Borkachev on 05 June 2007
Also, think of the psychological fallout, a price cut sounds good to you who already owns a Ps3 and wants more people to own one, but at this point it wouldn't sound too good to a perspective buyer. Crazy you say? Hear me out. Imagine a console dropping in price, $100 or $200 dollars in its first year, not even the Dreamcast went down the shitter that fast. You drop the price on the PS3 now and yeah, you'll have a considerable sales spike, but no where near what it could have been because you've just scared off the majority of potential buyers by taking the action of a company trying to liquidate stock before abandoning a product. Who wants to buy a console that's about to die? And even though the PS3 isn't dying, try telling that to the casual consumers whom don't keep up on Sony news and whom you've just made shit themselves.
I really, really don't think this will be an issue. Anyone familiar with the PS3 has known it's desperately needed a price drop from the start - the only thing they'll be thinking is that it's overdue. As for the casual consumers, they're not going to remember how long it's been out, or what it used to cost, or wonder why it's dropped - they're just going to look at the price on the shelf, as they always have.
Since when does a price drop have to be the action of a company trying to liquidate stock before abandoning a product? Maybe that's the case if you sell novelty urinal cakes or something, but price drops over time are the reality of the electronics industry. Not only do people expect them, they demand them.
As for no console ever having dropped this fast, I mentioned the Xbox, didn't I?
Launch: November 15, 2001, US$299
Price drop: May 15, 2002, US$199
6 months, 1/3 drop. For the PS3 to even match that it would have to have dropped $200 last month. And nobody was crying doom and gloom or saying that the Xbox was junk when it dropped (or if they were, they were a small minority of douchebags).
Incidentally, I only own a Wii at the moment.
