Dave Karraker of Sony Computer Entertainment of America has contacted Joystiq to give us clarification on the story that would have made us believe Sony had truly lost its mind once and for all. The fun never ends, does it?Karraker says the quotes from David Reeves are not accurate. He explains that if they had lowered the price in Europe, that territory would have run out of their current inventory by the end of July. He says in a statement, "As announced this week, SCEA's product offering in North America consists of a 80GB PS3 available in August at $599 and a 60GB PS3 available now for $499. We have will have ample supplies of both models to meet the needs of our consumers for the foreseeable future."
Update 1: There are some serious conflicting reports going on at the moment. We're working on answers while still trying to cover E3 the best we can.
Update 2: As you may have seen in this clip about 1:45 in, Kaz Hirai says "The $499 price adjustment that we did for the 60 GB version for the American market, we're no longer in production for that product. So once that product is gone from the retailers shelves, then we're back to the $599 SKU only, so it's not like we have a two price strategy here in the U.S. market, which we found early on consumers react most to just having one SKU as opposed to two." So, we're attempting to get some clarification. You'll know when we do.
Update 3: According to Karraker, "The 60GB PS3 will be available in North America for $499 until supplies of that unit are depleted. We have ample inventory to meet the immediate needs of consumers in this territory for several months to come. We won't be making any further announcements regarding our hardware offerings in the North America at this time." In our opinion, it's a touch disingenuous for Sony to just now be bringing this information to light, even though Karraker goes on to insist that this is not a bait-and-switch. If that's the truth, why make it seem like the company was returning to a two-SKU strategy when that was clearly just temporary?
Update 4: We got this clarified statement from Karraker, who said "The 60GB PS3 will be available in North America for $499 until supplies of that unit are depleted. We have ample inventory to meet the immediate needs of consumers in this territory for several months to come. We won't be making any further announcements regarding our PS3 model hardware strategy in North America until the 60GB model is exhausted and market conditions are evaluated."
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(Page 1) Reader Comments
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"[We do not] have a 2 SKU strategy in the US, we learned very quickly customers respond better to having one SKU than two."
"We dropped the price on the 60GB model, as you know that model is no longer in production, once it's no longer on store shelves it will just be the $600 SKU."
http://atvs.vg.no/player/?id=10235
At the 1:40 mark.
They announced this "Price Cut" right before E3 and rode a wave of good PR through the show. I think a lot of people (including me) saw this as Sony turning over a new leaf, and that colored their perception of the show.
Now their going to drop the 60 gig and the price of entry will still be $599. It is a cynical move, that they'd hoped to keep under wraps for a while longer. Unfortunately for them it's been leaked early. Sony has made a lot of people look like fools, and I think they're going to have to face another backlash from people who thought the price cut was real. Let's just hope (for their sake) that their holiday lineup is good enough to power through it.
Like how, last week, there were no immediate plans for a price drop, even though it had already well leaked.
The last 60 gig units drying up from store shelves are the last PS3s with native backward compatibility. If you want that, then you have to buy your system now.
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Apart from that let's not forget that the PS2-on-a-chip is missing and all backward compatablity on the 80GB model is done in software.
So what they're really doing is deliver less for a higher price!
You'd be better off buying a 60GB model and replace the Hdisk with an off the shelf one, or one that's been lying in a PC but has more volume!
Mark Mifsud
Jul 13th 2007
1:49PM
20Gb don't cost $100 (not even with the high dollar inflation)
Apparently to MS it does. Remember all those Core owners that had to buy the 20GB HD for $100. At least before MS came out with the even more overpriced 120GB for $180?
No one said MS's hawdare pricing is fair!
Actually, there is one other feature we can look forward to, vastly reduced backward compatibility! I think this feature fed more into the price hike than the additional 20 GBs did...
120/$180 is $1.50 per Gigabyte
20/$100 is $5 per Gigabyte
For the extra $100 MS charges you for the premium you get a 20 gig hard drive, a wireless controller, and component video cords... you only get compostie video cords, no hard drive, and a wired controller with the core system.
MS HDD upgrades costs a lot more because they chose the wrong HDD hardware.
That doesn't condone anything Sony is doing with these "sales."
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LOL Well at least I can laugh at my self,,,or laugh at you make fun of me( I guess thats actually pretty sad.) :(
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As I said, sounds more like spin than denial.
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http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14685
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E3: No more 60GB PlayStation 3 in US after July, says Reeves
Ellie Gibson 07:50 (BST) 13/07/2007
'All they're doing is taking their stock and marking the price down'
SCEE president David Reeves has told GamesIndustry.biz that the 60GB PlayStation 3 will no longer be available in the US after stock sells out - which he predicts will occur by the end of the month.
Reeves was speaking at an E3 event to announce the introduction of a new PS3 bundle in Europe. When asked about possible criticisms over whether SCEE should have given consumers the option to pay a lower price, as SCEA has done, he replied, "Well, they're not really are they, because what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD 599 version with one game.
"All they're doing is taking their stock in trade that they've got at the moment of the 60GB model, marking the price down and it will all be gone by the end of July."
"their stock" not "our stock." Karraker's explanation is pure bullshit because if you believe him, Reeves is crazy. Why, if Reeves is talking about European supplies, does he talk about "marking the price down" since Europe ISN'T getting a price cut?
And read Karraker comments; he intentionally and carefully avoids denying what Reeves and Kaz said in their interviews: that production on the 60gb SKU for the American market has ceased, that once the 60gb supply is gone, PS3 will return to 1 SKU which is the new $599. All Karraker says is that there's plenty of supply for the foreseeable future? What the heck does that mean? Foreseeable? To who? Nostradamus? So this isn't a price cut, it's a sale. Boy, you're a terrible liar Dave Karraker.
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Cats out of the bag and SCEA is trying to put it back in. They were going to do the same thing with the 60GB that they did with the 20GB. Stop making it but claim it is in the retail channels.
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I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I can't keep my cat out of bags (and boxes) to save my life. If my cat ever escaped from her proverbial bag, it'd be a simple matter of tapping on it and she'd be right back in.
The first refers to not looking at something before buying it, the second is that a secret is revealed, and the third is to have get nothing for your efforts.
They all stem from a medieval practice of selling pigs in a poke (a type of bag), but putting the more commonly found cat in there instead. When you open it up and find the cat, you let it out of the bag as opposed to cooking it like you would a pig, leaving you holding an empty bag.
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And for you, I'd suggest one with an English dictionary and a spell checker :-D
(Sorry I couldn't Resist)
Ahhh Bioshock !!! I'm waiting for that too!
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Whatever the answer is it's not good either way...
SCEA have done so well the last 2 days, then this guy flys in from SCEE late last night, hasn't seen/doesn't see any of E3 at all. Spouts off a load of stuff undermining all the good work they have done the last 2 days to try and turn last years disaster around, then flies out again leaving SCEA to sort out the uproar over his comments.
LOL nice work!!
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Or there has NOT been a genuine price drop in the US and are just shifting old stock?
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