Analysts criticize Japanese PS3 price drop

All of you guys know damn well your going to buy a PS3, especially once you see games like resistance and lair being played at your friends house !!!! :)

> One Japanese securities agent stated:
> "It's ridiculous to decide to cut the
> price before they start selling the
> PlayStation 3. They may cut the price
> again if sales don't go well.'

That seems like a very silly thing to say. A manufacturer's suggested retail price for any product is always subject to change and revising an MSRP before a ship date is neither "ridiculous" nor unprecedented.

> All in favor of global price reductions, say "I."

I. Or "Aye", if you prefer.

i have to agree with "me", once one of your friends gets a PS3 youll be goin over to his/her house to play HD video games on a kickass game system, while your 360 will be at your house making new friends with dust bunnies. do yourself a favor and convert to playstationism, it will do your body and would good. and remember, the gods favor the strong, and sony is pretty dam strong to lets give a hoot to gaming power. "GAMING POWER!!!"

The thing that continues to puzzle me is why only the low end model got the cut?

**$125 for 40 more GB**

Does this make ANY sense? If the 80/20 rumor is true, will there be an overstock of 60GB models due to people wanting to save money? Did this move hurt Sony? Another thing, when the PS3 was introduced they said Japan would have an "open" price on the 60GB. Is this still true?

ZeroCorpse:
" I'm not getting one until 2008 anyway. I don't need it. The 360 is firmly entrenched in my home."

and yet you feel the need to reply, showing your lack of true self confidence...

to Frank the Tank.

the reasoning behind lowering the cost of the 20 gig unit only is both brilliant and simple: there will only be a limited number of 20 gig units available in Japan come launch (the split is 80/20 out of 500,000. that's 100,000 20 gig PS2s. i'm assuming half of that, possibly less, will go to Japan. that's only 50,000 units. how many 360's have sold in Japan? less than 20,000).

with the launch of the PS3 in Japan at 100,000, Sony will have eclipsed what the 360 has done already as we know that those units will sell out. if the 360 ends up selling more units due to the Blue Dragon pack in (but still no hard drive included), Sony will just produce more 20gig PS3s, which will probably sell out over there due to the initally low numbers.

looking at what it offers, the 20gig PS3 is no longer a "tard pack" (one of the stupidest terms i've heard across the net in a long time), the only thing differentiating it from the 60 gig is 40 extra gigs, the Wi Fi support (which so many claimed was unneccessary and just jacked up the price), and the SD and Flash slots. unlike the "Core" 360, people now have a legitimate reason (outside of desperation), to get the 20gig PS3 thanks to that HDMI inclusion across the board. there won't be any "Cores" sitting on the shelves.

also, 50,000 units out of 1.5 million (the number of units Sony plans to release this year, 1.2 million of them being in the US, and not price discounted) isn't that big of a number, sure, it may be a few million dollars of lost income, but they were losing millions anyway, regardless, what's an additional 7.5 million when you stand to make a profit of so much more by penetrating the market successfully? (remember, if the PS3 sells anything over the 20,000 HD DVD players sold so far, the format war is close to being won; DVD is still the main threat, but that'll come with time. eliminating the competition on both fronts, consoles and format, is top priority to them in Japan).

they've taken this gamble to win Japan. and from the round of applause from the people in attendance at the TGS conference when the new price was revealed, seems to indicate that it's working. the Japanese are very happy with the 49,980 yen price, and the inclusion of HDMI.

the Nintendo factor isn't an issue either. the Wii will sell, and sell well. period. but the Japanese love new technology. the Wii has a new interface, but the technology behind it is familiar. when the Japanese gamer gets tired of their new Wii, and when they see those purty PS3 games playing on their buddies system and HDTV, or in store displays when they're purchasing a new DS or Wii game, they'll start to think that there's something to all that High Def babble, and they will genuinely be impressed.

think about it, there are limited launch numbers in Japan for this year. even those that *want* a PS3 will have a hard time finding them. by the time they'll be able to get their hands on a new console, games like Stranglehold, Virtua Fighter, Assassin's Creed, Heavenly Sword, Tekken, etc, will be on store shelves too, making a March or April purchase more reasonable. they've already gotten the price drop, now they just need some killer software to drive the point home. it's not like they don't want a PS3, they just didn't want one for the price Sony was asking before. now there's a price more to their likings. the things will sell like gangbusters in Japan now, Blue Dragon, Lost Oddysey or no.

it's a very risky thing Sony is doing, but it's not out of ignorance or stupidity. they've seen what they have to do to win Japan, and that price drop and HDMI inclusion in the "Core" PS3 is the first step. we'll just have to wait and see.

Japanese are more likely to relate high price to high quality than Americans. Japanese see discounted items and wonder what's wrong with them.

I think the console guys have got it all wrong in regards to pricing - Why not simply have a tiered pricing model whilst releasing the future pricing, then people can make a decision to wait or not until it becomes affordabel to them.

For Example for the PS3

First 6 months - $650
6-12 months - $500
12-24 months - $400
24 months+ - $300

This sort of staggered pricing would actually give consumers some confidence in that they can look at the pricing and plan for the time/price accordingly. It would also give game developers some confidence that the system will garner the audience it requires.

What's the use of a price cut if there's no console available? To make even more profits on ebay for the ones who are lucky enough to grab one?

Sony should sell the 500.000 PS3 on ebay on their own, so the money goes into THEIR pockets... the PS3 would go for $1000+... which is its "real" price, isn't it?

Even Nintendo should do it that way: i'm sure the Wii would sell for much more than $250 due to the demand: at least 20 million people want a Wii, but only 4 million copies available this year, so... market's laws, anyone? But yeah, i know... Wii is now overpriced, right? Bad Nintendo, right?

In the meantime, Sony prefers to loose even more money on each PS3 sold, and third parties will follow by doing big budget, multi-million dollars games for a console with a very limited user-base: what a bright future for the videogame industry... can't wait...

this rocks... if the price cut comes this way for the 60 GB version, I'm taking that extra $100 I save and putting it right back into another game and another controller.

it should be noted that even though people will buy a PS3 to sell on Ebay, the initial purchase of said PS3 is still a sale.

the people that are eager enough to pay $1000 on Ebay will do so, but that doesn't matter to Sony. they are still getting their initial $500/$600 for the first time the PS3 is sold. which is what they need. resales of that same product are not an issue.

if Sony were to sell the PS3 on Ebay for $1000 themselves, they would never sell. the only reason people will pay over a grand for the console on Ebay is because of desperation, and the fact that the reasonable, $500/$600 console is unavailable to them, and they really, *really* want a PS3 (or 360, or what have you). note that now that 360's are plentiful, they aren't selling on Ebay anymore for more than their retail price. the same will happen to PS3s once there are regular supplies of them on shelves.

"the Japanese love new technology. the Wii has a new interface, but the technology behind it is familiar. when the Japanese gamer gets tired of their new Wii, and when they see those purty PS3 games playing on their buddies system and HDTV, or in store displays when they're purchasing a new DS or Wii game, they'll start to think that there's something to all that High Def babble, and they will genuinely be impressed."

This is the same nonsense the PSP fanboys spewed just prior to the PSP launch. It was laughable then and its laughable now. Don't forget the HDTV penetration in Japan is even lower than in the US. Yes, japan will buy the PS3 but not for the reasons you mention.
And the Wii will be a factor, just like the DS is hurting the PS3 in japan. Unfortunately, there is a finite amount of mindshare available in any market. Right now, the DS has the lions share in the Japanese market and we are seeing that translate into sales. As long as the games are there, the Wii could hurt the PS3 mindshare for sure. Of course both systems will sell out at launch, but its in the coming year where things will get sorted and we'll have a better idea of long term results.

well it is important to note that general polls showed that that the choice for ps3 was %70, and wii and xbox 360 had %30.

after they announced the price, sony's percentage fell by quite a bit. this tells me that price has been quite a deciding factor. and it also tells me if the ps3 was priced anywhere near the xbox 360, then it should be over for the 360.

price reduction on the ps3 is absolutely innevitible, whether its right now or in 4 months or 6 months time. technology like blu ray always goes down in price fast, blu ray players and drives will allow this. i believe the cell processor will be widely used in other equipment such as servers, tvs, blu ray players and the army, so in the factory it is helping the yields.

the use of wifi has minimal costs, because sony are buying (or maybe making) millions, and also internally so it takes up less space, less packaging etc. but its still an expensive console, however expensive products tend to have a luxorious appeal to it and i certainly think the ps3 has this. the shiny metallic coating screams quality and in terms of features, its beats its competition. ps3 is something people want, and im sure the pre order figures back this.

1. Sell consoles for cheap
2. Wait for the blu-ray to tank
3. ???
4. Debt!


No this on is better.
1.Sell console at a lose
2.Debt!
3.???????
4.Profit?

Reet. So they're dropping the price before it comes out, they've delayed it in Europe AGAIN....I'm starting to doubt that the PS3 even exists....

And Microsoft have never thought as Japan as their main buyers, so Sony can have their random crazy-ass platform games. Frankly, I'd rather have a 360 now, with games such as Dead Rising and Table Tennis, than wait another six months to pay double the price for a rip off of Halo.

I...

...will see you all in the queue for the Wii in December.

This is bad for Sony's BUSINESS, every expert agrees.

Let me put this in gamer terms (yes, I have a ps2 and love it).

If Sony doesn't make enough profit to develop new games, they won't lower prices on games or consoles. If that situation continues long enough, all your friends will buy the x360 or Wii or a new PC (my first choice). Eventually, BluRay will not be adopted because the only players are still $1000 (since Sony didn't sell enough games or BD drives to lower manufacturing costs for the movie side of the business).

What does this mean to you? If Sony keeps screwing up, your $600 ps3 becomes history's combo version of betamax and dreamcast, rolled into one. And there won't be a real GT5, there won't be another sequel to Metal Gear Solid (thank God), FFXV will be released on the wii and Ratchet and Clank: Eat My Shorts will never be released.

I don't know if that will happen, but Sony just keeps screwing up. If they keep this up, the $600 ps3 will be a huge waste of money with few expensive games and few expensive movies (and it's pretty close to that already). Just like the half-baked PSP.

Sony doesn't lose money when they sell a PS3. They lose money every time they produce a PS3. It doesn't cost money to sell the actual item.

If it costs you 30 bucks to make a pair of jones, you lost that 30 bucks whether you sold it or not. When you go and sell it for 20, you gained part of that 30 back, just not the full amount.

Cutting the price on a limited amount of consoles (20gb version being less produced in an area getting the least amount of consoles-not counting our euro brethren who got screwed by Sony) is a pr stunt, at best. They have lost the same amount of money whether they dropped the price or not, but recouping the initial amount will take a bit longer than projected at the original price.

Right now, good press is what Sony needs and it "seems" from a consumer standpoint that this is, indeed, good press. But they also just made it that much harder to get your hands on a low-end PS3 in the land of the rising sun.