Am I the only one who thinks $400 is still expensive?

[darconi]

ChichiriMuyo said:

sieanr said:

ChichiriMuyo said:

sieanr said:

Really, $400 is still fucking expensive.; its more than the PS2 launched at

Actually, it's not really much more, if at all more, than what the PS2 launched at when you consider the fact that we've had a lot of inflation in the last 7 years and the economy is taking a tumble. Really, in terms of cost of living, the PS3 40GB as a luxury item is no more of a financial strain than the PS2 was at launch. Of course, you probably didn't have to worry about your cost of living then and may not even now, so you may not know squat about that.

And as far as the market is concerned, a $400 PS3 is more valuable than a $350 360. When the difference was $400 to $500 (and still 600 euros...) PS3 was actually selling more. While this is another gimp model, it's still very likely to put the PS3 well above the 360 and even more so if the 80GB comes down to $500.

Inflation calculator; What cost $300 in 2000 would cost $351.26 in 2006 - http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

But given your post, I'd say you dont know jack about cost of living. In fact, you even say that the economy is worse off than it was in 2000, meaning that a luxary item like the PS3 is even more of a finacial strain than the PS2 at launch. Thats some great logic....

I may have worded it poorly, but you've missed what I meant. In terms of the cost of living, everything else has jumped up more rapidly in comparison. So yes, a PS3 is a more severe financial strain than a PS2, but it's not by a whole lot and it's a whole lot less of a jump than everything else you would want to go out and buy.

 That makes no sense, by definition, inflation is the measure of the cost of living.  So if inflation has gone up only a moderate percent, then the cost of living has only gone up a moderate percent.  You can't go and say everything else has jumped up more rapidly when the actual index that measures the jump indicates it hasn't.  In fact, if anything, its even worse because for the last couple of years, average wages in the US has actually tracked below inflation so real wages has actually decreased making the inflation adjusted price more of a financial strain than before.

By the numbers above, even at the reduced $400 price, that means its still almost 2x the rate of inflation which is very significant.  A lot of people really are losing perspective on videogame consoles because they've gotten used to the idea of $400 and $600 consoles.  The only consoles that have been priced this high have been ones that failed miserably.  They are not the mass market price and won't be for a long time until inflation finally catches up in another 10 years or so.   The wii hit it right with the pricepoint.  If you desperately want bleeding edge technology, thats what the computer market is for.