Console pricing thread
- Thread starter Arwin
- Start date
I would have to say that "half a year" is "just months", just 6 months, to be exact. It's certainly not years. Gears was announced 8 months before release, which isn't half a year, it's 2/3rds of a year, and yet still "just months", as compared to, say, 3+ years for Killzone 2, MGS4 and Gran Turismo 5.
Well, you're arguing semantics. It's a better part of a year from announcement to release. Compare to Nintendo, which announced Wii Music at E3 and then released it in the middle of October. It had been in development a lot longer, naturally. Nintendo announces stuff 'just months' ahead of launch, though with Nintendo it's a different situation; everyone knows Nintendo is making a new Zelda, making a new Mario, they just haven't been announced.
It's same for Sony with Team Ico; Trico hasn't been announced, but Sony is terribly coy about sorta-semi-announcing.
And finally, you're arguing titles in different situations. Halo 3 was announced July 2006 (though we knew there'd be one from the moment Halo 2 launched) and released September 2007. Fable 2 was announced at E3 2006, released October this year. Alan Wake has been announced since E3 2005. Halo Wars has been on the burner at least since Sept. 2006.
Conversely, Resistance 2 was announced early this year. It's harder to pinpoint when Motorstorm Pacific Rift was announced, but I think it was March 2008 too. SOCOM Confrontation was May 2008. The DLC R&C was also announced this year and released just a few months later. On average you're absolutely right, Sony does take longer, thanks in part to Team Ico (also referred to as 'Team Olympics', for their habit of releasing a game every 4 years) and Polyphony Digital and thanks to their habit of promising stuff for the next year (MGS4 taking 3+ years doesn't have much to do with Sony, seeing as it wasn't developed or published by them).
New Zealand has recently seen some quite aggressive price cuts from microsoft. Their advertising machine has also kicked into overdrive. (The new Nintendo distributor is actually advertising now, which is good). Things are quite quiet on the sony front, bar some short LBP spots.
The price structure looks something like this:
Bundles are the standard Euro fair. The arcade and standard PS3 can also be found for $20 less at the largest NZ retailer, so $330 for the arcade.
All in all the 60gb 360 is good value right now, and it's starting to show. Our office is very much a PC gamer office, with the console split being 3/2/2 xbox/ps3/wii.. It's looking like after christmas it will be 7/3/2. (Yay anecdotal evidence!)
The price structure looks something like this:
Code:
wii is $500, as always. ($280usd)
xbox:
arcade: $350 rrp ($196usd)
60gb: $450 ($252usd)
Elite (v.rare): $600 ($336usd)
ps3:
40gb (rare): $760 ($425usd)
80gb: $800 ($448usd)Bundles are the standard Euro fair. The arcade and standard PS3 can also be found for $20 less at the largest NZ retailer, so $330 for the arcade.
All in all the 60gb 360 is good value right now, and it's starting to show. Our office is very much a PC gamer office, with the console split being 3/2/2 xbox/ps3/wii.. It's looking like after christmas it will be 7/3/2. (Yay anecdotal evidence!)
Regards adverts, I've seen plenty of XB360 and Wii in the little TV I watch, but negligable PS3 (any? Don't recall), and no LBP spots either.
Here is an interesting thought I had:
The New Zealand GST rate is 12.5%.
So, consider the price of the PS3 and Wii (in $USD).
Now. Take GST out of the equation:
Very close to the US retail price.
Now, do this to the new NZ Xbox prices:
So. My prediction is the xbox line will see US price cuts to $175, $225 and $300.
The New Zealand GST rate is 12.5%.
So, consider the price of the PS3 and Wii (in $USD).
Code:
wii = $280usd
ps3 = $448usdNow. Take GST out of the equation:
Code:
wii = $280 / 1.125 = $248.9
ps2 = $448 / 1.125 = $398.3Very close to the US retail price.
Now, do this to the new NZ Xbox prices:
Code:
Arcade: $196 / 1.125 = $174.2
60gb: $252 / 1.125 = $224
Elite: $336 / 1.125 = $298.7So. My prediction is the xbox line will see US price cuts to $175, $225 and $300.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
So. My prediction is the xbox line will see US price cuts to $175, $225 and $300.
Well the European prices are 179€, 239€ and 299€, so those would be quite logical prices in NA too. Euro was also much stronger when those prices were introduced, so next year there will be most likely a cut in NA. It should happen at the same time or close to when Sony lowers the price of PS3.
LBP is getting a tonne of advertising in Australia. There's a sackboy picture on every second bus shelter. As for other ads, the one thing I see on TV fairly consistently is third-party Wii junk with families playing nonsense games. I haven't seen much my MS though, other than print ads of the price drop.
Most likely they are using the money they are making in the states to lower the prices in these other areas
I don´t think it works like that. It´s all about how big market share you have on market in question and how much you are prepared to spend to gain or maintain your market share. If there is a price cut next year it will hardly be in reaction to any price cut by Sony, that is hardly needed at the moment as they are so different in price already.
I wouldn´t be surprised if MS actually is spending larger sums on subsidies than Sony at the moment. Where the arcade unit is getting the largest subsidies. MS could do that as they have a slightly larger market share which give more royalties as well as they charge for online play through their XBL subscription model.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
The price difference between Arcade, Pro and Elite is much bigger in NA, than what they are in other places, so basically they have little bit of room to lower the Pro and Elite units in NA. X360 is currently doing very well against PS3 in USA, but that is bound to change atleast somewhat, when Sony drops the price of PS3, and that is going to happen next year and it probably will be a 100$ cut. That should somewhat change the market dynamics in Sony's favour and imo MS will react to that by lowering the Pro and Elite models close to € $ parity, meaning 239$ for Pro and 299$ for Elite.
MS surely likes to sell these consoles with a higher price tag and imo probably won't drop the price unless encouraged by Sony. I think those actions are well within the boundaries of MS's strategy for gaining market share this gen.
quest55720
Regular
I don't think Sony can afford a full 100 dollar price cut next year. I think they will do a 50 dollar price drop in the spring and see how that works first. They know that the Wii has won this generation. They are just trying to make back as much money as possible. A 100 dollar price drop would mean they continue to lose a lot of money per unit.
I don´t think a $100 price cut is out of the question, certainly not if they make a cheaper unit without disk based hdd. You can get about 20 GB of flash for $17 (contract price) today. By this time next year it would be about half that, if not sooner.
The blu-ray drives are becoming commodity as well, which mean larger volumes and cheaper price. We also have the 45 nm Cell coming which probably will offer some substantial price reductions.
bits != Bytes.
I really whished people bothered to read links before replying.
"16Gb MLC Average contract price: $1.70"
16 Gb = 2 GB
20 GB => $17
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Sorry. Thought you were misreading the 4Gb SLC since the write speed of those cheap MLCs are (still, IMO) too pathetic (best case ~10MB/s for large sequential writes) to be really useful as the sole persistent storage in a PS3. Sure, it would work, but it would also be a bottleneck to the point of becoming an annoyance for the user.
If you use ten of those in parallel you will outrun most 2.5" drives internal transfer speeds when writing data, not to mention how much faster random read access would be.
Then it wouldn't be viable as a cost-saving measure (short-to-interim term), would it...?
Now, I do think there will come a point in the PS3s lifespan where a SSD of (what will then be deemed to be) a reasonable size will cost less than the base cost of the cheapest HDD alternative at a transparent (or advantageous) performance level for the user, but I think it's highly unlikely for it to happen within a year.
My guess is that this would correspond with the (almost) certain introduction of a "PS3-Slim" since going with a smaller form factor SSD (mini PCIe?) would offer design advantages and materials savings at the same time.
Now, I do think there will come a point in the PS3s lifespan where a SSD of (what will then be deemed to be) a reasonable size will cost less than the base cost of the cheapest HDD alternative at a transparent (or advantageous) performance level for the user, but I think it's highly unlikely for it to happen within a year.
My guess is that this would correspond with the (almost) certain introduction of a "PS3-Slim" since going with a smaller form factor SSD (mini PCIe?) would offer design advantages and materials savings at the same time.
We'll see, but I think Sony recognizes the impact value a $100 price drop has. I think the piddly price drops MS played with for the 360 is one of the bigger mistakes they have made this generation. It not only blunts the impact of the initial price drop, but it makes the next $50 you kinda crappy too. I think 1 large drop is always better than 2 little ones.