Sony ponders PS3 price cut

The chairman and chief executive of Sony, Sir Howard Stringer, has said the company was attempting to "refine" how much it could afford to reduce the price of the PS3 console by, and has been quoted as saying there was "no question" consumers wanted the price to be lower. Duh. In an interview with the Financial Times, …

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know about cutting it by $100

But in the UK, they need to cut it at least by £200 and put in as default the ability to play PS1 and PS2 games instead of downloading something that might play all your games.

[Feef Lovecraft]

Prehaps a better model?

I'd purchase a PS3 if it wasn't just a very expensive blu-ray player and actually played my Playstation 2 games as well as the newer PS3 games.

[Alan]

Hmm...

Hmm... for he money I spent on one, I could've bought a George Foreman grill, a PS2 with DVD remote, an evening with a lady of 'questionable morals' and have change left for a pizza and beer.

GIVE US TEH GAMES!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn you Sony, and your expensive console thingy-ma-jig

Out of the 3 consoles I would put my dosh down on a PS3

But...

It is too godammn expensive!

Sort it out Sony before the PS3 bcomes the new Dreamcast.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmm ...

"GIVE US TEH GAMES!!!"

Amen brother, Amen ...

Price cut or no, there's absolutely no compelling reason to buy a PS3 at the moment - from what I've seen, most of the games are either retreads of existing PS2 or PC titles or stuff that I wouldn't play because I just don't like that type of game (eg. Resistance: Fall Of Man) - granted, Motorstorm looks cool, but that's not reason enough to shell out over 400 quid on a console (my current desktop PC cost marginally more, and I can do a hell of a lot more with it)

Price cuts are one thing, but they don't mean a thing without some decent, exclusive and (shock, horror!) original games. Oh, and the ability to play my PS2 games would be nice as well - I'm not swayed by hi-definition content because I don't have a high-definition display, and have no plans to change this state of affairs.

Until there's a decent price cut (wanna bet that $100 won't translate to £100 in the UK?) and some worthwhile games, I'll stick with my PS2 thankyouverymuch.

The loud bang you hear was Sony shooting itself in the foot. Again.

[Fred Smith]

60FPS would have been nice

After all the hype Sony gave us over the power of the PS3 and stating games will be running in 1080P at 60-120FPS, we are left with Motorstorm, albeit a very shiny game, running at less than 30FPS and 720P, shame on you Sony, give us what you promised and I'll give you the price you ask. In the meantime $100 not even $200 will take me away from Forza 2 at 60FPS.

[Daniel Ballado-Torres]

Only $100 ??

I'd go for $200, the damn thing is too expensive!!!

And Release Metal Gear Solid 4 already!!

I will only buy the thing when the price goes down, and MGS4 is out there. Otherwise, its too damn expensive and doesn't have the games I want.

[Andy S]

a quick check on game...

...shows that they are around £425 in the uk now (approx $850) yep, i'm sure knocking £50($100) off that will make a huge difference to their sales rate.

[James Pickett]

Profit or loss?

"Market analysts are predicting the games division to incur a loss of around $488m"

But wouldn't that have been worse if they'd sold more? I seem to recall El Reg reporting not long ago how they cost far more to make than they sold for (as was once the case with the X-box, which almost tempted me to buy one!)

[heystoopid]

But Then Again!

But then again , if he really wanted to play dirty , perhaps instead of reducing the price of the console , he reduced the price and license fee of the authoring software to a mere $10,000 dollars , and this will open the flood gates for a deluge of games from the old retro ps1 to even heaven forbid the old Amiga and IBM dos games of the eighties and nineties to catch the wave of the current retro gaming wars!

For with PS3 , the only reason it is stuck with a lot of old crappy past their use by date PC games is due to the lack of time and development monies available due to the extremely tight budgets of the major gaming house conglomerates , which is in return linked to the low profitability returns from selling computer games into a very tight fad controlled market situation!

Talk about a chicken and egg situation , all because of the word "greed" and "customer last" rules the roost at all corporations!

Remember today's gaming punter , has very limited cash resources after the cost of living to spend on all forms of competing entertainment forms available to suit his or her tastes , in this new century!

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget PS2 compatibility

Anyone that wants to play PS2 games will already have a PS2, It's the new games that will make the difference to PS3 sales.

I feel sorry for Sony - whereas Microsoft could afford to pump billiions into the original xbox (and then into the 360) and force themselves into the market, Sony just don't have the cash. However, Sony should take every opportunity to drop the price, and MAKE IT THE SAME PRICE EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD - nobody likes to feel "ripped off". Then they might just have a chance, but they will have to be brave...

[Charlie]

Sony's failure...

Far too expensive,

no decent games yet,

and their treatment of European consumers has been a disgrace.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony's failure...

and using the PS3 to promote Blu-Ray which few people want (well few people are really that interested in HD).

If they hadn't pushed Blu-Ray they'd have got the box out much earlier, much cheaper and allowing game developers more time to develop decent titles.

[Chris Matchett]

Actually I want PS2 on PS3

I got a HD ready LCD last week and it made my PS/2 look like a SNES with that fancy 2D pretending to be 3D engine.. If the PS3 was cheaper and would upscale PS2 games for new TVs decently then I would buy it.

[tim chubb]

needs bundles

only way i can see the ps3 shipping large volumes what ever the price cut will be bundling it with a hd tv

there has to be more margin for cutting display prices, and if i could pick up a 32" screen and a ps3 for less than a grand then it might seem like a better offer....

[Neal]

rip off

It's far too expensive and the price cut's never going to translate over here. Like everyone knows Euro gamers are getting robbed. In much the same way as we're getting done by Microsoft and the 360 elite.

If I wasn't gamer I wouldn't bother.

[Richard Thomas]

HD Gaming

I bought a 40" Samsung TV only to find that my 360 doesn't actually offer true HD gaming. So now I'm waiting for a few more games so I can try my hand at the PS3. The price drop may be the thing that pushes me over the edge, so to speak, and to buy one...

Then again with the sparsity of games it's still hard to convince myself to buy one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Break-Out Games

Isn't that SO late 70's?

[Anonymous Coward]

Drop it now .. isn't it obvious it's too expensive ?

If they drop the price I will buy it, its that simple, if not I'll buy a 360 by next march.

[Pascal Monett]

Break-Out ?

Oh, you mean like Arkanoid that I just downloaded for nothing on an Abandonware site ? Or maybe you mean Lode Runner, that I got for just as much in the same place ?

Sony would make me laugh if it didn't disgust me so much. I'm a PC gamer, and frankly, I see nothing in PS3 or 360 that could even remotely incite me to change.

On my platform, I can play extraordinarily good games, the latest out, the ones from five years ago, and even games from consoles via emulators.

Frankly, Sony gives me no incentive whatsoever to buy its product: It's expensive, has only a handful of games, can only play a handful more, and it doesn't look all that good either (no better than my 8800 GTS anyway).

PC gaming is far from dead, from my point of view.

[Steve Barnes]

'Drop Blu-Ray'

I wish people would stop being so daft and going on how Sony's biggest mistake was Blu-Ray! That's stupid! Yes, NO games are using the storage it offers right now, and 360's DVD capacity is ample, but in 2years time, just about all PS3 games will be using it. Look at PS2 games now, God of War is Dual Layer! Res 4, MGS 2 & 3, Gran Turismo 3 & 4, FFX & XII, etc. all of PS2's fantastic games couldn't have fit on the CD format that people said the PS2 should have used, because 'DVD is too expensive' and 'will never catch on' etc etc. And yet in reality, if Sony hadn't chosen the DVD format, the PS2 wouldn't have lasted the 7years it has and Sony would've had to have released a new console / solution a lot sooner.

It makes me laugh even more when the very same people saying this also say "And bring out MGS4!" - which Kojima has already said makes full use of Blu-Ray, and wont be released on 360 because of the lack of storage - his exact words were that it'd have to be "majorly stripped down."

I will get a PS3. Eventually. I can't justify spending anything more than £300 on a console. So what I'm gonna do is wait 'till it drops to $500 in the states, and import one, which should come to £300 with postage. That's what I did for PS2 :) American games are so much cheaper!

If Sony want to even get market-share they'll HAVE to drop the European price. £425 RRP? That's insane. Absoultely insane. 3DO anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Expensive BR Player?

"I'd purchase a PS3 if it wasn't just a very expensive blu-ray player"

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I hate it when factual errors are made.

On the contrary, the PS3 is a relatively inexpensive way of owning a BR player.

With the newly released upscaling software, it matches high-end expensive players which have this facility.

It always takes a consul time to develop, while programmers learn how to use the new technology. Why does this culture demands everything now, and nothing less?

Chill out people.

[Ernie]

PS3 needs to drop price by $200 to compete

No one I know wants a PS3 right now and there are 2 reasons for this:

1. No great games.

2. Way too expensive.

They should have made the blu-ray player a $200 option like the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive.

If Sony wants to push their proprietary format "Blu-ray" and is forcing us (PS3 buyers) to adopt their format, then they should eat the $200 cost of the blu-ray technology.

Once the price of the premium system drops to $399.99 like the Xbox 360 and they come out with some nice exclusive games. (Think: FF, MGS, GT5 to start with) then maybe they will have a shot. I stress maybe depending on how fast they drop the price and come out with games. (If this doesn't happen by Christmas then I feel Sony has officially lost. You have the Wii kicking the crap out of PS3 for the quirky "Japanese" controller and kid’s games and the 360 is mauling them with incredible mature games and a rock solid online network.

Sorry Sony, but you'll have either take a huge loss per console and drop the price or drop the built-in blu-ray disc production and make the PS3 a DVD system with an add-on Blu-ray player or just concede and drop the PS3 from your line-up (Stop the bleeding)