Kutaragi: PlayStation 3 is "too cheap"

@ 52: you're missing something.

for $600 I can buy a Nintendo Wii with about 7 games.

That is a LOT more entertainment than a PS3 with no games. yay. Bluray. Whoop-de-doo.

@ 37: If that happened, Microsoft would take over the world. Nintendo would be like the rebellion in "Star Wars" and Microsoft would be like the Empire.

Personally, I see the Wii taking this generation by a landslide. Lower price tag, funner gameplay... Just look at the sales for the 360 so far... None too impressive for a new system, eh? I don't see Sony selling many PS3's because of the ludicrous price tag... and Nintendo absolutely owned E3 with an unfinished Wii readily playable.

Come on. Nintendo is coming back big time. They're shoving it back into Sony's face this time 'round. And Microsoft is sitting back with a brew, watching the fireworks.

Man I saw going to buy a PS3 for a PC or content creation... From what I hear it would be great for that...

I'll just spend my eleven hundred on a Dual FX 4300+ system with a Geforce 7600 in it. I mean sony should really try selling this as a media PC with the bonus of content creation and maybe even blue ray dvd authoring... Throw in some zbrush apps and a solid 3d program from the start and drivers for my wacom and I'm so there. I much more in to using this systems as a way to creat content rather than game on it. For gaming it's aliitle much, even if you add HD movies with it. Now if it came with it's own projector then I would think about it... Maybe they will throw in a Sony HD tv for the loyal customers.

Really I'm not concerned... The Blue ray production price will fall... with time and the cell yeilds will get better one day right...LOL I mean apple had this problem with IBM before but Sony is cooking these chips this time right? Oh well welcome to the nano club of nightmares. I would love to see this system turn into a apple type of product that challenges PC and macs. If this whole things goes under maybe they will have PCI express PS3 cards for pcs! I love the cell chip to death and even the RSX but blue ray... Really is starting to stink things up. With out blue ray this thing could be at a Wii price if they where trying to take the same hit on loosing money...LOL

When you have large screens for your pc and you go to get a HD tv I have a hard time buying one... Unless I'm getting an Apple lcd 30 inch... Thats the only HD tv I need... but a pc will be connected to that? So I need sony to give me another reason to buy a ps3 for over 300 dollars... Unless they are going to release sports blue ray disk then I don't really need HD dvd do i? LOL No one is going to watch a sports dvd also...LOL

Sony needs to just bring this out as a pc, plain and simple... make it a standard and let the OEM go at it... It would be the first PC sold for gaming and movie watching and true next gen content design or customization. This is their VAIO PS3... I won't get one till they do this... I mean I'm typing this in 3200x1600... thats HD to me...

Sorry but every time I pass this article I want to smack Kuteragi in the face.

Complaining about price is all well and good, but there are two reasons why Sony cannot do anything about it at this point. Kutaragi is saying it is cheap because it is going to rock Sony's accounts, and not in an AC/DC way either. They have gobs of debt to pay off at the end of this year and the PS3 isn't going to bring in the needed revenue to keep up with it, forcing an expensive refinancing.

The other reason why this thing won't ever get cheaper is because of life cycle costing. roughly 90% of the cost of a product is determined in the product design phase. The PS3 is a classic example of "feature creep", or a project that simply got out of control. The PS3 project clearly did not have a level headed project manager running the show and was likely head up by a wide-eyed techie who had no concept of competetive pricing. The team simply dreamed up the best of the best and dumped it in. The sad thing about the design phase is once it is completed, all those costs are locked in. Sony cannot just pull the Cell processor, they cannot just replace the BluRay drive with a DVD9. It is stuck there.

Kutaragi is right - this thing is probably too cheap...from Sony's perspective. The Playstation engineers developed an unwieldy beast of a machine from a monetary standpoint and they are going to have to scramble to convince consumers to buy this thing in sufficient volumes to avoid a major hit to their income. They realize that trying to price it below $500-$600 will result in an uncontrollable debt gap that will result in many lost jobs, like Kutaragi's.

A $500-$600 price point is insanely risky, but not so bad given that their movie division can make up for it in 2007 riding the back of Spider-Man 3, but the stock holders will be really irked at it. Unfortunatley, it is not nearly as risky as trying to match Microsoft dollar for dollar.

Whether anyone likes it or not, Sony is not a strong corporation when it comes to available funds and profitability. I know they are big, but size is nothing. General Motors overshadows Sony by 4 fold in sheer volume of revenue, yet they are taking a beating.

Sony is in a rough position, they cannot go lower to attract business and they are in a rough position to try and go higher. This $600 price point is the apex of the parabola, and it is well below any point that anyone would be happy with - be it install numbers or profitability.

I love my Ps2 but $600 damn man thats almost the months rent right there, im losing respect for sony not many people have $600 to spare on a console let alone the cost of videogames. Ken saying the Ps3 is cheap is disrespectful, this guy must be on crack to say its cheap I feel he is overdoing it with the hype, i think im sticking with the "current gen" for a bit.

Funny, I bought a PSX import when it came out, I sold my soul for a PS2, but the only release news that interested me lately has been Gears of War for the 360 (probably my will I/won't I game) and the Wii stuff, stupid name or not.

I've been buying Sony since the Walkman, until the last few years when their odd take on DRM, formats and pricing just plain turned me off. So, companies like Nintendo, Creative etc get my money now and I know I can't be the only one.

Pay attention Sony, we do not want Pimp-My-Console, we want cool games.

Look People, I'm tired of this Console war Crap really I am. Look I been a long time Sony fan as well for Sega and Nintendo. Mostly Sony. I have seen the Xbox 360 and played and I think its alright. Nintendo Wii? I think that's screwed up calling them controllers the Nunchunk controllers or w.e. I dunno why Sony is jacking up the price for PS3. No matter what graphic wise and tech on the PS3 They need to lower down the price a bit cheaper. maybe cheaper the 360 and more exspensive then Wii. Come on Sony you guys are gonna fail if you keep it at that price. First of all Next Gen? What is up with It just graphics and next level of game play. Back to the subject. Sony will be the next Nintendo or Sega if they don't clean up their act. and for those who hate Sony and Nintendo you all cought up with your 360 and saying wow look at this Microsoft really did a good job with the graphics and could be better then PS3. But I think this is nothing. The bottom line is its all corporate Bullsh!t.

Get used to it Sony is the best company out here selling consoles they dont care if you can't afford one now when over millions of other people can and plus like Kutaragi said the ps3 is too cheap while we only have to pay 500 for ps3 they have to pay more for each one of the ps3's because each cell microprocessor (the brains of the ps3) cost $230 just to install it plus the harddrive and all the other components and then a $350 blu-ray disk drive and then after that just if they were able to sell four million units a year they would still may have lost billions of dollars so when you think about you losing a couple hundred dollars and sony losing a couple billion dollars who's taking a bigger hit you or them. But after that sony counts on its software sells to make the money so sony isn't making any money off the ps3 sitting in your bedroom but off all the games and accessories that you get. So basically sony's doing us a favor that may not work because sony is taking a bigger risk of other two companies and this time sony might not win.

Im going to be quit amused in November, almost everyone who buys the Wii will be disappointed, due to the facts that they have no friends to play multiplayer games with, the games being released for the Wii completely suck except for like, 3, and the other games ill be horrible to play ith the shitty remote control they made. The true war is between the 360 and the PS3, and considering the PS3 is about 1000% better value for hardware than the 360, and has better game coming out for it, PS3 is going to win.

word on the street is that ps3 games are gonna be 79.99, mostly due to their wonderful new format. with that in mind, now many exclusives have we seen actually announced as so thus far? maybe 5 and im being generous. "we have not announced the game for other systems at this time" does not mean exclusive. so unless you bought one of these 5 games, you are paying 20 bucks more than THE SAME GAME for Xbox 360 plus the extra $100-$200 of your initial investment. apparently they serve McDonalds value meals at the Four Seasons. at least according to Ken.
p.s. Ken, what happened to real HD being 1080p? your company is selling a system package which doesnt support it. how is what you are selling better than what the competition offers? please show me something other than another cheap trick or lie, i want to beleive!!!

Being a person who actually enjoyed the PlayStation line (and who is actually a Sony kind of guy with an A/V system composed almost entirely out of Sony and Sony ES components), I am utterly disappointed that Sony Computer Entertainment has elected such a cavalier position in regards to its customers.

The leadership at SCE ought to take a lesson from history. Case in point: the 3DO. It had some good hardware and actually some decent games for the time, but the price of admission was just too high for most gamers to adopt it.

The PlayStation was successful because it was effective and powerful, yet also simple and economical compared to its competition.

SCE sort of deviated from this formula with the PlayStation 2, but kept enough perspective to allow the system to be reasonably priced.

Now, it doesn't matter what the PS-3 offers. Even if it introduces the absolute BEST games in the world, the price of admission is too high for what the public will perceive the system as, first and foremost: a vehicle for entertainment in a field where such products **FAIL** when priced at such extremes when the consumer has attractive alternatives (I.E. X-Box 360, Nintendo Wii, and even the personal computer).

Unless something changes to affect the retail price for the benefit of the consumer (highly doubtful now), Sony WILL lose. This is coming from a person who could be classified, for all intents and purposes, a Sony "fanboy": Sony **WILL** lose.

Sony has just priced itself out of the market by trying to make a next generation system with more features than it really needed. Whatever happened to just building a system that does one thing well: run games?

Nintendo is really getting my vote for most successful next-gen console. - Reinhart

"169. I agree that Sony should not go thinking that they have this generation owned with PS3 because its got Blu-Ray etc etc. Having a superior product does not always win, as Laserdisc discovered - released in the late 1970's it was far better then VHS but it bombed."

Not entirely accurate.

LaserDisc was released in 1978 and was capable of video quality far surpassing that of video cassettes and, when it first came out, was actually cheaper.

However, the quality of the actual players and discs back then were utterly terrible! Returns for defects were so high between the Magnavox VH-8000 players and discs produced by MCA DiscoVision that prices had to be marked up to make up for the losses. The prices didn't stay low for long and, coupled with the bad rap they were getting, people found no justification for buying into it.

The problem with LaserDisc was such that, if it weren't for Pioneer taking the reigns in 1980-1981 and making serious commitments to improve its quality control for both discs and players, LaserDisc would've croaked then and there.

LaserDisc improved and kept active in a niche market offering a high quality alternative to pre-recorded cassettes until DVD could finally offer better quality video at a more affordable price. LaserDisc was officially discontinued at the turn of the century. - Reinhart

This is what Ken Kutaragi was thinking after that announcement: " High-ho! High-ho! It's off to hell I go!"

PS3 will kill themeselves off... If I was behind him while he was holding that PS3 I would've smacked him in the head so hard it would've turned him into a Microsoft employee. They really made some wrong moves on the PS3 and they need to be severely punished for it.

Ok, first of all those games are not going to be $60 they'll be atleast $70-$80 bucks. Remember these are blu-ray discs they cost more to manufacture which means more higher price. The only good thing about blu-ray discs is they can load information faster then a dvd because files aren't compressed (system won't have to decompress files on the go).

However that isn't worth spending $200 on. I mean how do we even know blu-ray will win this war. Maybe HD-DVD will pull out on top. In all actuality Ricoh is releasing a player that plays both formats (will buy the PS3 or the HD-DVD add-on just buy that and you can play both).

There isn't enough exclusives on PS3 to make it a worthwhile purchase for (estimation don't bite my head off) atleast 85% of gamers. The best thing they got going for them right now is MGS4 and FFXIII. The thing is though that most people who like FF have liked it from the beginning. Most FF lovers didn't like FFXII because they changed the combat system. Well hate to break it to you but FFXIII is the same thing except even more different. I doubt the majority of hardcore FF fans will enjoy this new combat system.

Another thing I find hilarious is the new controller. Instead of trying to create something that's new (boomerang doesn't count that was a horrible concept) they just took the old idea and then stole components from Xbox and Nintendo (triggers and motion sensors). I can almost guarantee the motion sensor will be a gimmick and I don't think the controller is built correctly to play well with triggers. Also I'm confused why they didn't steal the best idea of new controllers...the Xbox analog sticks. That is in my opinion the most revolutionary thing to happen to controllers in 10 years. Not the fact that it has two, the way that they are spaced. Makes it confortable and accurate.

Well, I just think Sony is going to take a hit in the nuts this gen. They have no idea what consumers want or hardcore gamers. I find they're arrogance rude and childish (think of a kid pointing at you laughing "mine is better then yours") and I'm very offended by everything they've been saying. I hope Microsoft crushes them into oblivion over the next few years and die as a game corporation.

I guess Ken Kutaragi thinks everyone was born in the Playboy Mansion. Money, girls, all we need is some giant enemy crab :P