Acert93 said:
That does not explain the media ports or HDMI, both included in the 60GB SKU.
Guys, comeon. I'm suprised that such a smart group of people would have missed the obvious reason for the removal of the ports between the SKU's. In face this reason also applies to the 60GB -> 20GB downgrade. It is a way for Sony to make more money on a nearly equivalently costly BOM. 60GB vs 20GB HDs only cost ~ 10-15 more to the manufacturer (we can look up this figure, but it is close), and the ports are a few cents each.
The higher priced SKU gives Sony 2 things. First and foremost, it gives Sony the lux brand appeal. This is a well known phenomenon to marketers. People are more willing to pay for products that they percieve as having higher value, regardless of what the actual quality/cost of the added components are, or the actual usefulness to the consumer (read: I may not NEED this now, but I could POSSIBLY USE it later on). As a subset to this added value, the Sony PS3 is possibly percieved as more Next Gen than either the X360 and the Wii. Even if Sony doesn't put out games with much better graphics, people will find the small differences to justify the increased price. I've already seen this today, scanning message boards here.
People want the best product available to them, and some are scammed extremely easily into spending more than is logically justifiable. High end models of Porche, BMW, MB, and other high end car manufacturers use the same marketing devices to upsell sometimes insignificant increases of BOM. The higher end super luxery cars (read: Enzo and the like) sometimes rely on the idea of "hand-made" manufacturing or "limited-edition" production to further increase percieved value, even though, often times hand-made products are no better than industrial mass-produced ones. Limited edition production is a genius marketing strategy. Very many use it, and it is extremely effective. Expect to see "limited-edition" white PS3 models next Christmas. Though the BOM is almost always the same on limited edition products, the percieved value skyrockets because of the "unique value" perception.
The second benefit [the higher SKU gives] to Sony was mentioned in the first paragraph of this post. It gives them a chance to slightly lower their price overhead, while still allowing consumers the choice of a cheaper option. They are banking on consumers going for the luxery version. The price difference between the SKU's is very,very minimal.
edit: Note to Acert: The last line refers to price differnece TO SONY, not the consumer. Since the whole post is about the price difference (to the consumer) between the SKU's being $100 not because of the cost that SONY incurs from adding the components being 1:1, but because Sony needs to offset their pricey BOM (which, once again, is nearly the same between the SKU's) by selling a $600 model, and at the same time justifying it to the consumer (see above: luxery model appeal). NM because the money could go to suture the wound they incurred from their one-time R&D cost, which was astronomical.
