News Analysts urge Sony to drop PS3 price

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Sony is being urged to give the PlayStation 3 a price cut in the lead-up to Christmas, or face fierce competition.

 

Why?

It's hardly the worlds most expensive thing ever. Hell, I picked an 80gb model and a game up for £312. That's less than my graphics cards alone, and these days, it's barely more expensive than a low-end PC.

It's not exactly Sonys fault that Microsoft are engaged in trying to out-price the Wii. As for facing fierce competition, I was under the impression they already were?

 

£170 for a 60gb PRO, or £230 for a 120gb ELITE.... with all the same third party titles and more exclusive games... its hard to see a reason not to choose the 360 over the ps3

 

With GOW2 and Banjo Kazooie (^.^) for the 360 only, you cant help but love the 360 right now.

 

I still haven't seen anything on the PS3 that isn't on the 360 that would justify me getting a PS3 (for anytrhing other than a BR player).

 

What about slightly improved draw distances, an extra 30fps in some games, and free online!

Oh.. Wait. They're not that important.. Bugger, back to the drawing board!

 

What games give you improved draw distances and an extra 30fps in some games on the PS3 over the 360? As far as I understand the 360 has a slightly better graphics card and is said to be an easier platform to program on so I would be surprised if this is true! Case in point, Half life 2 on the 360 vs PS3

As a recent PS3 to 360 convert I have to agree that to stay in the battle sony has to drop their RRP price, I picked up a 360 60Gb in the currently ongoing) sale at sainsburys in the UK where I got it for £139, I had sold my PS3 for over £200! (whoohoo profit!). Now also got a HD-DVD player for £20 and can get all the cheapo HD-DVD's from ebay/HMV ect for £2-3 each! Bargain

 

You got ripped off! I paid £300 with 1 game.

Tbh, these analysts are probably just trying to justify their jobs. There's not much real need for them IMHO.

 

There are a lot of reasons not to choose the 360. Mine are mainly the RROD and the noise. But I also don't like to pay for things that are free on the PS3 (online play, wifi, blu-ray). As for exclusive games, most of them are also on PC, contrary to exclusive PS3 games.

 

I'll start by saying I'm completely biased towards the PS3, having just bought one... BUT this was after carefull consideration of longterm costs, and cost of ownership...

The PS3 more expensive when you buy it intially, however in that £299 price tag you get WiFi built in (£50 ish extra on 360) Recharable pads (extra £12 on 360) Free unrestricted online (£35 pounds yearly on the 360) non-monitery advantage a plenty. e.g less noise, even after all the 'improved' hardware revisons i have a mate who almost quaterly had to send back a 360 cos it died... So an elite might be 229 but it would cost an extra 97 pounds to bring it up to the same out of the box spec as a PS3, taking it up to £326. Thats not even taking into account the on going extra cost of the live subscription... so in the long term a 360 will cost you significantly extra.

Even if you include a 120gb hdd upgrade to the PS3 (£35) and an HDMI cable (£6) the difference is still the cost a game. (just realised that the PS3 and Elite cos the same once you get to this point in my argument)

Also I've been hard pushed to find any major difference in the terms of image quality on maultiplatform release's after comparing using the same monitor and cable on a borrowed 360 and a PS3...

Although after all of that the analysts have a point the consumer is only going to see the price on teh shelf and not sit down and look at it how I did... but then I am a complete geek....

 

Well, I was taking the piss out of the Ps3 fanboys to be quite honest. The number of times I've seen the argument for which console to get boiling down to those three totally retarded points is unreal. Theoretically the 360 is capped at 30fps, where as the PS3 is capped at 60. It's all academic, because frankly, no one is going to notice that on a console, but again, taking the piss

As much as I don't believe it, a friend rabbits on about GTA IV having better draw distances on the PS3 (I cba buying another copy of GTA IV to test it for myself, and he's a bit far away at the moment for me to go borrowing his copy to test ) than the 360. I expect, if he is right, that they will be so small as to be totally indistinguishable when playing the game rather than looking down the road.

Oh, I know the average consumer is going to do the simple math and go with the 360, no doubt and no argument there. My point is that only a select few are going to buy the console anyway - There's nothing on the console that makes it truely remarkable to 90% of the consumer market. A lower price is unlikely to bring in new customers, because there's still insuficient exclusive content. The only price drop making people buy it over a 360 is to bring it down to either match or be cheaper than the same model (Same in terms of the average user who doesn't give a toss about blu-ray/hd-dvd) 360. That isn't going to happen, I can assure you of that, so lowering the price a little bit is entirely academic and will probably do nothing much to help sales. Best way to improve sales would be for Sony to revert to 'buying' exclusivity again, but then they would probably lose just as much as having an averagely selling console.

Eh, I had a few other things on there, a pack of those 'real trigger' things for example (Which are a definite improvement IMO), also, shopping at Game, probably did

 

Sainsburys are currently selling the 360 Arcade for £99.97 and the 60gb Pro for £139.97 till the 12th of October as an in-store only offer.

 

I had a 360. It played games well enough but the console itself just looked crap. It felt cheap, with the especially noisy drive that reverberated whenever you played a game. The limiting hard drive that was criminally expensive for what you got. I bought a 320GB for my PS3 for far less than it cost for 20GB for the 360. I've d/l just about everything from PSN (and some from the Japan server, too) and it's not even half full.

Prices are based on perceived value. If it's too low, you devalue your product and people lose interest in it. However, there seems to be a bar/level for consoles where they become an impulse purchase, it seems to be the 'a little over a hundred pound' mark.

 

The PS3 crazy expensive at £300... This very news item is about the US price of $400 being too much in the run up to Christmas, not the UK's £300 price! We are getting royally shafted.
If anyone paid £300 for their PS3 recently.... I have this problem trying to get money out of Nigeria, send me a mail, I need your help.

The fact is the PS3 should have been dropped to £250 in the UK months ago. That's JUST to fall in line with what other countries are charged. Then you guys can actually argue whether it needs to come down more than £250. Really this news is whether it should now be £200. That's where it's competitive with the 360. The additional cost £140 -> £200 is justified because of it's value as a Blu-Ray player.

 

Oh come on, the PS3 will never cost less than the 360 and now its under £300 why is it still classed as too expensive. My Xbox 360 cost more than that when I bought it Xmas 2006 and the 360 didnt have a problem shifting thousands with that price tag.

The Price has nothing to do with it. Sony just need to market the dam thing and get more great games on it like, LBP, MGS4, R&C, MS 2, UC etc etc.

The price is very good for what the PS3 has to offer hardware wise.

 

Yup, those trigger things should be free anyway! Sony should improve their designs tbh.

 

The difference we get shafted by compared to the rest of the world is (or was) down to our economy being stronger (Seems like a useless point at the moment, with the way things are going). It's unlikely that we will ever get close to American, for example, pricing schemes for consoles/hardware unless the UK is officially made a US State and we adopt the dollar.

I doubt that the PS3 will see a £200 price tag within the next 12 months, I expect I will be wrong having said that, but eh. I just don't see it happening.

MS2? Microsoft 2? UC? Umbrella Corporation? Not joking, seriously nfi which games you're talking about :B

I think the 'problem' with the price is when its competition can cost half, or in some sales, a third of it. I doubt it's going to get much cheaper, now, until the end of life starts creeping up over the hill.

 

I had a 360 and traded to a PS3. Both have a number of first party exclusives but a lot of overlap on third party. The fact that a lot of first party games (Mass Effect) appear on the PC eventually and the noise of the 360 finally made me change.

I had the hd-dvd drive add on and the noise of the machine just does not lend itself to be a multi media machine. The PS3 I never hear it, is excellent for blu-ray as well as playing divx's etc

The games Im playing or going to play (COD4, COD World at War, Rock Band, GTA4, Fallout 3) are on both.

The fact you dont pay to play online is major. When I had a 360 I could never justify the £35 subscription for the number of times I play online instead relying on 48hr codes you sometimes got with a game. Now on the PS3 I probably play online a lot more when I feel like it not because I feel I have to to get value for money from a subscription.

Lastly my 320gb replacement drive turned up today so guess what I am doing tonight. This cost me £45 I paid £70 for my xbox 20gb drive.

I also find the PS3 menu and playstation store to look nicer than the xbox arcade. In my opinion these just have that end user consumer sheen you expect from sony products making the PS3 seem less like a toy.

Make a silent 360 designed to be more aesthetic in the living room and I would possibly buy again (depending on killer 360 only games (its not Gears as I am probably one of the few who just didnt get on with the first one - same goes for resistance on ps3)

 

Yet.. the 360 has always fallen roughly in line with exchange rate + vat... so has the Wii, the ipod, phones, cameras. Some times things have a 10% price hike to cover import charges but the PS3 price hike far exceeds that. Certain consumer electronics can be cheaper here. Also until recently we were also shafted with a smaller hard drive and less backward compatibility.
There's no excuse for this.