Console pricing thread

[eastmen]

So how much are profile 2.0 stand-alones? Black Friday prices are irreverent, most people don't stand in line to be one of twenty to buy something during one day only. The cheapest stand-alones are $300 right now, I doubt things will change much in the next two months.

I still think Sony should drop PS3 prices by $100 during the first week of Nov, right in time to ride positive LBP reviews and publicity.

I think you could see the house brands retailing at $200 considering sonys are at $300. An add on at $100 with a few free movies could sell , but i don't think it be huge and i don't think it be needed.

As for sony. I think its to late for a price cut. If it was happeing in october we would have known about it already and Nov may be to late to do much. I think sony just wants the sales they can get now and try and make a price cut with killzone 2 in febuary or march.

 

[Arwin]

I agree it is getting late on the price-cut, and if they believe they can sell all they can make at the current price, they won't drop it. Which is a pity, as the stars are aligning for some serious PS3 momentum. I'm still hoping they'll do it, but the first of November is definitely their last opportunity.

 

[silhouette]

I do not think they will drop, especially if they bundle it with a game. A 400$ 80 gig MGS4 or LBP bundle will still guarantee a lot of sale this xmas even if the numbers would probably be less than 360. Sony is only dangering the income from the royalties, but I think they will make up for that in the long run anyway.

This is not a race anymore. There is no loser this time. Sony knows that they cannot dominate MS and MS knows they cannot stop Sony completely. So, they both execute their own starategy to be profitable both in short term and in long term.

Now, MS, give me the Jasper box and Sony, give me the LBP bundle!

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Ofcourse there is a loser. If you sold 100million consoles the last generation and dominated hardware and software seeing that drop with more than half (I doubt there will be sold more than 50million ps3's) you are by any means the one who loses. MS and Nintendo are the ones laughing. MS might not sell as much hardware as they wanted but they defenitly made the xbox name alot stronger and software sells and they get alot of good games so they are defenitly winning over what they did last gen. And ofcourse nintendo is going crazy, atleast they can now afford to continue screwing around another 2 generations with the money they made.

As for sony I think its a financial issue for them. If they dont lower the price im pretty sure they think the lower price wont sell them so much more consoles that its worth the loss of profits (or increased losses).

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I'm in total agreement with tongue. And STOP IT, I never agreed to first base.

Both Sony and MS made fundamental errors this generation, but MS was able to recover from theirs because theirs wasn't a strategy mistake... it was a mistake in execution. Sony made a strategic mistake with the PS3.

First, BR will never become the next DVD, Second, Cell will never become the next x86 chip, so building both of those expenses into the PS3 and delaying the release will never result in profitability.

Sony really is in big trouble here, but as I said in other messages, don't forget that the PS3 is going to be selling for at least the next 5 years while the Wii won't be and the only reason the 360 won't be is if MS can deliver a superior product at a lower price point.

There's no positive way to spin the fact that Sony got screwed here by investing in their own internal "superior and advanced" tech in terms of BR and Cell and those costs sunk the PS3 when they failed completely to offer advances in experience for the consumer.

 

[eastmen]

To be honest (and I don't wnat a huge flame war) but i think Sony would have been in a much better postion if they went with HD Dvd for the ps3. I know I know. But really replication costs were much lower at the onset and hd dvd was actually ready before bluray. Remember they delayed the launch once because of last minute negotiations with the bluray group. They might have even been able to hit holdiay 2005 with an hd dvd drive in the system. they could have had a high def player , lower replication costs ( no need for new fabs ) No huge format war and launched a year earlier perhaps thus cutting off ms's lead.

 

[Arwin]

Ehm, if they might have been able to hit holiday 2005 with HD DVD, then Microsoft would probably have done that.

I still think BluRay is one of the saving graces of the PS3 and will be in the future. I'm not so sure they wouldn't have lost even worse to the 360 if they'd released earlier. They didn't have the software, they didn't have the firmware, they didn't have shit. The biggest problems they've had against the 360, particularly in the U.S., is that the Xbox brand - not just the 360, it started earlier - was making strong inroads into the U.S. market and appealing to the crowd with their well-integrated and fully featured online support combined with, well, Halo, and a lot of PC shooter ports.

The PS3 should have released earlier and cheaper, sure, but if it had been even more inferior to the 360, and had no software to show for the system for an even longer time, I'm not so sure where they'd have been now.

I think that unlike most people I feel Sony's biggest mistakes so far are much more related to software support than hardware, unless you count the complexity of the hardware as a strong reason for the software to be so far behind. But I don't believe that's it - the lack of a decent SDK for online and standardisation of features like music integration and such was fully to blame on SCEJ not seeing the importance of these.

Sure, releasing earlier would have led to more titles from EA sooner, but wouldn't the difference between the quality between the 360 and PS3 versions have been even larger? And the complaints from developers even bigger? It took Sony long enough after release to get even the developer tools up to a decent enough level.

Software, Software, Software.

If they had the software though, then yes, getting the hardware out there cheaper and faster would have been the next most important thing. But as it stands now, I'm not so sure it would have mattered that much.

Whereas now, having the BD (and the HDD) standard, is going to make the value of the machine better every day as the costs comes down ... especially the BluRay component is going to be at a near irrelevant cost difference from DVD soon enough. I think that if anything prevents Sony from hitting a low enough price point, it will be either bad resource planning (if it's true that they can't make more machines than they're expecting to sell at 399 for the next months anyway for instance) or the cost of other parts of the system.

Final question - did the PS3 lose to the Wii because of BluRay, or because of the waggle controller and Nintendo's excellent software and marketing strategy? And yes, as far as I am concerned, that question is rhetorical. Sure, if the Wii had cost 499 or more that wouldn't have helped. But had the PS3 been able to lose enough hardware features to match the Wii in price, would this have meant they'd win the race all of a sudden? Pitch sixaxis against waggle? Sony's launch titles against Nintendo's launch titles?

 

[assen]

For one thing, Sony should have instituted the "no parity, no certification" policy much earlier. Maybe they bought into their own hype about the power of the Cell, maybe they were encouraged by the results they were seeing from their exclusive titles from internal studios - but the first I heard about it was a full year after launch.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

If the PS3 had launched with a standard DVD like the 360 and the Wii, they'd still have lost money due to the investment in Cell, but they'd have been able to launch sooner and the 360 would have lost a number of its 'exclusives'.

I don't really see what point is being argued here. Sony banked everything on the fact that their tech would be superior. BR and Cell. To date, we've seen nothing to demonstrate that the Sony console with BR and Cell are more powerful than the MS console with DVD and PowerPC tech.

Investments only work if you get a return. And the only way to get a return is to demonstrate worth. The PS3 has failed to do that.

I agree, that without BR the PS3 would be selling even worse, and would probably be completely out of the game at this point. BR is what is giving the PS3 legs (not in gaming necessarily). But it's also what is holding their price at a point that only a small percentage of the gamer population can afford.

 

[eastmen]

Ehm, if they might have been able to hit holiday 2005 with HD DVD, then Microsoft would probably have done that

MS wouldn't have launched at $600 like sony did. I'm sure that extra $200 would have gotten them a hd dvd drive in 2005.

still think BluRay is one of the saving graces of the PS3 and will be in the future. I'm not so sure they wouldn't have lost even worse to the 360 if they'd released earlier. They didn't have the software, they didn't have the firmware, they didn't have shit. The biggest problems they've had against the 360, particularly in the U.S., is that the Xbox brand - not just the 360, it started earlier - was making strong inroads into the U.S. market and appealing to the crowd with their well-integrated and fully featured online support combined with, well, Halo, and a lot of PC shooter ports

I think bluray is what doomed the ps3. Bluray players continue to drop like a rock. Sony bluray players are as low as $300 and house brands will most likely hit $200. Which means next year the player prices will fall to $100.

I also don't see bluray as a big deal with the current economy. Your looking at in some cases double the price between a dvd and a bluray. Many will stick with upscaled dvd.

Also remember the 360 didn't have much at launch either , they really had cod2 and thats about it. Sony may not have had the only aspect but they could have easily pushed god of war 2 to the ps3 or create an enhnaced version.


Sony had the market last gen. I'm sure if they launched in 2005 with hd dvd (or a hybrid deal that prevented the format war) and they moved some of the bigger ps2 games to ps3 games they would have done fine. Perhaps a year later nintendo still would have steam rolled them. However they did alot of things wrong. Look at Nintendo they released zelda on both systems why didn't sony do that with god of war 2. I'm sure that dev house could have had it run at 1080p native and increase the texture quality and what not. It would have been enough to move more to the ps3. They also would have gotten alot more support s many of the early xbox 360 games would have been ported. Some of ms's early hits like Lost planet , cod2 and dead rising would have released on both platforms most likely.

I think alot of things would have changed with that and it would have all been for the better in terms of sony. I think by the time they get the ps3 costs under control we will already see the next gen xbox. I also believe that holiday 09 we will see the 360 with a small pool of flash ram perhaps 8-16 gigs of it in the lowest unit and perhaps a phase out of the premium sku

 

[betan]

For one thing, Sony should have instituted the "no parity, no certification" policy much earlier. Maybe they bought into their own hype about the power of the Cell, maybe they were encouraged by the results they were seeing from their exclusive titles from internal studios - but the first I heard about it was a full year after launch.

Do you have a source for this policy besides joker?
I'm asking because poor ports keep coming.

 

[Mintmaster]

Do you have a source for this policy besides joker?
I'm asking because poor ports keep coming.

Poor ports from big studios or small ones? I seem to recall joker mentioning the leverage that a publisher like EA has.

 

[Mintmaster]

I don't really see what point is being argued here. Sony banked everything on the fact that their tech would be superior. BR and Cell. To date, we've seen nothing to demonstrate that the Sony console with BR and Cell are more powerful than the MS console with DVD and PowerPC tech.

It's not that PS3 doesn't have superior tech (okay, the GPU is slightly inferior, but that's it). It's just that Sony greatly overestimated the impact that this tech would have on the quality of games and thus the desirability of the console - so much so that not only did they think consumers would pay more for it, but that lost year would be inconsequential.

I agree, that without BR the PS3 would be selling even worse, and would probably be completely out of the game at this point. BR is what is giving the PS3 legs (not in gaming necessarily). But it's also what is holding their price at a point that only a small percentage of the gamer population can afford.

The notion of a BR-less PS3 only makes sense when it's planned for right from the beginning. That means 1 year earlier launch, preparing devs earlier much earlier, and getting GT5P ready very soon so that PD's incredible art can be spun into a demonstration of superior tech.

If this happened, 360 would be almost stillborn, even if MS didn't have the RROD problem. I'm thinking PS3 outsells 360 2:1 in NA and dominates everywhere else. As for BR, I've argue many times that Sony could tackle that problem separately. They could make a media edition PS3 one year later and subsidize standalones to the point where you'd be an idiot to buy Toshiba.

PS3's strategy for victory was so obvious. PS2 won because of userbase/mindshare, price, and software. Why Sony thought they could win without the first two and be lackadaisical on the third is beyond me.

 

[eastmen]

Minmaster. You can even look at it this way. With a launch in 2006 instead of 2005 but sans bluray you could have used that extra $100 or $200 they spent on the bluray portion for more ram.

A ps3 with 1 gig of ram would change the ball room. heck I think a ps3 with 256 megs of xdr ram and 512 megs of ddr ram would have murdered the 360. The fidelity would have been easily apparent.

They could make a media edition PS3 one year later and subsidize standalones to the point where you'd be an idiot to buy Toshiba

They should have partnered with toshiba. there were tons of drives for pcs that could read both formats so I don't see why they couldn't have just done that from the start. Use toshiba's discs (which were cheaper to make and cheaper to switch over too) and then move on to the bluray discs we had now at a slower pace. I'm still hard pressed to see diffrences between the bluray and hd dvd releses of movies . Release the ps3 in 2005 against the 360 and later make a media one with a hybrid drive in it. Or simply drop bluray all together and get behind toshiba's hd dvd. There were deals being thrown back and forth between the companys. I think it would have worked out better in the end for everyone involved including consumers if they had just reached a deal before the launches.

 

[Arwin]

It's not that PS3 doesn't have superior tech (okay, the GPU is slightly inferior, but that's it). It's just that Sony greatly overestimated the impact that this tech would have on the quality of games and thus the desirability of the console - so much so that not only did they think consumers would pay more for it, but that lost year would be inconsequential.

And that is partly due to the develop on PC, port to 360, port to PS3, that's not so much hurting the PS3, as it is showing the strength of the 360's ease of development.

The notion of a BR-less PS3 only makes sense when it's planned for right from the beginning. That means 1 year earlier launch, preparing devs earlier much earlier, and getting GT5P ready very soon so that PD's incredible art can be spun into a demonstration of superior tech.

Impossible. The company Sony was back then could never have pulled it off. GT:HD Concept was out early 2007, and that was a download so BluRay wasn't a factor. And it's not like they haven't been working on it since the earliest opportunity.

PS3's strategy for victory was so obvious. PS2 won because of userbase/mindshare, price, and software. Why Sony thought they could win without the first two and be lackadaisical on the third is beyond me.

I would like to make a few subtle changes here. In the U.S., the Xbox was already gaining both userbase and mindshare. SCEA was failing to see the value of SCEE's strategy and grossly neglected to introduce EyeToy, Buzz and Singstar when it mattered the most.

I agree that if they'd brought out something that was equivalent to the 360 at about the same time for an equal or smaller price point, they'd have sold more early on thanks to that mindshare. But then MS strength on the SDK/Software side, Live support and ease of development would have broughtt hem down, and then the innovation and the Wii would have hurt them.

The PS3 now is, and I know there are still plenty of people who disagree, hardware that can last quite a while. Sony needs to regain their software strength. They're doing a great job in keeping on bringing the Firmware up, now they need some killer software and bring the price down sufficiently. There's still time for that. Look at the PSP against the DS. A new machine from any company won't be able to compete with something that's been out and is a known quantity, but has been underused - there's already so much support in place, costs are down all across the board, etc.

Great software, and who knows, a killer peripheral. We'll see what happens. In the meantime though, personally, out of the three platforms out there, I still think the PS3 is the best value even now. But the recent price cut of the 360, will have tipped the scale towards the 360 for a significant crowd I think, and it will be interesting to see if the Wii will reach a saturation point.

In Japan I hear LittleBigPlanet is going to come with a free DS3 (Shane on 1up) ... if true, that's going to be an interesting emulation of Wii Play, and a clever way to make sure at least the current PS3 installbase in Japan takes note of LBP.

 

[joker454]

It's not that PS3 doesn't have superior tech (okay, the GPU is slightly inferior, but that's it).

Memory was a huge problem initially as well, making games look as good on PS3 when it had so much less memory was basically impossible. Add in msaa, and the memory gap widened even further. It's not as bad now, but it still remains a problem. It's bad enough that I bypass RSX msaa hardware totally and instead rolled my own solution that needs no extra memory and runs faster.

 

[pipo]

Microsoft is set to release eight new Xbox 360 bundles for Europe, three of which are to be available today.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/eight-xbox-360-bundles-to-hit-europe

 

[Arwin]

Mod : Clean up. We return you to your normal programming...

Or ... could we not go there? It's hard enough to keep the console pricing thread from turning into a fanboy war. There's been talk before that we simply can't have this discussion at all on the board because it always ends up as one, whereas I genuinely appreciate having this discussion - many of us here are people who will be the go-to person for many others. I know I am, and I want to be able to test my recommendations against those of other intelligent people to check whether they still hold true, and discuss console value and strategy in general.

Comments are easily deleted by mods, but it's not like they really enjoy it or get paid to do so, so let's try to make their job as easy as possible, ok?

 

[AlNom]

[strike]Closing this thread because, quite frankly, the thread has turned into a

Spoiler

CIRCUS OF VALUUUUUE

nitpicking, versus discussion that is going nowhere at ludicrous speed.[/strike]

Spin-off for console value/peripherals/what people think others need to purchase drekcetera. discussion.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=50656

 

[liolio]

It's not really on topic but MS is really agressive this fall.
Here (in France I don't know for Europe) once again they offer a 40 euros cut if you send back some tickets. It works on all sku/bundles.
Damned, I'm starving I wanted to wait for the jasper but now the arcade is @139 euros a 20GB HDD is 20 euros... GAS