| HappySqurriel said: Something that everyone seems to have overlooked (including myself until a few moments ago) is that the second SKU is possibly a very bad omen for those who want the PSP2 to be really affordable. While I might be overlooking a minor console release, from my knowledge there have only been two systems every released with multiple SKUs; and the reason for the low cost SKUs seemed to be to limit the damage from releasing unprecedentedly expensive systems. The two systems I am referring to are obviously the Xbox 360 and the PS3. While I think everyone is fully aware of the fallout from the PS3’s $600 price tag, the Xbox 360’s $400 price initially had it being criticized for being remarkably expensive. While I’m sure some people would disagree with me, I have suspected since it stopped production that the $500 PS3’s life was so short because Sony was losing far more money on that version and it (only) really existed because Sony wanted to market that the PS3 was only $100 more than the Xbox 360. Now, I could be wrong but I doubt Sony would be releasing a low end system if they could release their fully featured PSP for $50 or $100 more than the 3DS; so I would expect that the 3G-PSP2 will cost $400 to $450, with the WiFi-PSP2 being at $300 to $350. |
The other way to look at it is that they can use it to jack up the average sale price on a marginally profitable product. If say for instance they lost money or barely broke even on the Wifi only model @ whatever price they can still sell the 3G model for a significant premium. That way they can sell to people who absolutely will not pay more money for the product whilst extracting more money from those who are willing. Also in the launch period the cheaper model will have much lower availability so therefore forcing early adopters in the expensive (for Sony) launch phase to buy the more expensive model. This is the reason why Apple charges $100 more for 3G. It is all about making more money on average whilst selling as many units as possible.
Tease.
