I think up to a $75 dollar price cut could occur without offending BDA partners but I do not think it is that easy fo Sony to afford that much of a cut.
Lets just think about the cost of a PS3 relative to a comparable stand alone player. A reasonable unit for comparison is the Sony BDP-S350 because it matches up feature and perormance wise reasonably well, though it is not as good as the PS3 in several categories it is close. The cheapest I have seen this player is $250, though there have been short duration deals here and there for cheaper I think that is a reasonable low price for it. I pick this one in particular because I have been personally debating between it and a PS3 recently and am leaning toward it. Now lets enumerate the additional costs a PS3 has over the BDP-S350:
- wifi ($20)
- hard disk ($40)
- more RAM ($30)
- higher end processor ($25)
- higher end video ($25)
- bluetooth ($15)
- additional USB ports ($5)
- controller expense vs IR remote ($15)
- more complex mother board due to additional feature integration ($25)
I made some guesses at costs for these component differences, I am open to corrections on these especially with linked evidence. The total additional cost comes out to $200, so even if I am off and my estimates are double accross the board they are still losing money on the $399 price point when packaging and distribution is included. And this I think is being generious by not including indirect costs such as advertising, marketing, PSN, Home.
Lets say for argument sake that my estimates were all way to high and that they currently break even on the $399 PS3. I think for the stand alone player to lose significant sales to BD Player buyers (not people looking specifically for a game console) it would need to be at most $75 more expensive. But agian lets be generous and say a $75 price cut is what would "offend" partners. To cover that $75 loss they would need to sell 4 or so full priced new games.
A ton of guessing and estimating, but I think the reality is the PS3 cost enough more then stand alone players to produce to keep the difference in prices acceptable to partners as long as they do not take on huge losses.
