Sony Looks to 'Refine' PS3 Price

Via GameDaily a Financial Times interview with with Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's CEO, gives fans the first hope that price cuts may be coming soon. Lauding the Wii's performance in last month's NPD numbers, Stringer says that Sony is looking to 'refine' the PS3's pricepoint. "'Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise, and a very good business model, compared with ours . . . because it's cheaper,' Mr Stringer said in a video interview. 'That [price cuts] is what we are studying at the moment. That's what we are trying to refine.' Sir Howard said he expected 'energy [in PS3 sales] by Christmas, and then you will begin to see break-out games'. Sony is launching a virtual-world game called Home this year, and up to 30 other games."

oh oh

[Gorkamecha]

When ever a company adds "refined" to a product it tends to get more expensive not less.... Playstation 3, it's for more refined tastes...not like some cheap Wii. Hey this sort of thing works for bottled water companies! What could possibly go wrong?

What was their first hint?

[realinvalidname]

Maybe the fact that a PS3 with one game costs as much as a 360 and a Wii combined?

Re:Games

[EveryNickIsTaken]

So unless they release at least 1 big gun soon (MGS4 or FF13) then there's no incentive for me to buy.

I think the major point is that they need to release AAA exclusives. If they lose exclusivity on either (or both) MGS/FF, then there is little reason, if any, for people to buy a PS3 over a 360. Given Sony's woes as of late, how long will the company allow their playstation division to hemorrhage money? It's not like they've got a blank check like the MS gaming division.

Hope...

[MeanderingMind]

I sincerely hope Sony doesn't believe Nintendo is beating them simply because of price.

I sincerely believe they aren't that silly, but these days you never can tell.

Re:When will they learn...

[Floritard]

I'll tell you right now, the price is stopping me. And that is all that is stopping me. I had a Wii for a few months. I bought it on an impulse (right place right time), partly because I was intrigued by the new control scheme, but mostly because it's waaay cheaper than the other "next-gen" systems. I have since given it away to a friend of mine because I promised to buy her one at some point, but also because there are no games out for it that I really want (yet). While I did get bored of it already, the lack of games wasn't something that stopped me from buying it in the first place. And the Wii is so cheap that I'll easily pick one up again when they become more available. Not so with that wallet monster PS3. I can build most of a new PC off newegg for the price of that little bastard. Games or no games, it gives me pause dropping $600+ on a fucking console, they're supposed to be the cheap alternative to PC gaming. As it stands now I really don't know what to do, there are games coming out that I am looking forward to but luckily they aren't here yet. I'm on the fence here, I'll definitely get another Wii, but I will also want either a 360 or a PS3 for those truly next-gen games. Despite Sony's incompetance of late, I really dislike Microsoft's history of foul play and would prefer to stop buying into their products, especially after this power-grab Vista/DX10 business. I'm not especially excited about giving Microsoft so much control over the gaming world. But that PS3 is so damn expensive that I'm worried if I buy it I'll be stuck with a failed system. An expensive failed system. This whole gen is off to a bad start if you ask me. Too much risk. I'm waiting, and the industry isn't getting my gaming dollar.

Re:Blu-ray is the problem.

[SparkyFlooner]

I have the 360 add-on HD-DVD player, and I find myself ignoring HD-DVD titles and just renting regular DVDs. (and yes, I have an hdtv) Regular DVDs still look good, you know? Even 200 bucks on an HD player seems like too much for what you get. I would've been content watching regular DVDs until the price of an HD player came down to 100 or less.

Re:It's still a good buy as just a blue ray player

[seebs]

You're sort of begging the question, there. You're assuming that a blu-ray player is worth buying at "full price", and looking at this as a discount.

If I open a store called "McDucks" that sells bad hamburgers for $500, and then McDonalds starts selling them for $90, does the fact that they're more than 80% cheaper make them a good deal? No.

Blu-ray isn't worth the money, so getting it for only way too much instead of WTF are you thinking too much is not a big deal.

Re:Very good business model....

[RamblinLonghorn]

"Well, it isn't difficult to sell an old useless console with profit, because that's what the wii is, old technology, the control is not even that great or special, for god sake, you can't even play a dvd on the bugger even though it has a dvdplayer inside..."

It's the same reason a Honda Accord outsells a Porsche 911. It's good, proven technology, that, while not the most powerful or cutting edge, fits the budget of the largest segment of the car buying populace. The PS3 is awesome technology, I think very few people will argue that point. The Wii is using older technologies in new ways, and it's got alot of people intrigued. And as far as a DVD goes, it will more than likely be added in a future software update, and who doesn't have 2 or 3 different ways to play a DVD.

Re:Games

[amuro98]

The PS3 needs exclusive games that are "good" or better. Darkness isn't exclusive, nor is Assassins Creed.

I don't know why people keep mentioning Singstar. Do you honestly think a karaoke/DDR game is going to convince anyone to buy a PS3? Even fans of those games aren't going to spend $600 (or even $500) just to get a single game.

Warhawk is very confusing, as it was first a Blu-ray game, then was a online only deathmatch type game that you would download, for free even. Now it's supposedly both a BR AND download game?

Furthermore, even if Sony did manage to lower the price this year (unlikely) and quadruple its sales, according to the latest data, that would put the PS3's sales at about 350k in the US. This is lot better, and may even beat monthly 360 sales for once. Unfortunately, the 360 still has its 12 months head start, plus months of outselling the PS3. Also, any move that Sony makes will simply be matched by Microsoft who unlike Sony, is actually making a small profit off their hardware at the current time. On top of all this, the Wii is expected to continue its strong sales into 2008, meaning it will still be ahead of the PS3, and ever gaining on the 360.

Finally, consider this, the 360 has Halo3 coming this fall, and that alone is expected to be a major incentive to buyers. The PS3 has nothing nearly as compelling on its schedule at this time. Yes, I know Lair! Heavenly Sword! But remember - those games aren't out yet. Many folks feel they got burned by the PS3's launch lineup which only managed to turn out 1 OK/good exclusive game. Even Genji, which was expected to be a major inticement for gamers, turned out to be fairly mediocre and worse still, buggy. I sincerely hope that Lair, Heavenly Sword and others live up to their hype, but past experience tells me that this is rarely the case. I'm sure they'll be good games, but not the WOW-GREAT! titles that the PS3 needs right now.

Re:Blu-ray is the problem.

[DarkJC]

You're applying American prices to UK prices.

In the UK, it costs £381.96 on Amazon for a 360 Premium + HD-DVD player...381.96 GBP = 755.107 USD
It costs £399.99 for a PS3...399.99 GBP = 790.754 USD

Hardly $100. The 360 is slightly discounted on Amazon at the moment as well, otherwise they'd turn out to be the same. And that's with a 360 that lacks an HDMI port..if you wanted one it'd end up costing you more than the PS3.

Re:Captain' Obvious

[stratjakt]

AH NEO GEO now you're talking.

Actually, Neo Geo was originally designed as a rental machine, the idea was you'd go to EB and rent one for your birthday party, so you could play real arcade games at home. Hence, the high prices. They put the cartridges on a different physical format so arcade operators couldnt use them, otherwise the hardware and games are identical.

Anyways, once they started showing up, people wanted to buy them - so EB started selling them. The prices never dropped, once again, they were being sold to EB for the purposes of rental. Eventually SNK realized what was going on, and tried to market to the rest of the home crowd with the Neo Geo CD. The load times killed the "true arcade" feel, and the appeal really was to arcade gamers, since there were only weak attempts at making home console titles for it.

So, you can't compare PS3 - if you look at it in perspective, the Neo Geo AES was a completely unexpected success.

The story of SNKs decline and demise is long and sordid, but sadly had little to do with tech or their products. You can read about the Barones on the googleweb.

Re:Captain' Obvious

[Khisanth Magus]

The only thing that leads me to believe nintendo may of misjudged their market is that they were completely unprepared for the demand and simply didn't have the production capabilities to keep up with it.

Re:Captain' Obvious

[KDR_11k]

EA is actually trying new gameplay ideas, as unbelievable as it sounds. From what I heard the port of the Godfather game to the Wii made good use of the Wiimote, same for Madden Wii. I know many regular and hardcore gamers ignore EA because of the large number of rehashes but strangely EA seems to have adapted seamlessly to the different requirements of the Wii platform. I guess they can innovate if they want, they just didn't want to until now.