Sony CEO Confirms Limited $499 PS3 Stock

If you were confused about yesterday's stock announcement, you wouldn't be the only one. Thankfully Kaz Harai, SCEI CEO, has clarified the situation: the $499 60GB PlayStation 3 is a limited offering. They'll only be selling it here in the states until their current stock of the system is cleared out, at which point the only SKU remaining in the states will be the $599 80GB + Motorstorm bundle. The catch is that there is probably enough stock in hand for several months of sales at this price; hence the confusion yesterday about a 'fire sale'. Hirai confirmed this to a Norwegian videogame news site, and the video of the interview is available online. For some perspective, Next Generation has a commentary piece on this strange matter. "Now Sony looks as though it's been spinning consumers. The smart thing to have done would have been to come out and say that the 60Gig version is being discounted and discontinued, and that the bells-n-whistles PS3 at $599 is better value than ever. That didn't happen, and what many have seen as a pretty successful E3 for Sony has been marred by confusion over the future of the platform's strategy. So in those meetings next week, Sony will have cause to look back and consider how things might have been done better."

Re:Stop Saying 'SKU'

[Anonymous Coward]

This message is encoded ROT0. Decoding is punishable by death under the DMCA.

Stop using ROT0 and DMCA in post sigs. ROT0 has no meaning in terms of sigs, and DMCA has no significance outside the US.

Sony's marketing plan:

[Hawthorne01]

1. Load gun.
2. Aim at foot.
3. Shoot.
4. Repeat as often as possible.

(Yes, I know, "Step 5: Profit!" should go there, but seriously, have you looked at their quarterly reports recently?)