Eurogamer psoted two articles today that mention the NGP/PSP2's probable pricing. First is an interview with SCEE's Andrew House, which includes this quote:
| "I can't put a ballpark on it in terms of figures, but what I would say is that we will shoot for an affordable price that's appropriate for the handheld gaming space," Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss Andrew House told Eurogamer in Tokyo this morning. |
Second is an article with info "from a source" that also covers issues liek battery life:
| NGP pricing is also yet to be revealed, but Eurogamer was told this morning that Sony will "make a loss". |
And on top of that, SCE Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida made this little gem in an interview with Game Informer:
| “It’s not going to be $599,” he said. |
Of course, that's not all he had to say:
|
While speaking with Sony Computer Entertainment president of worldwide studios Shu Yoshida about the NGP, I asked if he was worried about the problem of pricing, given the powerful (and presumably expensive) technology that's built into the device. He responded by acknowledging that Sony is aware of price being an important issue: "From the very beginning of the project -- since 2008 -- pricing was one of the considerations that we had. Hopefully when we announce the price, people will see the proper value." |
Given the specs of this thing, I'd say it'll cost within $100 of the iPhone 4 to manufacture. Last I heard, the iPhone 4 costs just shy of $200 to produce, though it's sold at an incredible mark-up, putting its retail price at $499 when all is said and done. Assuming Sony launches this device like all of their previous consoles, as opposed to a high-margin smartphone or .mp3 player, then we can assume it will be sold at a loss, as Eurogamer's source says.
Given this info and the word that there will be multiple SKUs, I'm thinking we'll see a $299 basic model and a $399 model with 3G and more internal memory. I could see the more expensive model being as low as $349, however, if Sony charges a subscription fee for 3G.
