Sony announced price cuts for the PS3 last week. Apparently this has doubled sales in the USA. The price cut is worth 100 USD, but that doesn’t mean the PS3 is priced at 399/499 USD – no, it’s still 499/599 USD, only the cheaper model’s hard drive capacity is upgraded considerably, from 20 GB to 60 GB. Being a consumer contemplating the purchase of a PS3 in the future, “more capacity” just does not equal a saved 100 USD.
499 USD (we didn’t even get the 20 GB model in Europe) is still 660 € (euro). As an European I find this unacceptable, because at today’s exchange rates that equals 890 USD, almost two US-priced basic models!
If the issue is that the consumers feel that 499 USD is too much to pay for a console, I wouldn’t expect them to change their opinion just because you’re throwing in a little more, especially considering that most people never need that capacity anyway. I expect people who’ve been waiting for a reason to allow themselves to cave in and buy one to do so, but I’m surprised if the masses take this as the “price cut” Sony is touting and they’ve been waiting for.
For me, I feel the threshold is around 500 €, and that’s supposing there’s a heavyweight software library available, which they just don’t have yet. I’m guessing I’ll be taking a proper look at a PS3 earliest next year.
Leave a Reply