I love Sony, and I genuinely want them to succeed bc I respect them so much as a company; but I'm frustrated with them because it seems like they're not learning their lesson. I'm talking mainly in terms of the expensive price they put on the Move+PS3 bundle. They did this despite suffering significantly in the past for pricing their products (namely the ps3 of course) expensively.

The standalone Move is a great price for $99, but $400 if you're a new customer to the PS family? Really? I said about 6 months ago that I thought this was a huge mistake, especially when you can get a Wii for 1/2 the price. Although I personally think the Move/PS3 package is worth that price difference - esp bc the ps3 alone is an amazing system - idt the average soccer mom is going to see an advantage of getting the PS Move over the Wii that amounts to $200. I really think Sony made a mistake by not making a less expensive bundle. I think they should have made a $299 bundle that has a small hard drive, and maybe even take out the wireless card and just include an ethernet jack if that's required to get the price to $299. Think about it, does the average soccer mom looking to buy her family a fun gaming device really care about a 320gb hard drive? I don't even need 1/2 that amount of space and I use my ps3 a pretty good bit. And I also think a lot of families wouldn't care that much about whether or not there was wireless over wired internet capability. Maybe taking the wireless card out isn't as good of an idea, but I think at minimum Sony should have made a $349.99 ps3 with a small hd. Or better yet, have all 3 of these options available (current $399 bundle, $349 bundle w/ small hd, and $299 bundle w/ small hd and w/o wireless capability). At least give the customer the option to make the decision for themselves whether they want the extra perks or just want to be able to have the main product and pay less. The "foot-in-the-door" approach really helps. You get your product in people's homes with a lower price, then allow them to upgrade later if they so choose.

It's great that the standalone Move is a low price, but Sony needs customers completely new to the PS3 family to get the Move more than they need their existing PS3 owners to get the Move - it's the difference between an audience of 40 million compared to 7 billion.

What do you guys think? Agree or disagree?

no

Agree

It's expensive, but neither option would cost Sony less, might even cost them more.

Custom-ordered hdds because by now the mass-produced ones are bigger.
A new production line for a wired-only SKU (that will also come with some bad press due to Sony boasting about having everything inclluded in the PS3 already).
Both will cost them money and name.

I'd find it more normal to introduce a $299 bundle without a DS3 - main move controller, camera, bundled game.

I see your point and MS have been doing this with the Arcade version.

I've had it up to here (you'll have to guess where I'm gesturing, hint: it's at least as high as my head) with the condescending attitude towards casual gamers, and with the assumption that motion controls can only ever be aimed at casual gamers.

1) The Move is not in primarily aimed at casual gamers. The move is mostly aimed at people who already own a PS3. It is priced such as it is so that if people buy it to play games they already own (LBP, RE5 etc) then Sony still make money.

2) Casual gamers are no less able to make a value for money decision than us 'proper' gamers. Last generation the Gamecube was $99 while the PS2 was still $200, and yet families and casual gamers decided they would spend twice as much in order to get the system with the games they wanted to play.

3) Sony are sick of losing money, and have doubtless put a lot of RnD into the move, they need a decent return.

Now that I've covered the general point of your article, I also have to nitpick one point. In what way are 'teh casualz' known for prefering ethernet over wireless? A harcore gamer will usually leave their console permanently set up, and may value the extra speed that ethernet provides compared to most forms of wireless. Considering however, those soccer mums that you love to disparage. They are probably more likely to not want to bother dealing with cables, which lets face it are annoying, inelegant and get in the way. 

As for harddrive space, I've found (with computers at least) that the less technical knowledge you have, and the less you are concerned with computers, the more harddrive space you need.

Removing components of a console and manufacture a new sku is not that easy.

At the end, things may me more profitable to Sony with the current price than wasting more money on R&D to put a new a cheaper sku on shelves.

Very good point regarding the wired-only sku. Hadn't considered that fact.

agree........a cheaper option would only increase sales in my opinion

I have to go to bed-it's 4:30am-but I wanted to make sure I first stated that I did not mean to sound condescending in any way. It was not my intention. And I wasn't saying that motion control gaming is for casuals only, especially bc i know that Sony is trying to please casual gamers and hardcore alike with their approach to motion control gaming. But, I feel Sony invariably would celebrate more over a ps3 plus Move sale than a standalone Move sale - it's an entirely new customer to two of their products rather than just one. So the customer is now likely to purchase not only Move games but possibly also their existing ps3(i.e. dualshock) games. Not to mention the simple fact that it means they just won another new customer into their playstation brand. Oh, and I'm getting Move in about a week and I'm not a casual gamer.