PS3 600 dollars? Sony is on crack

[Grog]

But $600 bucks for something that does NOTHING ELSE but play games, plus 80 bucks a pop for the games themselves is simply out of my games budget.

$80 PS3 games is nothing more than a wild, unsourced rumor. Please don't talk about it like it's confirmed fact.

 

[John Crichton]

$80 PS3 games is nothing more than a wild, unsourced rumor. Please don't talk about it like it's confirmed fact.

Good point. If they are more than $65-70, that would be a mistake. Unless it's a SE. I don't think Sony is that dumb. I'm expecting 360 prices.

 

[Vigilance]

$80 PS3 games is nothing more than a wild, unsourced rumor. Please don't talk about it like it's confirmed fact.

Well as a subscriber to PSM magazine, there's articles in there with industry insiders saying they thing $80 dollars is likely, and Sony executives responding by saying "well they won't cost 100 bucks".

I stand by my statement. If I am wrong I will be PLEASANTLY surprised, but I will be surprised.

Chuck

 

[John Crichton]

Well as a subscriber to PSM magazine, there's articles in there with industry insiders saying they thing $80 dollars is likely, and Sony executives responding by saying "well they won't cost 100 bucks".

I stand by my statement. If I am wrong I will be PLEASANTLY surprised, but I will be surprised.

It's okay to stand by a statement based on pure rumor but look at it logically: why would the games be that much? The BR movies aren't costing an extra $20 compared to DVDs. Actually, the prices are pretty close to DVD prices (under $25-30). Plus, the buy-in rate from consumers goes WAY down at the prices for individual products go up. There is no way people will stand for a $80 version of Madden vs the 360's $60 version. It just doesn't make any sense. Sony would be killing themselves.

To assume these rumors are correct is making a huge leap and expecting the pure worst. PSM rumors are one thing and Sony staying mum is another. It certainly doesn't equal games that won't sell at that price. I certainly won't be buying $80 games. The price premium is ALWAYS on hardware, not what you stick in the machine.

 

[Vigilance]

Well the Electronic Arts executive who said he thought $80 dollars wasnt unreasonable was saying they DID cost more to make for the PS3.

I know everyone would like to just assume Im pulling this stuff out of my ***.

Feel free.

When I read an EA exec say "80 bucks" and a Sony executive respond "well they won't be 100 bucks I can tell you that", that doesnt seem to me that they're that far off.

Im going by what SONY IS SAYING.

Sorry if you guys dont like it.

 

[Vigilance]

This is Sony:

I don't think consumers expect software pricing to suddenly double," he continued. "So, the quick answer is that we want to make it as affordable as possible, knowing that there is a set consumer expectation for what software has cost for the past twelve years. That's kind of the best answer I can give you. So, if it becomes a bit higher than $59, don't ding me, but, again, I don't expect it to be $100."

http://news.spong.com/article/10311?cb=627

 

[Vigilance]

"At its autumn games preview on July 13, for instance, traditional Sony ally Electronic Arts spent far more time showing off innovative Nintendo games than it did titles for the PS3," emphasized BusinessWeek. "EA announced six Nintendo Wii launch titles and showed long working demos for two of those. But it offered only a short clip of a car-racing game for PS3. EA says it's still testing the potential of the PS3."

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=13291

 

[John Crichton]

So according to your quote (and proof), a bit over $60 is $80? I read that as maybe some games being $65, possibly $70 with SE's. A bit, to me, doesn't mean 30% more than what the market is currently. A bit is 10%, or less which may mean the games could be $5 more. Not $20.

And for the record, I never said you were pulling these rumors out of your hind parts. I said that you are basing opinion off rumors and nothing more. Which basically accounts to nothing solid and all is speculation at this point. As usual, the "something" is trumping the resounding nothing we are hearing about the pricing of PS3 games.

 

[John Crichton]

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=13291

Old news. Doesn't mean diddly. We all know the good stuff won't hit until at least 8 months after the PS3 launches.

This is only news if EA won't be supporting the PS3 at all.

 

[takyris]

Chuck: Clarification on your quote of me?

John: I don't discount the Blu-Ray stuff, but I'm cautious. Maybe I've only just heard the bad press that suggests that they still haven't gotten it working. If it comes out and it's beautiful and it works, then that will definitely drive some people to the PS3.

One easy explanation for the difference in pricing would be that EA and other companies are working with Sony's stuff and taking a good hard look at the price-to-improvement ratio. It might be (and I have NO INFORMATION on this, this is all me making this stuff up) that:

EA can take a racing game for the 360, port it over to the PS3 without really taking advantage of the PS3's strong points, and have a decent-but-not-exceptional port... and make a profit by selling the game at $60.

OR

EA can take a racing game for the 360, port it over to the PS3 with a bunch of code-rewriting to take advantage of the PS3's strong points, and have a port that shows off everything the PS3 can do that the 360 can't... but it's only profitable if they sell it for $80.

If I were EA, and I had data along those lines, I'd be looking really hard at that data, and then at my focus testing, and then back at the data some more. How much better does it look, and how much more are people willing to pay? Do we go all-out on a couple of games to show how awesome the PS3 can be, sell that game at a loss to bring more people into the PS3 fold, and then do simple cheap ports on a bunch of other games to make a big profit in the long run? Do we do almost all our games as full-advantage ports and sell them all at high prices while blitzing the airwaves with a "Clearly Better" quality ad campaign that, yeah, will have some backlash, but will also hit home the fact that, more expensive or not, PS3 stuff DOES look better? What makes us the most money in the long run?

When they say that they're exploring possibilities, that's likely some of what they mean, along with a bunch of other money matters that are way over my head. There are a lot of people who are going to decide how much these games cost.