| Million said: @Happy keeping in mind the PS3 is still the most expensive current gen console a price reduction would have less effect on the perceived value or popularit of the PS3 than it would the 360 or the Wii( ok maybe not the Wii but definetley the 360). And last time I checked consumers don't monitor hardware price changes too closely they just respond to price changes when they occur. |
I don't think that the actual price of a product relates much to how people perceive the popularity of a product nearly as much as the frequency and size of the price reductions. On top of that, I wasn't expecting people to see the next price reduction as an indication that the PS3 is (super) unpopular but was talking more about the strategy that some people think Sony will follow of dropping the price of the PS3 to $300 this year, $200 next year, and so on.
The insane popularity of the Wii, combined with the PS3's underperforming compared to the PS2, will always give the PS3 a stigma of being unpopular in the general public; and people may not pay too much attention to the actual price of something on a day to day basis, but there is enough general-interest news coverage of electroics devices that they do become aware of fairly major price reductions. If you have two Holiday seasons in a row where the PS3 gets a price reduction people will expect a price reduction in the third holiday season, this will influence people's buying habits months in advance, and if a price reduction doesn't happen (or isn't as large as these people were expecting) the people who delayed their purchase may not buy a PS3 at all.
Ths last thing is that the gamers who are most likely to spend $200 or more on a gaming system are also far more likely to pay enough attention to gaming news to be aware if a console has seen multiple price reductions in a (relatively) short period of time.
