You mention Xbox One which was cost reduced six months after launch by removing Kinect but PlayStation 3 is a master class is cost reducing while trying to dodge the perception that early adopters were fleeced. Focussing just on the US pricing for the first twelve months:
- November 2007 - 60Gb model launched at $599, 20Gb mode at $499.
- April 2007 - 20Gb model discontinued
- July 2007 - 60Gb model price cut by $100 (now $499)
- August 2007 - 80Gb model introduced at $599
- October 2007 - 60Gb model discontinued. 80Gb model price cut by $100 (now $499).
- November 2007 - 40Gb model introduced at $399.
What's the price point that you feel unhappy going above? I get where you're coming from, $599 does like a lot but then I remember paying around $299 (UK equivalent) for the PlayStation 2 almost 20 years ago. PS4 was $399 7 years ago. Inflation is a thing and looking at the tech/specifications in the box, especially compared to PCs, makes these console look tremendous value even at $799. You just couldn't build a PC anywhere near XSX/PS5 performance for that cost.
I would expect that if there were midget bumps, they would be expensive again whereas the base models will gave cost reduced quite well. Wouldn't you perhaps balk again at paying that performance premium midgen?
Apologies. Was a rough last 24 hours. Took me a bit to get back here. Still a bit addled in the brain.
A place to start.
Just wanted to be clear I don't buy the $600. I just do not. If I should be proven wrong, then so be it. I have real trouble thinking they were designing 3 years before launch with a projected BOM that would require a $600 price tag. If it was low $500 BOM and something went awry, like RAM prices or a the PS3 blue laser issue, then I could see it. There just hasn't really been anything to date that would indicate that.
Price Cut post launch:
I had some trouble looking up the historical price and release of different PS3 models. I am going to assume you are correct (looks right) and that the dates for April onward should read "2008". I can grant that it was well executed after the initial problems. However, I always thought they lowered the price because they fixed the outrageous BR laser cost issue. Wasn't it projected as something like $200 at the beginning? There doesn't seem to be a Kinect/ BR level issue at this point. Meaning, nothing to remove or manufacture much cheaper that would allow that kind of price drop without major losses. There was something I was trying to point out here, but frankly my addled brain has lost it for the moment. Cyclobenzaprine does this to me.
Price Point:
Hell. I paid $85 plus tax for GoldenEye. Used to rent a Neo-Geo a couple of times a year because there was just no way to afford that beast. Or its $200 games. The Sega Genesis was the first system I bought with my own money. 15 years old, minimum wage warehouse job while in high school. That was a pretty penny at the time.
For me, the price is $500. With local sales tax that is $532.49. If it was a touch higher for some reason, say $524.99 I might well bite the bullet. Call that a toss up at best. You mentioned value. Something I think Sony pushed as a term in an interview recently. The best way I can think of to get my position across on this: Say MS still worked with Nvidia. Further say they stuffed a 3080 in there. Just guessing at the price on that - something North of $1200 for the base 3080 card alone. If I built a console with top flight specs and a 3080 built in and charged you something around $1500 - less than a PC with a 3080 would cost to build, would you say that is great value or would you say that is ridiculous and excessive for a game console?
For me, and of course, yes - just for me, that price point is basically $500. Which I will not, much, go beyond. I want something
relatively inexpensive and long lasting. With retail being bypassed for digital more and more, and thus having no recourse for purchasing a game at full price that you end up hating, services like GamePass and XCloud are a serious plus. I can try some games before I buy them (assuming 3rd party - limited time access). I also want something that has permanent (or near permanent) backwards compatibility. Those are really critical functions to me with the slow disappearance of the resale market.
Midgen:
This last round, I wasn't really a target customer for mid-gen upgrades. They don't offer enough. This makes sense if you know that I don't yet have a 4k display anywhere in the house. Feels a bit pointless to upgrade to an X or Pro if you don't have a higher res display. Little bumps like increased SSD space are just toss-ins to me. I can take them or leave them. Practically speaking, going from say 1TB to 1.5TB would have somewhere between little and no value to me. Not something I would really notice. I would consider it a marketing/ purchasing agreement choice more than anything else. Meaning - justify keeping the price ala' your PS3 example or something changed on the manufacturing side where an existing contract was up, or had a buyout, and newer chips were simply cheaper and of larger capacity. More of a manufacturer convenience choice than anything else.
Strangely, I might consider myself more of a mid-gen target this time around. I don't see them going after 8k native resolution. That just seems beyond silly. Which means any bump beyond just a bit of storage space would be storage speed, RT or ML related. I wouldn't consider there to be a memory bump unless there was a resolution bump that required it. That actually pricks my curiosity a bit....
Starting to get a bit restless again regards information. ~3 months from launch and no price, preorder, PS5 controller details or PSVR2. Ugh. Not to mention the promised teardown. Didn't they say "soon"? *grumbles*
