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Comment by: Javafriek (Sep 26, 2006 11:23)

That price really doesn't matter because people will still buy them. We post in here and complain about the price but people will still line up in stores on release date whether it's $499 $199 or $1999. In my opinion there is a margin of where a particular price for a console is fair, past that point it stops being fair and it dips into consumers pockets out of greed. But never doubt, they've done their research and it is a confident greed. I know all the info about console makers lose money when they release new consoles by selling the consoles, but they've gotta get them out there in order to sell the games. But they more than make their money back by the sales of the games ten fold. Come on guys cut us some slack.

Comment by: hade (Sep 26, 2006 11:25)

i don't see the ps3 as having that much of a difficulty in competing in the US and really not needing a price drop. the ps3 is competing IMO with the 360 in the states, so a $100 or $200 difference is not that huge of a difference considering what it offers.

japan is their homeland and if sales and consumer opinion are not good, well its not necessarily good for them. there main competitor there is nintendo, and japan gamer's like a totally different genre and style of games than i think americans do. who does it better than nintendo? i think they are trying to winover japan.

Comment by: hade (Sep 26, 2006 11:32)

also, consider years past where they generally launched their system in japan prior to launching it anywhere else. this is the first time they are doing a global launch, which in my mind could have caused more of an outrage amonst gamers as it is almost a sign of disrespect by not sticking to your guns (initial market).

why is wrong for a company from JAPAN to offer their product at a lower price there? isn't that what most companies do anyway? was it wrong for them to continually release their system in japan before they launched it anywhere else? please....they included HDMI in the 20gig making the price a bit more justifiable, so again why the fuss? remember, beggars can't be choosers

Comment by: marsey99 (Sep 26, 2006 11:37)

it would of been nice to all get the pricecut but if they dont do well at home they cant expect more abroad.

the 360 has some rpg games coming out that will help it in japan and thats why imo they are dropping the price, nothing to do witrh the wii, nintendo has said in the past that it has took a different aproach to the others and expects to be the second console, after one or the other, with most gamers.

Comment by: ZippyDSM (Sep 26, 2006 11:48)

marsey99

2 RPGs on a system that has done more poorly than the Xbx....I dont think so......Sony has to fight nintendo over home turf and the 360 in the europe and the US,but even then the 360 is just mindlessly outmatched,as mush as I dislike Sonys dicking around..but the 360 is just pitiful so far...

Hade

Because Sony has been dicking us around left and right...and we are tired of being beaten up by the limp carrot treatment....I'll admit the PS3 has the most potential but the price is above what I am willing to pay,if its true and I am still 50/50 on the HDMI on the 20GB PS3 then the 90$ price drop would have put it 10$ above what I am wiling to pay for a new system day one that might not have gameplay beyond todays shallow games...bah the 360 is recovering from a preme birth the PS3 is playing with it self...I just wish WI would come out already *L*

Comment by: gogochar (Sep 26, 2006 11:52)

Ain't buyin' it then. Cheapassed Sony ain't gettin' a dime outtta me.

Comment by: Venom5880 (Sep 26, 2006 13:33)

This coupled with the high price of games guarantees that I won't be getting one anytime soon.

I can wait a few years for all the games I'll be missing out on.

Comment by: gamelover (Sep 26, 2006 13:52)

I will buy, but not for a long time.

Good things come to those who wait!

The UK prices are crazy, if I could buy at US prices I would.

I will wait until HD TV's are up to par and console prices drop here in the UK, as I stated on the game pricing thread.

Comment by: davidl1l (Sep 26, 2006 14:21)

this crap is just to much anyways

Comment by: mystic (Sep 26, 2006 15:28)

with the availablity of massunits being released who do they think they are heres what will happen first its going to be like 3-5 per store thats not accounted for by pre-sales and if the employees dont hog them all then maybe one or two will be availble that day when the store opens ... then they will hit ebay sell them for 1/2 again then what they paid and people will then start bitching about back orders why make any if the first batch dosnt fly off the shelf emeditally. next they will have major issues and sony will offer to upgrade you (for a nommonal cost) instead of fixing the first batch.. next games will be slow to hit the shelves till about early dec. and then boom all the store will have them everywhere and more games then you can shake a stick at... and after jan.25th 07 the price will fall and then it wont matter because those parents who missed christmas will have bought something else for their kids to play with or will have paid to much . this unit is like a year over due and now they are pissing off the buyers with well we'll give a break here but not there mentality... sad sony very sad

Comment by: DamonDash (Sep 26, 2006 16:29)

Hade is right 360 is not even on the radar screen in Japan only Nintendo & Sony.Far as here MS has a little push but Sony dont think enough. The price cut they gave put it in line with U.S. dollars no one getting cheated.Some of you guys need to stop complaining about the price.What should be worry about,Does the system Justify the Price i think it do very much.Some of you dont understand what you are buying your just looking at the price and dont know what the system is going to offer you.A stand alone Blu-ray player goes for 1000 dollars on the U.S. market.So you tell me that i can get a Blu-ray player & A next gen console all in one for 600 bucks.Also 60 gig HD wirless controler WIFI system.I think there is to much crying going on its to early for this.The only thing thats got me upset but i heard its a rumor is the price of games thats what got my attention and should have yours too.

Comment by: mark5hs (Sep 26, 2006 16:44)

why even bother if its just Japan? the diffrence in price between Wii and PS3 is still big enough to affect which one a person will buy, and adjusting to compete with 360 isn't really a cocern as 360 is pretty much a failure in Japan

Comment by: glitchzoo (Sep 26, 2006 17:09)

thats very silly billy :P

why sony why im not getting a ps3 now for ages untill the price is down like 200 pounds in england :P

wait you oculd always order a ps3 unit from japan and change the launguage setting on the dashboard to english :) saves you about 60 pounds :)

Comment by: hade (Sep 26, 2006 17:32)

this goes along with what i was saying earlier:

Quote:

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Although SCEA won't follow Japan's pre-launch price cut on the PS3, analysts John Taylor (Arcadia) and Michael Pachter (Wedbush Morgan) believe the price will be dropped next year, possibly as early as spring. They also both examine the decision to drop the PS3's price in Japan. More within...

Following the news of a price drop on the low-end PlayStation 3 in Japan, speculation ran rampant about Sony perhaps lowering the price here in North America as well. Sony, however, appears quite comfortable with the $499 and $599 offerings in the U.S. and has already denied that any price drop is coming. Dave Karraker, SCEA's Sr. Director, Corporate Communications, told GameDaily BIZ, "The price cut in Japan is not a prelude to similar actions in the U.S."

That said, a price drop could be coming sooner than we'd think. We spoke with John Taylor, an analyst at Arcadia Research who said, "There's no reason to cut price for the first wave or two of product. If there is going to be a price drop, I'd bet on springtime, not launch."

Taylor also gave us some insight into why Sony may have decided to cut the PS3 price in Japan before the system even launches. "Sony has gotten used to huge market share advantages in North America, Europe and Japan. They are making the assumption that their brand is strong enough in Europe (~75% share of CG installed base at CYE 05) to let the other guys get a beach head. They are focusing quantity in NA in an effort to keep consumers from making up their minds to buy a 360. In Japan, their primary competition is Nintendo, and the price differential is TOO big. Maybe that's what's on their minds," he said. "Moreover, online play as a differentiator is less important in Japan because MS has not successfully made it a competitive advantage. So, what does Sony compete against? A low price Wii for older TV sets, and, with HDMI, a bid for newer sets..."

Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities believes a PS3 price drop in the U.S. is coming "eventually," but he didn't venture to guess a timeframe other than "next year." With regards to the situation in Japan, though, Pachter seemed to agree that the major factor for Sony in Japan was the price differential with the competition.

"The yen price is around 49,999 for the lower priced PS3 and 39,999 for the Xbox 360. So correlate that; let's just truncate those numbers to 499 vs. 399, and that's what it is here... So Sony was out of whack with their pricing because they weren't 10,000 yen higher. And I'm not trying to suggest that 10,000 yen is exactly $100, but the point is... Sony for whatever reason had priced at a greater premium in Japan than they did in the U.S. and Europe. So all they're doing is getting it in line with the U.S. offering," Pachter told GameDaily BIZ. "And my guess is that this means they're going to keep the gap at no more than 100 bucks. So should Microsoft cut the price of the 360 in the future, which I think is a strong likelihood next year, Sony will cut the price of the PS3."

For Pachter, however, the critical news coming out of the Tokyo Game Show wasn't the price drop so much as it was the inclusion of HDMI in the low-end PS3. "This now tells me that I can get Blu-ray and I can play the output on my 1080p TV with the lower priced box. So it makes the higher priced [$600] box even less attractive, because you've got to really like wi-fi and lots of disk storage to pay an extra 100 bucks for that... It seems to me that maybe they're acknowledging that they shouldn't have pushed the higher priced box, and they're going to push the lower priced box," Pachter said.

"And initially, I know their production plan is 80% higher priced PS3s, but frankly what I think you're going to see from consumers is people will pay the $600 for the first few hundred thousand boxes—they'll lap 'em up in an hour—and then they're going to all complain that GameStop 'gouged' them. And GameStop is going to say, 'It wasn't us. That's what Sony gave us.' And Sony's going to get a lot of negative press from consumers who feel they got gouged... and then they'll get 'religion' and make a lot of cheaper boxes," he added.

Pachter also shared with us some interesting comments from SCEA President Kaz Hirai: "In so many words, Kaz Hirai said to me, 'Resistance: Fall of Man is 20 gigs. We think that when developers start recognizing the potential for this box and start building these kinds of files, they're going to do it first for PS3 and then dumb it down for the 360, and you're going to see the difference between PS3 games and 360 games.' And if he's right, then Microsoft's got a problem."

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http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=13913&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000025

Comment by: ZippyDSM (Sep 26, 2006 18:29)

hade

Mmmmmmm I might be ranting to much and talking to less...

yes sony has to "pad" its japan launch to get more units sold,sure it will drop 80$ in a year.

Comment by: rosedog (Sep 27, 2006 14:16)

Thanks gawd the Wii is getting Zelda, that and I know I'll get my moneys worth out of the Wii.

Comment by: handsom (Sep 27, 2006 14:17)

Well, Nintendo is almsot no threat in the US, as of yet. That's not to say the Wii won't go over well in the US, but based on the last two console performances by Nintendo, Sony doesn't feel the least bit of concern to compete with them here.

Some would argue, but regardless of personal feelings, Sony feels that they have a good enough foothold here, to not worry about M$ or Nintendo, and no one is worrying about M$ in Japan... except for M$, lol.

Sony will sell higher here, because based on prior consoles, they don't feel there is any threat in the US market. M$ is improving, but they usually work in a rule of threes. Windows was vastly unpopular until version 3(AKA Windows 3.1), M$ Office failed miserably until version 3.0 as well. They probably won't classify as a real threat until XBox 3. Microsoft tends to build momentum very slowly, and then they make money. It's just how they've always operated before. Although, with Gates stepping down, things may go very differently. This is an exciting time for the industry in general.

Long and short, regardless of whether they are right or wrong in this assumption; Sony feels they have little or no competition in the US or the UK. So they have no reason to compete on price. It may work, it may not. Only time will tell.

Comment by: ZippyDSM (Sep 27, 2006 14:41)

rosedog

the GC and the WII are gettign the same game altho I dont know what the main diffranes are besides one useing a pad and the other useing the wii mote...it gives me no end of headache trying to think what the diffrance is...

handsom

So you think the price of the PS3 will not hurt it any ?

meh I guess you are right altho I think its more 50/50 sony well could sale alot but they could not sale alot to.

Comment by: Bladework (Sep 28, 2006 16:49)

sony ps3 wont be as a hit as the sony ps2...it bet theyll have surplus sooner or later bcoz the price is too high....japan's decision in my opinion is correct. Coz xbox 360 will dominate ps3 in us bcoz of the price difference

Comment by: handsom (Sep 29, 2006 10:35)

All things considered, I think Sony will do well here, regardless. I still think they have time to say:

"OH! What's this? We just pulled a price drop out of our arses! Yeah, we told you we wouldn't, but we love you guys *Cough* [M$ and Nintendo were a bigger threat than we thought] *Cough Cough*

As for differences between GC and Wii; the Wiimote will be a big one. Another thing to consider, is that while most GC games will also make Wii appearances, it is not necessarily the other way around. Nintendo learned a lot with the DS, one of the main things they learned was that in order for a gimmicky new input like this to work, you have to make it feel normal. You have to release as many games as possible that force the player to use it. It's the only way you'll get them to accept it as anything more than a gimmick. The DS' first year was very sad, but they finally started releasing games like Brain Age, which used it for writing and drawing; Animal Crossing was a perfect port example too. They used the stylus to take a regular game action, and make it much simpler, by dragging and dropping, rather than select item, grab item, move item, select spot.

I think Nintendo will make great new uses of the controller, but that's not to say they won't keep the 'cube around for another two years (Nintendo 64, anyone?) especially when you consider backwards compatibility. Besides, it might benefit them to keep a game console on the market that could literally be marked down as low as $60 or even $50 us dollars, so that parents will buy it for their kids as a cheap Christmas present, and get their kids hooked on Mario. The cycle starts all over again.

Ultimately though, I'd like to point out something that seems to have been overlooked in this article altogether:

Quote:

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The PlayStation 3 will debut in the US November 19 and the 20GB version will cost at least $499.

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....'at least'. Now that scares me.

Comment by: ZippyDSM (Sep 29, 2006 12:25)

handsom

I was ttalking about the dffrances in Zelda TWP on wii and GC,not the diffrances n the consoles themselfs :P

ya as bad as the PS3 is price wise it should do ok...

Comment by: uchman77 (Oct 01, 2006 11:03)

argh...........

Comment by: ZippyDSM (Oct 01, 2006 12:39)

sings badly

*I see a ban a comm'in its roll'in round the been,not seen one so deserving since I don't know when

*

sorry for off topic comment ><

Comment by: creaky (Oct 01, 2006 17:40)

pointless idiotic spam removed

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Comment by: rrmk37 (Oct 02, 2006 12:49)

I dont know whats all the panic is about.I just wait for a little longer to buy my stuff and it is cheaper and I can find more then enough to play on/with.There are way to many people that just cant seem to wait,before a decent price that they have to be first in line at midnight to buy theres.I have learned to wait and it always cost alot less and buy then more has come out to play,oh well I guess theres not many of us left that can do this anymore.