PS3's price is plain wrong! Wrong!

[Comrade Tovya]

Reasonable said:

Comrade Tovya said:

 

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.

 

 

Definitely.  I have long said that the PS3 is the best value packaged console because it's all inclusive once you buy the console.

I think the other aspect that often gets overlooked is XBOX LIVE.  It's wildly popular, plus it's in its second generation being alive, and therefore a lot of people like the fact they could carry their friends over to the new console.

I think Sony's success this generation is dependent upon two things..

A) Getting the price to around $299.00 entry level (hoping that MS wouldn't drop the console again to offset this)

B) revamping the PSN.  It's free, but it's just not as good as LIVE yet.  I know Sony has been trying really hard to make it better, but they've waited so long to do so, that it's given MS a huge generational lead.