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HappySqurriel on 19 June 2007
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TheSource said:

For me, the question is really how much will sales increase for PS3 when the price drops?  It is selling between DC and GC levels right now at $600.  Last generation sales (PS2) will end up at 125 million.  Say the average price for PS3 from 2006 to 2012 is $350.  Is that expensive enough to lose 85 million customers even as the market grows at least another 20 million users bigger?  Remember, when sales do get under $400 or so, sales accelerate much more rapidly.  A $50 price drop might be a 2% boost in sales for PS3, $100 off would be maybe a 5% boost, $150 drop would be a 17.5% boost, a $200 drop would be like a 70% boost. 

Basically, if PS3 on average, cost $350 from 2006-2012, I would expect sales to be something like 2.5x the absolute lows of 2007 in the long run (from the lows of 40k/week right now to 100k/week).

I would say losing 85 million customers qualifies as a pretty solid worst case scenario.  I mean that is essentially losing the combined userbase of the SNES & Genesis (as an eccentric comparison).

My main point is, I think after 2 years or so, when PS3 is cheaper, it will be selling faster than either GC or Xbox did because of a stronger presence in Japan & Europe.

 


I'm pretty doubtful that the price effects will have the desired impact on the PS3's sales ...

Edit: Oops hit enter ...

Assume for a moment that the price reduction schedule for the PS3 looks like the following:

  1. $100 in 2007 ($500)
  2. $100 in 2008 ($400)
  3. $100 in 2009 ($300)
  4. $100 in 2010 ($200)
  5. $50 in 2011 ($150)

Now, as the PS3 is hitting a price where it can sell quite well to the average gamer it has been on the market for approximately 3 years and hasn't sold particularly well; these lower sales have really hurt third party confidence in the platform and exclusive development has dropped off. On top of all of that the Wii has sold like hot-cakes and has built up a massive userbase and third party developers really believe in the platform; because of the nature of the Wii's hardware pretty much every Wii game is exclusive and the low development costs mean that there are several times as many games for the Wii.

Basically, in 2009 and beyond the PS3 will have far fewer games than the Wii , will have (almost) no exclusive games, it will still have a much higher price tag and will be seen as a failure; how much demand do you think a system like this will have?