Next-Gen Console Pricing?

[Grall]

What's the chance of the next generation of hardware debuting at anything resembling a decent price?

PS2 was darned expensive initially, as was XB. The next gen will be more sophisticated than ever before, more sophisticated even than high-end PC boxes if rumors are to be believed. Despite advances in integration, it is doubtful the raw cost of the electronics will be less than the current gen, and most likely more expensive than EVER before, especially for a debut system.

If PS3 has a Cell with something like 64MB eDRAM on it and a GS3 or whatever they choose to call it with maybe another 64MB on it, plus at least a quarter gig (more likely half a gig) of next-gen RDRAM main memory on top of that and maybe blue-ray disc memory and most definitely a harddrive, well that is quite a formidable computing platform!

If something like that would debut at $250, how much money would Sony lose on each box sold? A pretty hefty sum I'd guess. So would they take that cost on the chin and hope to sell enough software to make up the cost (they'd have to sell like 10+ pieces of software per box just to break even initially), or will they raise the price to $350 or maybe more and count on the name and phat specs to sell boxes anyway?


*G*

 

[Almasy]

Personally, I´m not too concerned about that. Why? well, I think that it´s very likely that PS3 will debut at $300. That´s the way it has always been, and history so far dictates that anything above that price will most likely fail.

 

[Paul]

Ive heard this same type of thing for PS2, "oh my it's gonna be 500 bucks!!1"

It's all BS, Sony isn't stupid enough to debut it at more than 300 for a American release. They know it won't sell as well for anything higher, and they will take a bite for every console sold just like they did for PS2. Hell Emotion Engine costed 100 dollars each to make when they were new.

300bucks IMO is a fine price for a new console.

 

[Tagrineth]

Heh. Anyone for 3DO?

 

[Grall]

PS2 debuted at something like US$550 in Sweden (using current exchange rate). Same with XB.

The US != All Of Teh World. Please keep that in mind, thank you.


*G*

 

[megadrive0088]

Sony will likely not abandon their $299 price point for PS3 introduction in the United States.

 

[Vince]

The US != All Of Teh World. Please keep that in mind, thank you.

Sales of PS2 in one week in the United States : Sales of PS2 in one year in Sweden. Please keep that in mind, thank you.

Capitalism knows no geo-political bounderies (except where VAT applies )

 

[Teasy]

Vince, that may be close to true for Sweden vs the U.S, but not for the entire of Europe vs the U.S. The U.S is certainly not the only place worth talking about in this thread.

On the subject of console prices in Europe. AFAICS any console sold for $299.99 in the U.S should be able to be sold for at least $360 here (£230) in the U.K. Less in other European countries. Instead we commonly get prices of $471 (£300) for new consoles, like PS2 and XBox for instance. There's just no excuse for that other then greedy companies who are set in there ways of thinking they can exploit Europe.

Come to think of it consoles are always late here compared to the U.S too. So considering that, prices here should always be able to at least match the U.S release price. Because by the time a console is released here manufacturing costs for that console will have dropped since its U.S launch.

As far as I can remember no company has ever released a console here at the same price as the U.S launch until Nintendo did it with GC. Hopefully they'll continue with that policy with their next console. Also hopefully MS may now have realised that they can't release at such high prices either. Because they released XBox for £300 and it flopped badely at that price and had to be lowered to £200 quickly.

If both MS and Nintendo take this policy in the future then even Sony will have to follow to keep to a similar price. I can only hope anyway.