PlayStation 3 Initial Costs

[Alpha_Spartan]

I really think that this is probably closer to reality.

Or wishful thinking.

The PS3 could launch at $500 and the hardest of the hardcore would still buy it. However, it would be hard for Sony to reach their bread-and-butter, the casual gaming market, at anything above $300. Sony can't survive off of 500 techies from an Internet forum. I find it hard to believe that King Kenny could be playing some marketing word games. He didn't do it with the PS2. With the PS2 all we had was wild speculation from analcysts and the wacky gaming press. With the PS3 we're actually hearing Kutaragi hint on many occasions of a premium price plus we actually have a console where Sony isn't cutting corners by any means. It's "future-proof" (if you really want to use that term for a game console). It has a BD player, a bad-ass CPU/GPU, RAMBUS memory, three GigaE ports, built-in Wifi, dual-HDMI, card slots up the wazoo, and six (count 'em, six!) USB 2.0 ports. The thing makes the PSX look conservative. I mean, with the PS2, Sony cut all kinds of corners like cutting the controller ports to a measly two and not putting in a network adapter. This was to keep the price down. Can we really say that Sony is taking the same approach with the PS3? With that in mind, is it so hard to believe that we'll probably see a PS3 at a higher price than the competition? I mean, it's like Xbox ******s arguing that MS will match the GCN in price just because they want to believe that it will be $199. What Ken is doing is positioning the PS3 for a premium price. He wants to give the illusion that the PS3 is indeed this bleeding-edge, future-proof 9th wonder of the world that deserves a high price.

With that said, we already saw from the PSX that the casual market doesn't care about a "premium" console. The Neo Geo was premium and so was the 3DO. No one cared. If PS3 launches in Fall 2006 at anything above $300, it's going to be a hard sell especially when the games will only be comparable to X360 graphically. At least consumers could actually see the difference with the 3DO and Neo Geo. The PS3 will have no such advantage. Any way you put it, Microsoft will have the price advantage being out first.

We already saw the disadvantage of coming out first at E3. You get half-assed looking software that were started on inferior hardware being compared to true next gen looking stuff that Sony showed. That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Now that's behind us and we're now seeing some actual advantages to coming out first.

 

[Farid]

I knew it! I should had closed it immediately!

I won't lock this thread since the other one is already locked, but I expect everyone who want to participate to this thread to read the other thread and see what has already been discussed.
If the thread start to sound like a broken record and no new arguments are brought to the debate, the thread will be locked.

Of course nobody did what was suggested.

If people wanted to bring new point of views about the ML report, precisely, or the PS3 price, more broadly, this was the perfect thread.

It wasn't the right place for meaningless X360 VS PS3 debates, though.
Actually, the whole forum is not the right place for that. But I guess, you people should know that by now.

 

[Dave Baumann]

FYI the projected costs of G70 are probably fairly accurate. According to some leaked road-mappery I have from some time back a chip such as R480 will have costs of $110 per chip associated with it, while R520 was expected to be pushing $150 at its initially sheduled introduction point. Mid-range chips are looking to be in about the $35 range, while entry level discrete chips are in the $10-$25 range. (and you really don't want to know what the cost of R580 is!)