DOWN PERISCOPE: Sony to drop PS3 to 299$

[Sri Lumpa]

rukusa said:

Straight from exgen wordpress:

"Financially, the price cut makes sense, consoles have historically been sold at a loss until the tail end of their lifetime. The only consoles not sold at a loss are the Sega Saturn(sold at the price to manufacture) and the Nintendo Wii(sold at a $100 profit for Nintendo). Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony make most of its money off of game licensing, not the actual console. For every game released, they developer must pay $10,000 worth of licensing fees to Sony(its traditionally been $20,000 for all 3 companies, but this was another cut Sony made to encourage developers recently). They also make a bulk of their profit from peripherals, like memory cards and controllers.

Still, I personally think it may be a bit too early for another price cut."

 The fact that they are using the "all consoles are sold at a loss at first" myth (a few did, it is only since last gen that it is common as we only have 3 contenders, 2 of which used the strategy) combined with the "$100 profit on the Wii" which is getting there but I doubt is there yet (Wii has much more hardware than GC in a smaller form factor, just look at the price difference of similarly specced laptops as opposed to non-size optimized desktops) and add in a complete lack of understanding of how licensing fees work and their credibility is very low.

That doesn't mean it won't happen but I would like to see some more credible sources for the rumor. 

Also, if it does happen it will be a good thing as I might only have to wait 8 months before being able to buy a gimped PS3 at $100 (well, £100 as I am in the UK) if they keep dropping the price $100 every 4-5 months.

More seriously, it would help PS3 sales (unless the buying public sees the move as an act of desperation) and thus would hurt 360 sales until it got a price drop of its own but the Wii is unlikely to get one as it would be less affected (the Wii market is either totally uninterested by the PS3 (casuals) or interested in both and willing to consider buying both as they get cheaper (hardcore)). 

Lord N said:

I'm rather skeptical about this, although considering the moves Sony has pulled in the last few months, the possibility is still there.

It would be something else if Sony had a $300 PS3 before MS had a $300 360.

 Indeed it would be, seeing as MS had a $300 360 at launch more than 2 years ago.