| HappySqurriel said: I personally think market conditions outside of Sony's control are going to lead to significant problems for the NGP ... The American dollar was worth (roughly) 110 to 120 yen when the PSP launched and is now worth (roughly) 80 yen today; and the decline has mostly happened in the past 2 years. It is entirely possible (and some would say likely) that the NGP will launch in North America to a dollar that is only worth 60 to 70 yen. While it is not quite as dramatic, the Euro has fallen from 150 yen to 110 to 120 yen today; and it is also likely that the Euro will fall further. In this economic climate you would have to design something that was very inexpensive in Japaneese terms to fall in line with the normal price range people are used to paying in North America and Europe; and I doubt that anyone would argue that the NGP seems to be designed to be a low cost system. I could be wrong but I suspect the NGP will be the most expensive gaming system on the market, probably by a wide margin; and I wouldn't be surprised to see the NGP in a similar price range to many Tablet PCs; and I don't see how a system like that could be competitive with the 3DS. |
The NGP was designed with cost in mind. Kaz Hirai said so himself.
Building something almost as powerful as the PS3 can be done with alot less money today. Especially if you aren't using the same proprietary pieces. As the screen is much smaller and it's likely to have less onboard flash storage then the ipad2 and it's specs seem similar to iPad 2 I can't see it costing more to build than that and likely less. When I google I see estimates from $270-337 putting it right in the price range I stated.
