DuckThor Evil
Legend
Yep Things are pretty good for MS in NA, but it Europe they have alot to improve and at the same time Europe is by far the Sony's strongest market so it's natural that MS is pushing there hard.
Console pricing thread
- Thread starter Arwin
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Yep Things are pretty good for MS in NA, but it Europe they have alot to improve and at the same time Europe is by far the Sony's strongest market so it's natural that MS is pushing there hard.
You do have to fill in a form before you can get back that extra discount, which probably means you need a benelux address?
Also wondering if this means I'm selling my address for advertisement purposes - that often happens with these discounts and I hate that.
Too me they're just catching up with reality. MS had positioned itself in such a way that people see PS3 and 360 as equivalent price machines. That shouldnt be the case at all, considering one has Blu Ray and the other doesnt. Eventually the DVD>Blu Ray price advantage will grow small or be lost, so the time to use it is now, if anything they waited too long.
I think these are good moves to strike while the iron is hot and they still have a chance in Europe, so to speak. They need to try to hit some kind of critical mass there while they still can.
I think there was an article on GamesIndustry.biz back or nextgen or something, not sure which (maybe both), around the time of the first pricedrop, making precisely this same argument.
However, that pricecut did happen, and combined with the low threshold that makes the 360 very competitive regardless, so I do hope Sony have it in them to go for 299.
I think the silence, extra capacity for games, and improved video playback are worth it, but they don't show in the first years as much as they may be able to later. DVD in the 360 being a good choice will eventually depend on whether the initial potential for gaining marketshare was worth it (and it made an important contribution).
Because over time, I can't really believe that the BluRay player will carry any significant additional cost over DVD. Already, DVD burners that also play BluRay at 4x cost as little as 100 euros over here, even a BluRay burner that can also read HD-DVD discs is available for just over 200 euros. I think another year and PCs will have BluRay drives in them by default, I reckon.
Because over time, I can't really believe that the BluRay player will carry any significant additional cost over DVD. Already, DVD burners that also play BluRay at 4x cost as little as 100 euros over here, even a BluRay burner that can also read HD-DVD discs is available for just over 200 euros. I think another year and PCs will have BluRay drives in them by default, I reckon.
Or stay at home and save the cash you would be spending on beer anyway.
Pardon me, but do you know belgian beers? Seems like you don't, because otherwise you'd not take this so lightly.
Pardon me, but do you know belgian beers? Seems like you don't, because otherwise you'd not take this so lightly.
true true
The main enemy of the PS3 is its price. It's too expensive. I'm wondering if Sony is suffering the same fate with the PS3 as MS with Xbox 1 and the hard drive, or the extra costs are due to the Blu-ray drive, so they can't drop the price for a long while or it'd be killer. Who knows.
No. At launch, the PS3's HDD would have cost ~$30, maybe even less. Even if the price never dropped, it wouldn't be pushing the console cost $100 upwards. The BRD and chips are the major prices. The GPU hasn't had a shrink yet which is keeping the cost of that up; the CPU shrinks haven't saved a lot of space, meaning they're still quite large and expensive; and BRD is still in the early expensive phase. IMO the poor chip reduction is the prime culprit. Plenty of us were expecting a rapid migration to 65nm and notable die reductions, but without those the price isn't going anywhere.
It's a cost, but it isn't $70 like XB! Having said that, a quick look on Newegg has the lowest 2.5" drive at $50. The cost to Sony is probably a bit more than I imagined, maybe at $40 or so. It still isn't the singular reason for PS3's frightening pricetag. More a case of $40 for HDD, $40 for RSX (above a 65nm cost), $30 for Cell (minor improvements from 90nm > 65nm), and other randomly chosen figures, all totalling up. A change in one component on its own, like the removal of the HDD, wouldn't be enough to knock $100 from PS3 and get it to a happier price.
Edit : A price comparison website finds plenty of HDDs for $40 retail. I think ~$30 is the price to include the HDD in PS3
Edit : A price comparison website finds plenty of HDDs for $40 retail. I think ~$30 is the price to include the HDD in PS3
Those prices could simply be caused by a lack of interest. Who is going to buy a 20 gig ibm travel star when for 2$ more they can get a 30 gig. who is going to buy a 30 gig when for $5 more you can get a 120 gig (though that apears to be a 3 1/2 drive). After some point these are just old stock that can't be moved. I'd wager it is close to $40 for a drive in these consoles.
I agree that $40 isn't a huge price dffrence , however the problem with the xbox came not when it was $300 but when the consoles come down to $200 or so that $40 diffrence in price reduction will be huge. That is how the hardrive killed the xbox . No matter what happened they would allways have that extra money left on the box that sony didn't. The xbox 360 will allways be cheaper because of the core unit. The chips are smaller , it uses a singe memory pool and yada yada . At evey poin in the consoles lives is cheaper. That will come into play later in the generation. I wouldn't be surprised if after the next xbox releases we don't see the core xbox at $75 or even $50
The point about the HDD was raised regards PS3's high price, what it costs now. A $240 PS3 versus a $200 XB360 is another matter of debate, but one we look a year or two from reaching!
The HDD didn't kill XBox. It killed MS's bank-balance (well, dented it a bit), but the XBox wasn't priced out of consumers hands because of it. By the later years it was cheaper than PS2, but still didn't sell.
I concur.
. Has there ever been a console generation where the old gen dropped to $50 (other than clearance of rednundant tech)? And in XB360's case, the opportunity for cost reduction is lower than previous consoles. Process shrinks don't yield as much returns/savings, while core components like the DVD drive aren't going to get any cheaper, and also as the hardware gets cheaper to make, the console companies want to start making money on the hardware. The super compact PS2 is $99, down from $300, and that had a great process-shrink advantage over its life. Perhaps Sony could sell it at $50 wihtout losing anything, but they're never going to!Microsoft is said to introduce a new 360 motherboard codenamed Valhalla in early 08, which is said to have CPU and GPU on a single 65nm chip. I assume that this chip would also contain southbridge.
I have a question related to that - how big cost savings will that motherboard bring (when compared with Jasper)? There will be one memory bus (instead of previous 3), one unified cooling system, supposedly much less stuff on motherboard and the production of the console would be a simpler process.
I am interested because I wonder if Sony decides to make price drop in the first half of next year, will MS be able to counteract that? Would Valhalla give them room to make such a move or are cost savings marginal?
I have a question related to that - how big cost savings will that motherboard bring (when compared with Jasper)? There will be one memory bus (instead of previous 3), one unified cooling system, supposedly much less stuff on motherboard and the production of the console would be a simpler process.
I am interested because I wonder if Sony decides to make price drop in the first half of next year, will MS be able to counteract that? Would Valhalla give them room to make such a move or are cost savings marginal?
I thought the new 80 gig modals out now consist of 65nm Cell & RSX?
PS2 is $100 but how much does it actually cost. Sony can bemaking a profit , they might make a profit all the way down to $50. The 360 is now at $200 . Are they loosing money , making money or breaking even ? Anyway you slice it only one of their chips have been reduced in size. By 2010/11 they should be on the 45nm orclose to the 32nm process. They should have been able to combine both cpu and gpu and who knows what they can actually sell it at .
I dont think it was ever cheaper than PS2..at least not here in the States. If I recall those two products mirrored each others prices at every point.
I think that was exactly part of the problem, as an MS exec said, the HDD didn't allow them to charge a premium. People weren't willing to pay $50 more for the Xbox just because it had a HDD.
Of course, in that generation Live was a shadow of it's current self, so the HDD was a glorified 8GB memory card for most people. An HDD is far more useful today.
Also I'd disagree that the Xbox "didn't sell"..it was a reasonably successful console besides it's terrible balance sheet..yes it didn't sell near to PS2 levels..but in the height of it's "success" in 2004 it was a pretty relevant console.
I still wouldn't expect MS to go with price below $100 level, when games with accesories like Rock Band or Wii Fit can sell at $90+, there's no reason to go below that with a fully fledged console. If it loses momentum at some point, MS will probably launch a marketing campaign, because price simply won't matter anymore... My guess is that they'll hit $99/$149/$199 at some point in 2010 and will stick with it for the rest of 360's life, however long it might be.