PS3's price is plain wrong! Wrong!

[Reasonable]

Comrade Tovya said:

Reasonable said:
If I buy a comparable 360, plus wireless for 360, plus a cheaper BR player I will actually spend as much or probably more than the cost of a PS3 - particularly after two years as I will also have added 2 years of live to the cost where PSN is free.

So the PS3 is good for the price, provided you want an HD console and a BR player and online play.

This has always been Sony's issue since launch. The bigger market out their wants an HD game consoles at a lower price, and don't care about BR, and 360 is selling to those people and if Sony wants to reverse that trend its either going to have to hope the market buys into BR and compares the two consoles inclusive of BR as a cost (which I think is pretty unlikely right now), let 360 pick up market share, or eat margin and cut the price below the true value of the system.



Sony's dilemma is do they lower price to where it is ridiculous for the actual contents of PS3 (including BR player) but will sell much better to those potential purchasers who aren't going to go for the current price and don't care about BR, or do they try and hold fast for as long as possible at the current price?

 

Oh I agree, and have stated this before myself.

People look at base pricing versus the overall package though.

People look at the price and say, wow, the XBOX 360 starts at $199.00 and the PS3 starts at $399.00.  And that's where their reasoning ends.  People want to be able to dip their feet into a product at the lowest starting point possible, and they seldom look down the road to see how much the hidden costs will be later.

 

Totally agree.  I was in HMV recently in London and it really struck me that if I looked at 360/PS3 game shelves they looked almost identical now (Fallout 3, Dead Space, COD WaW, etc.) and unless you were really thinking about WiFi, BR, etc. the 360 looked way cheaper.

A friend of mine recently bought his son a 360 and was most unhappy to discover he immediately had to shell out for WiFi and Live.  When all was said and done he realised he should have got a PS3 as he wants BR too and didn't realise it wasn't included with 360 (he's a typical dad non-gamer, as opposed to me).

360 will pick up a lot of sales due to recession right now, but I suspect many will end up spending as much or more as they would if they'd gone PS3 but Sony really aren't pushing the difference via marketing, etc. IMHO.