on a massive uptake in ps3 sales which hasn't happened. Any ps3 game can fit on a regular dvd9 if you take out the filler, reminds me of the first cdrom games on the megacd, same thing as the game was about 10% of the disc and the rest was fmv.

I think Sony put all their eggs in the one basket here and are now panicking because if it goes tits up with the ps3 the Sony are in big trouble, i'd rather this not happen as i've invested in one but it isnt the same situation as we had when the ps2 was released, people just aint going crazy for the ps3.
 
But they won't cut it yet, they'll cut it to coincide with some massive games - so as to ease the loss.

Suspect you are right, but the machine has been out a little bit longer in the US/Japan so could see them cutting prices over there (and they care about those markets more than little ole Europe as we know!)

Of course any US price cut is doubly interesting for us here with our $2 to the £pound situation:clap:
 
They're more likely to cut it in the US/Japan, than Europe any time soon.
My guess is that they'll cut it in Europe in time to try and detract from the release of/marketing hype that will surround Halo 3, just in time for the run up to Christmas.

If they did cut the US console price that would pretty much make up my mind to finally get one.
 
And today Sony have moved to deny a price cut. But companies never mention a price cut until they do a price cut, so, who knows?
 
And here's the reason why a price cut in Japan seems inevitable (hell didn't they already cut the price there):


http://www.jolt.co.uk/index.php?articleid=8577

PS3 sales fall below 14,000 in Japan
Situation: critical

Analysts are warning Sony that it needs to drop the price of the PlayStation 3if the console is to avoid being trounced in its home territory, with sales figures for the last week in Japan revealing fewer than 14,000 units were sold.

These figures mark a new low for the console in Japan, with software sales suffering an even poorer performance - only one PS3 title, Konami's Pro Baseball Spirits 4, made it into to all format top 30 (at #30, funnily enough). Total PS3 software sales since launch are around the same as the Xbox 360 – a console with a Japanese userbase around a third of the size.

In contrast, Wii and DS sales both rose this week, with the handheld topping 120,000 again, while the Wii climbed to over 63,000.

The full figures are as follows: -

Nintendo DS/Lite - 120,809
Wii - 63,775
PSP - 30,078
PlayStation 2 - 15,059
PlayStation 3 - 13,806
Xbox 360 - 2,777
Game Boy Advance/SP/Micro - 1,394
GameCube - 214
 
I hope this happens, not so everyone else can play. Just so with the increased market the console would be developed at a faster rate, i got one the other day and im impressed. But it really needs to step its game up in software features for me to call it my number one console.
 
Sony really messed up on the pricing, its the most expensive console ever and in this day and age of ever increasing taxes etc the market for them at that price is getting smaller I think, parents wont go out and buy them for their kids like before as its just too pricey.

The big mistake in this is that they included BR into the machine, thus forcing people to buy into it, me personally I love BR but it would have been much better for them to do what MS did and offer a seprerate device for that purpose. All this talk from people that certain games can only be done on BR is crap, Sony included BR as its their own format and want it in as many homes, thus gambling on a massive uptake in ps3 sales which hasn't happened. Any ps3 game can fit on a regular dvd9 if you take out the filler, reminds me of the first cdrom games on the megacd, same thing as the game was about 10% of the disc and the rest was fmv.

I think Sony put all their eggs in the one basket here and are now panicking because if it goes tits up with the ps3 the Sony are in big trouble, i'd rather this not happen as i've invested in one but it isnt the same situation as we had when the ps2 was released, people just aint going crazy for the ps3.
Its the most expensive because it costs so bloody much to make it.

In todays world we earn more than we did when the PS1 and PS2 came out, so the part about taxes is pure tripe mate.

Why have no Blu-Ray drive in the machine when the PS3 was always going to use Blu-Ray discs ?, its next-gen, embrace it ;)

Games at the moment might be able to fit onto a dvd9 disc but in 2 years time they will need the space of a Blu-Ray disc, all this about slotting a dvd drive on the PS3 and then a Blu-Ray add on drive is just an annoyance now because the PS3 is a High Definition Media Center, not having the next-gen movie format would be laughable.
 
Games at the moment might be able to fit onto a dvd9 disc but in 2 years time they will need the space of a Blu-Ray disc, all this about slotting a dvd drive on the PS3 and then a Blu-Ray add on drive is just an annoyance now because the PS3 is a High Definition Media Center, not having the next-gen movie format would be laughable.

That's all true and I believe the PS3 is an excellent piece of hardware.....


....however Sony computer Entertainment could go bankrupt or be forced to leave the console business over it! They are losing $200 for every unit sold and losing market share to Nintendo and Microsoft FAST: which is where they are expected to recoup the money- from software licensing.

but back to topic, that just all points more and more to a pricing decision,
good news for everyone (even if you have already bought, more consoles in homes means more software in the future).
 
I sincerely doubt that blu-ray will be 'needed' for games. Sure, it'll be used but I doubt out of necessity. I guess we'll just have to see how the 360 manages.

The problem facing Sony is nobody wants to buy one at the moment, those who want one have one. So Sony are in financial trouble. So this would hint at a price cut but then they'd make even greater losses.

I imagine what we're going to see is a massively trimmed down PS3 entering the market. The only thing PS3 actually needs is blu-ray, HDMI and Cell. Everything else can be cut, that includes HDD (which'll annoy developers), bluetooth, wireless card, secondary chipsets. That'll be much cheaper to develop and can be sold as a true core system. Providing Sony's PR can put a good spin on it all they may find it a lot easier getting them into homes with a nicer price tag, because at the minute there's nothing that'll make more people want to part with £425.
 
I could be wrong (my memories not what it was) but didn't the original X box drop £100 within a month or so of release back in the day. Msoft gave out games or controllers to those early adopters to anyone who complained, so a price drop for PS3 now wouldn't be unprecedented
 
Sony should have released the PS3 without Blu-ray and at a lower price a year ago. At this price and with the PS3 being only marginally superior to the well-established (and a lot cheaper) Xbox 360 in terms of graphics and horsepower it is difficult to compete.

I personally love the fact that my PS3 has Blu-ray, built-in wi-fi, a large HDD from the start etc, etc but I'm not the average consumer, I would buy the PS3 no matter how much it cost or what features it had.

Sony is really stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Wii and 360 have significant leads in terms of installed user bases and the only way for the PS3 to catch up is a significant price drop. Sony really can't afford not to lower the price. However, with the machine costing so much to produce, Sony can't afford to drastically reduce the price either.

Sony has made a series of bad decisions over the last couple of years and it's paying for its arrogance now. Which is a shame cause the PS3 is an absolutely fantastic machine.
 
I could be wrong (my memories not what it was) but didn't the original X box drop £100 within a month or so of release back in the day. Msoft gave out games or controllers to those early adopters to anyone who complained, so a price drop for PS3 now wouldn't be unprecedented

No, you're right about the Xbox price cut. Your memory is still intact!
 
Sony has made a series of bad decisions over the last couple of years and it's paying for its arrogance now. Which is a shame cause the PS3 is an absolutely fantastic machine.

It's amazing itsn't, you'd think when your spending billions on R&D you'd at least sit down and say "Right, in each territory what are the killer games that will sell the console?" And then try and make sure they can be ready.

At least launch in Europe with a new shiny Pro Evo, MGS, whatever. I know it doesn't work like that in practice.

My prediction: $100 off in America, and new £325 price point in Europe- starting October 15th. Pretty drastic but they will sink without it.
 
I personally love the fact that my PS3 has Blu-ray, built-in wi-fi, a large HDD from the start etc, etc but I'm not the average consumer, I would buy the PS3 no matter how much it cost or what features it had.

So if it was the PS3 was the exact same machine as the 360 but cost lets say £100 more you would have bought one, just because it was a playstation?

Im not taking the **** mate im just interested to know why some people are so loyal to the playstation brand?
 
So if it was the PS3 was the exact same machine as the 360 but cost lets say £100 more you would have bought one, just because it was a playstation?

Im not taking the **** mate im just interested to know why some people are so loyal to the playstation brand?

Because the past decade has brought to some, many great pleasures from the PS brand, so people have loyalty because of that, they know that if they stick with the same brand they will be treated with the opportunity of playing another smashing game from <insert AAA studio name here>

I personaly gave the xbox a chance and the 360, it simply lacked software to fit my wants. I don't want my collection to compromise of 18FPS games and a copy of Geometry Wars and Dead or Alive X.
 
Im not taking the **** mate im just interested to know why some people are so loyal to the playstation brand?

Not got a PS3 yet but its all about the games, the great thing about the Playstation Brand is always bought the best mix of games, for me the Xbox is too Amercianised, FPS, Sports, brash in your face etc titles, the Nintendo machines although have orignal games tend to be limited to Nintendos own games. The PS over the years has given me sp much choice from Rhythm games (Parrapa, Gitarooman, Vib Ribbon, Rez) to the best driving games (GT), to the best action games (MGS). Obviously this in my opinion!

Any how back to the price point, the PS3 is currently too much for the average consumer inc myself! Sony really need to get under the £300 price point for mass sales, espcially as the Wii seems so cheap for a new console (cunningly using "old" technolongy"), the Xbox 360 has been in the market from some time.

Still sure Sony will do just fine in the long run. Seem to recall the PS2 showing the demise of Sony - poor sales, naff games, too expensive - I was one of those who thought is this a mistake by Sony, but when the console dropped in price and GT / MGS came out I was taken.
 
Still sure Sony will do just fine in the long run


It's true, one of things in their favour, for me, is some 7 years into the PS2's life cycle you find games like the Buzz quiz series- absolutely addictive for us as a party game; our friends even went out and bought the console just for buzz. To still be selling 7 years later, they have to fill the machine with technology to last which naturally costs for the early adopter.

They have to go mass market first though, and swallow up a price cut before is too late...
 
I was going to place an order for a PS3 this week. Do you think its better holding out until the end of next month or is a price drop unlikely to happen between then and now?
 
I'd be surprised if there's a price cut in the next month.

The reason Playstation attracted such diverse games, making it a strong brand was because it has a massive user base. Soon, Wii will have a massive user base and games like Guitar Hero, Buzz and Singstar are going to move to the most profitable console - especially one where they know non-'traditional' games are already selling well. This can only be bad news for PS3 - lack of exclusivity makes buyers less likely to buy one so it's a bit of a vicious cycle.
 

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