Spankey said:
makes sense. Sell the bundles that will sell-out at full price then drop it a month or so down the line...sounds good to me lol.
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Why would they do that? Having a price-drop in May or June would marginalize its impact and put the PS3 back into the red unecessarily early.
I've been saying for almost a month now that Sony's plan for the PS3 in 2009 is obvious and formidable. Anyone who has bothered to take a look at this weeks worldwide sales should know that, with the Christmas bargain rush over, 360 and PS3 worldwide weekly sales will now likely not exceed much more than 50k either way for most of the year. Anyone who also has followed 2007's weekly sales from January to September should also be able to confirm that at such a close range, price difference becomes far less of an advantage. The most important thing for either console that will drive sales in the next several months will be which console has the bigger new releases.
Essentially, Sony's plan is to have the PS3 tough it out against the 360 throughout most of the year without a price-drop, but with relatively noteworthy releases such as Killzone 2, Yakuza 3, inFAMOUS, and Demon's Souls along with highly attractive bundles such as Killzone 2, Yakuza 3, RE5 and FFVII:ACC. Needless to say, that lineup will more than compete well with Microsoft's lineup of Halo Wars, Star Ocean 4, Ninety-Nine Nights II, and Ninja Blade as well as their bundles with Star Ocean 4 and RE5.
Come March or April, PS3 will have reached profitablility thanks to the 45nm Cell revision and after that Sony will profit on every console sold until Q4. When Q4 finally comes, Sony will be in a controlling position. The PS3 will be extremely profitable and they'll quite easily be able to afford a $100 price drop in every region. Furthermore, Sony is also in the fortunate situation that they have the single biggest releases in every region currently scheduled to be released in Q4, those being God of War III in America, Gran Turismo 5 in Europe, and Final Fantasy XIII in Japan.
Microsoft doesn't have any games coming in 2009 that will sell anywhere near as many systems as the above three in their respective regions. For Q4, Microsoft will once again need to rely on a price-drop to stay competative during the Christmas season, however, it's extremely unlikely that they will be able to match the PS3 with a $100 price-drop of their own simply because they would have to permanantly put 360 sales in the red since they would probably be breaking the base manufacturing cost of the system. In all likelyhood, Microsoft will settle for a $50 drop on every 360 model, which will give them the advantage of still being half the cost of the PS3, however it will look weak to Christmas shoppers next the PS3's $100 price drop and won't expand the system's market even 1/3 as much.
