Theory on why Sony couldn't drop price on the PS4 last holiday

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SWORDF1SH said:

sales2099 said:

Or.........they as a corporation need all the money they can get.

But more likely, Sony knew they could do nothing last holiday and still win. Dem Europeans and Japanese ;)

Conspiracy theories are fun, but the simple alternative always seems to excape us.

But they wouldn't lose moner by having a price cut. MS know they can sell at a loss and easily make that money back through extra live subs and sofware sales. Why wouldn't Sony be able to do the same.

Sony lost sales to X1, sales that can't get back. That equals lost PSN subs and sofware sales.

You're way over-simplifying things.

The PS4 is already selling very well at $399.  It would only be worth it for Sony if cutting the price resulted in much greater sales.

PS4 sold 5 Million units at full price in Nov + Dec.

For example if a $50 price cut, they would lose $250 Million income that they would've got from those 5 Million users anyway.  If the cut gives them say 20% boost (1 Million users) then each user would need to generate $250 each to break even (not revenue but profit) which is a lot.

A price cut makes sense when it would give a very big boost.  XB1 was giving like $100 if not more in discounts, so when you think about the overall cost vs return then those extra sales in Nov & Dec won't easily pay for themselves.  It's worth it for MS because it's bad to be falling behind PS4 sales, which would snowball into less developer support and less networking effect for XB1 over time.