I think Sony will drop to $299 in there first price drop. They probably just waiting on the 20nm apu and the higher density gddr5.
Unless sales drop dramatically for PS4 compared to last year, I see no reason Sony would do that. Especially since the company is still on a very rocky financial footing.
I expect that like X360 last gen, there won't be an official price drop for quite a long time. What will happen is that it might get a bigger HDD (cheaper than a 50 USD price drop) at the same price point. They may also have targeted (like Black Friday for example) limited time price drops if they feel the need to boost sales.
This is all predicated on them maintaining sales momentum, of course. If sales start dropping like a stone (I cannot for the life of me see this happening) then there will likely be price drop.
This isn't like the PS1 days where the company's financials were still strong and they were trying to establish the brand against an entrenched Nintendo and SEGA. And this isn't like the PS3 where they were getting beaten badly by the competition until they dropped the price of the console.
Not only are they absolutely dominating all competitors, they are also in need of a big boost to their financials to get them on better footing. A lower price could drive a little more market share but may or may not drive up profits.
16/20 nm may be available this year, but is unlikely to end up in a cheaper console. While the chip will be smaller and thus more chips per wafer, manufacturing cost per wafer is also going to be significantly higher than 28 nm. It will likely be 1-2 years before 16/20 nm offers cost advantages for a pure shrink.
Most companies releasing early products (first year) on those nodes will be looking more towards either more power consumption savings (mobile SOC, for example) or using that to enable more performance (desktop GPU, for example) and not for any cost savings.
Regards,
SB
