PS3 Price drop and 40GB SKU confirmed *

[Zaphod]

I dont know what this means. What are you referring to "a more reasonable conversion?" All I did was stick the Euro/GBP (399/299) price in yahoo currency converter, which I'm sure is up to date with all the latest currency fluctuations.

Yes, but that comparison would require that $USD is the base currency for the PS3 and that its components are sourced in dollars. It's not.

The European pricing won't automatically be adjusted just because the $USD have tanked over the short term in comparison. It falsely gives the impression that things have gotten more expensive in Europe when they have not. If the weak $USD should endure it is more likely that, as mentioned, it would cause US prices to rise (or delay pricecuts) as Sony gets less return by selling there. Thus a longer perspective on the currency conversion is more appropriate when comparing cross-continent. Also, just adding US sales tax doesn't give the complete picture as that tend to be much lower than the European average of >19%.

$430 was too low, though, it should have read $460 (a 15% premium seems reasonable considering the higher cost of doing business in Europe). Europeans are still getting screwed, though, as the yen is even weaker to the eruro these days than the dollar is. Might be the reason they're introducing it here first.

 

[XeRo]

http://kotaku.com/gaming/2007-b'c'/scee-explains-ps3-bc-backpedalling-307768.php

That's Sony's explanation of why no BC

 

[Carl B]

Kotaku's reporting is horrible, I hate those guys. Back to the topic...

@Zaphod: To me it doesn't seem that your pricing includes VAT, as I took your 15% business premium to be logistical in nature. Remember that the price includes the sales tax, which hovers at around ~20%, depending on country. If people would remember to make those adjustments in their calculations, they would find that although worse, the European prices no longer look on the level of 'insane.'

 

[Rangers]

Yes, but that comparison would require that $USD is the base currency for the PS3 and that its components are sourced in dollars. It's not.

That has nothing to do with my post, which is simply what the Euro price is relative to the American price. Going off on a component source tangent is..well whatever.

I dont see how the "weak dollar" really relates as Americans pay less of those "weak dollars" for PS3, correct? So I'm not sure where they're weak, and who that benefits..apparantly Americans?

And yes, the taxes well, they're still required to be paid.

Where I live sales tax is 8.25%, most states will be lower, but being extremely generous we could say ~10%. So the comparable price of a 399 apples to apples might be $440, as I originally wrote.

I guess if you figure EU sales tax is 20%, you could knock $112 off the $563, meaning a price of..$451. So I guess, Sony isn't "screwing" EU as bad as one thinks. But that wasn't really my point, just that the EU price is still relatively high.

 

[Carl B]

Well all prices should be normalized against the yen, rather than the dollar. So Euro to yen, and dollar to yen; only after the yen figures for each are known is there really any workable figure in terms of who's getting charged more. And indeed distribution in Europe is more difficult, which is why products there often cost more... this with the VAT not even factored in yet.

 

[Zaphod]

I dont see how the "weak dollar" really relates as Americans pay less of those "weak dollars" for PS3, correct? So I'm not sure where they're weak, and who that benefits..apparantly Americans?

No. A weak dollar hurts Americans WRT imported goods (such as a PS3). If the Euro went totally to the shitters tomorrow while the USD soared, would that make the PS3 more expensive in the US? Of course not. The opposite is also true. A direct $->€ comparison is only valid for domestic US goods.

And yes, the taxes well, they're still required to be paid.

Of course, but for the sake of relevant discussion it serves to differentiate between getting screwed by Sony and getting screwed by the cost of socialized health care (read: the government). Thus the two should be separated.

But that wasn't really my point, just that the EU price is still relatively high.

Yes it is. But that's because Sony is not giving us the advantage of the piss weak Yen in comparison to the Euro, not because the USD is also weak at the moment.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

@Zaphod: To me it doesn't seem that your pricing includes VAT, as I took your 15% business premium to be logistical in nature. Remember that the price includes the sales tax, which hovers at around ~20%, depending on country. If people would remember to make those adjustments in their calculations, they would find that although worse, the European prices no longer look on the level of 'insane.'

Yep the direct $ to € is not that bad really, however we are not seeing that in Finland where the 40GB is priced at 480€, The Sony importer likes to take large piece of that pie, whereas the X360 sells at the official European price and often even under that. I'm not giving a cent to that importer, instead I'm ordering it from abroad, even if it'll cost as much in the end.

 

[Xpuntar]

http://kotaku.com/gaming/2007-b'c'/scee-explains-ps3-bc-backpedalling-307768.php

That's Sony's explanation of why no BC

I see no direct answer why there is no BC.

Unless they removed some portion of eprom for firmware then eventualy we will see at least some form of software BC at the next major revison (of firmware or console itself).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That has nothing to do with my post, which is simply what the Euro price is relative to the American price.

That's totally irrelevant to how much PS3 sells in Europe though. Europeans don't go checking price in the US before buying, making sure that they get a good currency conversion rate. Sale per region is affected by local policy only.

The fact the EU pays more on average also isn't a topic I'm gonna allow in this thread. We all know Europe pays more than Americans for everything, and it doesn't need debating.

 

[Vic]

The second part of my post was solely for NA, which do have full BC in the 60GB. The best choice in Euroland is still the 60GB with good BC (80%+?).

Yeah that sounds correct,

In Europe the 60GB has the GS but not the EE, and therefore uses software emulation. The 40GB will have neither.

Like you say, American gamers should buy the 80GB for BC.

 

[Crayon]

I'm suprised to hear about the backwards compatability. Not suprised in a good way.

My PS3 plays all the old PS2/1 games I try. My objection is seeing BC turned from a core value of the brand and turned into an empty promise. The BC compat list may be longer, but Sony's policy on BC appears to be not wholly different than Microsoft's. That is to say; "uncomitted"

Gravity of this is dabateable, I guess. But I personally am very dissapointed.

 

[ihamoitc2005]

I'm suprised to hear about the backwards compatability. Not suprised in a good way.

My PS3 plays all the old PS2/1 games I try. My objection is seeing BC turned from a core value of the brand and turned into an empty promise. The BC compat list may be longer, but Sony's policy on BC appears to be not wholly different than Microsoft's. That is to say; "uncomitted"

Gravity of this is dabateable, I guess. But I personally am very dissapointed.

60GB & 80GB models has pretty good backwards compatibility no?

 

[Betanumerical]

I see no direct answer why there is no BC.

Unless they removed some portion of eprom for firmware then eventualy we will see at least some form of software BC at the next major revison (of firmware or console itself).

On a different forum I frequent someone bought up the fact that the PS3 doesn't have enough bandwidth to match the PS2's EDRAM (48GB/s?) and that was the reason for the lack of BC, or can you work around this?.

 

[Fafalada]

The bandwidth is really not an issue, RSX outperforms GS any day of the week from this standpoint.

You forgot to add "significantly outperforms". That said, my question is more, why would anyone want to "emulate" bandwith?

Btw Laa-Yosh, if you took the same RSX, stick it onto a 256 or even 512bit interface (thus giving it loads more bandwith) it would still have all the same problems emulating GS as it should have now.

 

[Betanumerical]

You forgot to add "significantly outperforms". That said, my question is more, why would anyone want to "emulate" bandwith?

Btw Laa-Yosh, if you took the same RSX, stick it onto a 256 or even 512bit interface (thus giving it loads more bandwith) it would still have all the same problems emulating GS as it should have now.

Yes, but how is bandwidth a non issue? doesn't the lack of bandwidth mean the RSX can't get the same amount of data as fast / fast enough?. Or am I not seeing something here.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

GS needed the BW because that's how it worked - brute force. There's wasn't any other solution or elegance. By adding 2:1 texture compression on 20GB/s DDR access for RSX, you're almost where GS was, and that's peak rate, worst case. GS really was just plain odd as the PS2 devs here have explained (in a thread lost to the mists of time), such as allowing you to change the something-or-other mid flow where on a normal GPU you have to stop what you're doing to change. On a normal GPU you'd rarely use that 'change' but on the PS2 it was part of how it worked, which means hell and murder for a conventional GPU to handle PS2 graphics. The weirdness of GS just isn't appreciated, perhaps because it's little understood by us non-developers where the number are readily appreciated, but we have it on good authority, a few times now, from PS2 devs who know about this sort of thing, that BW was never the problem.

 

[Betanumerical]

GS needed the BW because that's how it worked - brute force. There's wasn't any other solution or elegance. By adding 2:1 texture compression on 20GB/s DDR access for RSX, you're almost where GS was, and that's peak rate, worst case. GS really was just plain odd as the PS2 devs here have explained (in a thread lost to the mists of time), such as allowing you to change the something-or-other mid flow where on a normal GPU you have to stop what you're doing to change. On a normal GPU you'd rarely use that 'change' but on the PS2 it was part of how it worked, which means hell and murder for a conventional GPU to handle PS2 graphics. The weirdness of GS just isn't appreciated, perhaps because it's little understood by us non-developers where the number are readily appreciated, but we have it on good authority, a few times now, from PS2 devs who know about this sort of thing, that BW was never the problem.

Is this 2:1 texture compression possible?, also couldn't you split up the assets/copy them into GDDR3 and XDR to increase bandwidth?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes to both. Modern (actually going back a while!) GPUs actually support S3TC @ 4:1 compression. And the XDR can be used too. Thus, in a primitive 'only look at the numbers' analysis, you've got 200 GB/s of PS2 class graphics bandwidth available to RSX using compression which PS2 never had.

 

[.Melchiah.]

Yep the direct $ to € is not that bad really, however we are not seeing that in Finland where the 40GB is priced at 480€, The Sony importer likes to take large piece of that pie, whereas the X360 sells at the official European price and often even under that. I'm not giving a cent to that importer, instead I'm ordering it from abroad, even if it'll cost as much in the end.

My thoughts exactly. I was really pissed to find out the two game package cost 679-699€ here, whereas it was 599€ for the rest of Europe.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I was really pissed to find out the two game package cost 679-699€ here, whereas it was 599€ for the rest of Europe.

Yep and now that everybody else has the starter pack at 499€, we have it at 599€, which is the same as the old price in other places... I don't know whether I should laugh or cry.