Possibility of PS3 price cut soon?

[Crimson Day]

A price cut is needed badly, my local gamestation has 4 pre owned ones sat in the window with 2 games a blu ray dvd and a hdmi cable fir ?399 they havnt moved for 2 weeks

[elkatas]

I don't think the situation is quite as bad as it seems for PS3, so long as they get a price cut in.

Unfortunately they can't really drop the price. PS3 made 2 billion dollars big hole* to Sony's pockets during last fiscal year, and company's current aim is to reduce loss by 85 percent by next fiscal year. This isn't going to happen if they do price drop.

And to be perfectly honest, 100 dollars isn't big enough drop. In fact, X360 sales numbers have proven that even 400 dollars is way too much to sell console to mass market. 250-300 dollars is the price point where sales start to truly ramp up.

* Practically nullifying Sony's game division's profit for last four years. I truly wonder what kind of apes run Sony's game division, as division has generated only 3.2 billion dollars worth of profit after their entry to console business. You have to truly incompetent if you can't generate higher profits with over 100 million console userbase.

[Jimmyzilla]

Why would they choose to make a standalone bluray player cheaper instead of the PS3?

Shouldn't they be more interested in shifting them? at least it would shift the losses around in the company if anything.

[MikeRox]

* Practically nullifying Sony's game division's profit for last four years. I truly wonder what kind of apes run Sony's game division, as division has generated only 3.2 billion dollars worth of profit after their entry to console business. You have to truly incompetent if you can't generate higher profits with over 100 million console userbase.

It's quite simply the movie division of Sony demanding that Blu ray was in there which is causing it. It may have for the short term at least ensured Blu Ray is the leading movie format, it's currently causing the PS3/Games division to take an utter pounding in their sector though which in turn then brings the viability of the movie format into question 12 months down the line.

Sony are either going to come out of all this stinking of roses, or not at all.

[charlesr]

@Jimmy: The only thing I can think of is that they are pinning all their hopes on bluray rather than gaming. Which doesn't really make much sense when you can download a film and watch it on a 360 (and PS3?), so the future of the discbased medium is pretty much in the balance. I would have thought the PS3 and download films would be the future for Sony.

[Ady]

Sony shot itself in the foot when it decided to force another one of its hare-brained media formats on the market through the PS3.

Without Blu-Ray, the PS3 would be more reasonably priced and have a higher user-base, which would undoubtedly attract developers. I'd certainly own one, too.

[Ajay1986]

Wait does anyone actually know how many PS3's have been sold in total so far in these few months and how this compares to how many 360's sold in the same amount of time after its launch.

I suspect it will be about the same or not to far behind so all this talk of user bases isnt that important is it becuase clearly the 360 had a year head start so at least give the PS3 a year before totally writing it off.

Well im not gonna say anything else cause we all know which way these threads end up turning.

[Swallow]

It is apparently outselling 360 in Europe,for what that's worth. Selling less than half the numbers of 360 in the US. Not that any of that means anything, as hardly anyone is buying a 360, either..

Don't know utd sales figures, think Sony are only releasing shipped to retailers numbers. I'm sure Elkatas or someone will know, though.

[MikeRox]

Estimates show the current figures as (from vgcharz)

Xbox 360 - 9.88m Worldwide
Wii - 7.81m Worldwide
PS3 - 3.34m Worldwide

Nexgenwars suggest similar:

Xbox 360 - 10.95m Worldwide
Wii - 7.46m Worldwide
PS3 - 3.22m Worldwide

Though I know for a fact the Wii figure is too low as the EU total hasn't been updated for weeks and the console has been selling quite a fair whack of late thanks to a bigger supply.

The sales of PS3 in Europe seem to vary from country to country, some it's selling far better than the 360, others its not selling as well. Either way, Europes sales are currently artificially high as the latest releases figures only go as far as April which was very close to launch period. It'll be interesting to see how consistent figures are now that the launch buzz has died down.

I think the main thing of concern to developers however, is how vastly inferior software sales are on the PS3 compared with the other consoles. Last week in the US 16th was the top PS3 showing, the Wii had 5 titles above (granted only 1 was 3rd party) and the 360 had 6 titles above it.

There were only 3 titles in the top 50 overall, compared to 11 Wii titles and 12 Xbox 360 titles.

Remembering that the Wii and PS3 have been to market roughly the same amount of time over there, this must be concerning to developers pumping alot of money into PS3 versions of games.

Hardware sales estimates for the week also pitted PS3 at 15,000 versus the Xbox 360 60,000 and the Wii's supply constrained 90,000. The PS3 is far from a bad console, so the only factor I can really think of for it's current performance really is price. Sony really are between a rock and a hard place at the moment.

[Ajay1986]

Hmmmm so taking the 360's year head start into account the PS3 isnt in all that bad a spot, clearly they could/should be doing better but its hardly ALL doom and gloom for them.

[Swallow]

I think the software sales is the salient point though. There should definitely be *something* troubling the chart. What are the attach rates (boring I know, but I'm interested)?

Lots must have been sold primarily as a BD player.

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Double post for some reason

[On The Edge of Insanity]

The software sales are low because there hasn't been a truly mass market game released recently. Once a big hitter like MGS, Gran Turismo, Pro Evo, etc is released then it will undoubtably sell well.

Average 360 and Wii games are selling better because of the bigger userbase for those consoles.

[Swallow]

I realise that, but a console with a 3 million + userbase should be making a bigger impression on the chart than the software (however average it may be is beside the point, especially with the lower retail prices) currently is.

[1P_King]

Sony should look to the release of ProEvo and GTA4 to try and create a buzz around the PS3.

Getting the message across louder than Microsoft that these two games are available on the PS3 might be the key to shifting huge numbers.