Rumor: Sony Europe planning PS3 price cut in March, details future games

by Alexander Sliwinski on Nov 24th 2008 11:40AM

Sony Europe has declined to comment on a rumor that the PS3 will receive a price cut in March 2009. The whole ball got rolling by website D+Pad, which allegedly had a "source" in attendance at the Sony Computer Entertainment Staff Annual Briefing in London. The source claimed:

The PS3 will see a price cut in Europe around March of next year.
The PSN has generated £150 million in 2008, will receive more investment and is considered a success.
LittleBigPlanet and MotorStorm are coming to PSP.
Uncharted 2 looks like Uncharted, which isn't a bad thing.
God of War 3 was "masterfully shown at the end" and looks really good. (A similar claim made by former GoW honcho David Jaffe.)

Now we just wait and see how this "rumour and speculation" pans out.

[Via Eurogamer]

Source

Tags: d pad, david-reeves, ps3, scee, Sony-Computer-Entertainment-Europe

Reader Comments (71)

This has also been confirmed by an SCEE employee on NeoGaf. Although only game tester, all SCEE emplyees were invited.

And given that Jaffe's description of the GoWIII trailer came a day *after* this leak, it certainly gives yet more credidence to the whole thing.

Got a link for the NeoGAF posting? Or can anyone else agree with Hyams here on that other SCEE employee post?

Crap, it's looks like he's edited his posts. I guess he realised he shouldn't be talking about this stuff.

He origionally said:

"And I didn't go to this meeting this week, I think it was thursday or friday? Since I had free those days I couldn't be bothered and stayed playing IU at home.

But yeah, Reeves talked about all that stuff. We should be getting an internal email next week, which in turn should become a PR in the following days."

And in a later post he mentioned that the other guys he works with were talking about it.

I can still link you to the page:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=342988&page=5

It was member -Kh- who posted it. You can see where he's edited them.

And here's the VGChartz forum post which origionally brought the posts to my attention (they quote his origional message):

http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=50108&page=5

uh, it was confirmed by -Kh- who works at SCEE, he edited his comment tho, here is someone quoting him

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13727021&postcount=194

if you need further confirmation, this event was also mentioned on the european PS forum as the reason as to why they couldn't find an immediate solution to the problems with Home invitations

http://community.eu.playstation.com/playstationeu/board/message?board.id=b_EN_PS3_Home&message.id=13771#M13771

Ah, it looks like his edited his post because Reeves sent out an email to all employees reminding them of the NDA they're under:

http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/11/24/rumour-reeves-mails-scee-staff-with-nda-reminder-after-2009-plan-leak/

And in do so, they've just lent even more credidence to this rumour.

KILL ZONE TWOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

that is all

A price drop is a given for all territories in early 2009.

So, the GOW3 trailer impressed OTHER people besides Jaffe?

Amazing.

The begining of '09 is going to be an interesting time for the PS3.

In February we have Killzone 2, and then in March there's InFamous and the PS3 pricecut.

... You're expecting KZ2, a series that has nothing but mediocre games before it, to do well?

Given the hype its building up from all the positive previes, yeup.

I mean, even Killzone 1 manages to sell well, despite being only a mediocre game, based purely on the unjustified hype.

Killzone 2, which is actually shaping up to be an excellent game, should sell just plenty. Plus its a shooter (rather than, say, a 2D platformer) and they always seem to sell well.

Lee,

you haven't seen any beta footage huh?...

Oh, and Liberation was a good game

"... You're expecting KZ2, a series that has nothing but mediocre games before it, to do well?"

I am in the beta and it is already better then most everything out there.. pure fun!

Guerilla Games knows what they are doing and they are probably the most vocal of all Sony first-party developers. Killzone 1 would have been a great game if it wasn't rushed out the door to make the Holiday season. Killzone Liberation is an underrated game for sure and one of the best and most fun I've ever played on my PSP. Killzone 2 is looking fantastic and it definitely feels like this is what Killzone 1 should have been.

I'm not so certain that KZ2 will do that well. Does anyone have any attachment to the story? KZ1 was terrible, so it could have left a bad taste in peoples mouths as well.

The 1up show preview of the Beta has me worried. Apparently the simple act of aiming and firing is a massive chore, with every shot recoiling so hard that your aim goes completely off and you can't hit anything. Then again, Penny Arcade seems ready to call Killzone 2 the best thing since sliced bread, so I don't know who to believe anymore. I sincerely hope they can fix the aiming issue before the game goes gold, because I'll need a new FPS to play once I beat GOW2.

killzone 2 is not a guaranteed seller..
what about r2, lbp, and socom- they have all underperformed.
those were 3 of the big 5 sony ps3 game releases in 2008.

killzone 1 managed to sell what around 1 million copies to what about 30-100 million ps2 owners at the time..

killzone 2 will be selling to around 17 million ps3 owners.

i wouldnt expect huge sales of this game.
there was more hype for LBP.

god of war will do much better IMO>

Never played KZ1, but Killzone: Liberation is actually a really good game. If GG can maintain a similar level of quality, then KZ2 should be pretty good.

Like anything man we just have to wait until the game is released. I don't think looking at sales of the first Killzone is going to give an indicator of how this new iteration will sell. If the game comes out and is good it will sell. Especially considering it's a shooter and that seems to be all the rage with the kids these days.

I bet it will be like£10 cheaper as we are getting our value added tax reduced from 17.5% to 15% for 13 months in the UK. I don't see it going down in price too much although I hope it does, really want to play MGS4 :)

A £50 price cut seems likely.

If there's a price cut in America also, they'll probably shave $50 off.

Don't forget sony tried to get the PS3 exempt from tax by falsely classing it as a computer.

If anything they'll add their own 2.5%. In a few weeks time expect the Wii and 360 to be marginally cheaper and the PS3 to cost the same.

"Don't forget sony tried to get the PS3 exempt from tax by falsely classing it as a computer."

It technically is a computer, as are all consoles. The PS3 can also have other OS' installed. Many people have Linux running on their PS3s. It's really not a false claim.

It's locked, has limited capability and even the T&C go against the technicalities of it being a PC (which is what grants the tax exempt status).

Plus on the realistic side of things - 256mb system ram. REALLY?

It's not a PC and the fucking super ultra megalithic law courts of Europe came to the same, rather obvious, conclusion.

I'm still new here. Does Vidikron not know what a PC is?

Well, Lee, you obviously don't know what speaking kindly is.

@Lee

Nothing you said changes the simple fact that it's a computer. Nothing about its tax status changes that either. Obviously (and rather self-servingly for the goverment) it is being classified for tax pourposes based on it's primary purpose as a game machine, but it's still technically a computer. There really is no debate in that. And given that it does offer more flexibility than other consoles in that it does allow other OS' to be installed I can't really blame Sony for trying to get it classified as a PC if it would give them a tax break. There's nothing wrong with that.

"I'm still new here. Does Vidikron not know what a PC is?"

BTW, you stated it wasn't a computer in your first post, so I ask you the same question. Here's the definition:

"an electronic device designed to accept data, perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations at high speed, and display the results of these operations."

So how it not a computer again? I clearly know a lot more than you.

"I'm still new here"

You must be, because you're not going to last long with that elitist PC bullshit on a site with 99.999999% console gamers. You could always go to big download at least, they need more than 1 person a week commenting :P

I heard with Obama in office that he is giving all consoles away for free to those who don't have them.

So it will all be fair.

LBP and Motorstorm PSP (y)

Motorstorm was hilariously obvious that they would eventually bring it to the PSP, but LBP caught me off guard. How will it work???

Inb4 Sony haters.

... I thought you were a Sony hater?

I Don't like Sony but that doesn't meant I hate it.

Fair 'nuff. ^_^

It's not because of the PS3, it's because of my history of Bad Sony TV's, Laptops etc.. They are expensive and they are fragile >_>.

I'm pissed off at Sony for some PS3 build quality issues, my expensive high-end Vaio being under a recall and the new PSP's having the screen interlacing issues but I just can't find myself to hate them. Though they have lost me as a fanboy which is pretty sad, for them to fuckup that many times to lose a fanboy.

Present.

But why would I hate Sony for a PS3 pricecut? That's a good thing.

For everything else there's PSN,Home and botched LBP release.

I'm looking forwards to Uncharted 2. It doesn't need a massive graphical leap, as it's already up there with the great.

Just get rid of the screen-tearing and texture pop-in, and it'll be just fine.

well, Uncharted 2 still on early development (it hasn't even officially been announced), so it wouldn't be surprising if the graphics are not at the level that they want them to be.

Remember that ND said that they would be pushing the PS3 much more this time around

Hey, I still remember the first trailers for Uncharted 1. The graphics were rather dodgy in those (I remember one magazine described the game as looking "budjet") and look how that turned out.

So yeah, I agree, Uncharted 2 will most likely look better than the origional. I'm just saying, it doesn't have too. I mean, even today, a year on, the origional can still compare favourably with the graphical titans being released.

Most hyped about Uncharted 2!!! :)

I expect a graphical change much like gears. Changes were made but at the end of the day it still just looks damn pretty.

I never finished uncharted for some reason, I think I need to go back and do so... as soon as the holiday push is over.

The worst thing you can hear before the holiday is a mention of a price cut. It doens't do Sony any good if a break is just around the corner, because consumers will wait. It's too bad they didn't offer this BEFORE the holiday to help spur sales, but I guess they thought games alone would do that. I'm thinking the cost of the console is still a barrier for the mainstream, and even more so now, because of the economy.

thing is, Sony didn't make any public announcement, this information was leaked...

I doubt it'll do much harm as well.

Even though it has plenty of evidence going for it, it's still technically just a rumour. The vast majority of potentialy buyers will never even hear about it, based solely on that.

Still, expect sales to dip in February.

SCEE should have known well enough that info like this would be leaked, esp. if they invited lower-tiered employees.

Then again, now they got something they can blame (other than their competition) if sales don't do so well during the holidays: everyone was waiting for the price drop!

I don't see a price cut for PS3 until late 2009, they aren't making any money on them and they are losing shit loads on PSN.

True. I'll be surprised if there is a price cut.

Or maybe if they get Home out soon they can start charging people to dress their virtual dolls and decorate their virtual homes. I can imagine the same people who buy The Sims and MSN icons will fund the PS3 for some time.

Actually, PSN is posting a healthy profit. It generated £150 million during 2008 according to the leak.

And like I said above, this information has all been confirmed by a low-tier SCEE employee. So the price cut is indeed planned for March, not late '09.

This is good news.

This is pretty weak sauce for Sony's hype machine. God of War looks good on the ps3? No kidding? How badly would they have to screw up to get Jaffe to say it looks like crap?

I'm not sure why they pre-announce a price cut, either. No, it won't hurt much unofficially this far ahead of March, but why do it at all? The few people who will hear about this can already get a 'Sonystyle' price cut of their own.

The PSN announcement is odd, too. It generated L150mil but needs investment? They must mean revenues.

Now, 150mil is a pretty good amount. Downloadable full games probably helped that. Especially for a console that was going to sell because of BluRay.

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Rumor: Sony Europe planning PS3 price cut in March, details future games

Reader Comments (71)

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