Yep. If Sony was really wanting to bite the bullet on loss they would probably have already announced PS5 discless 400 or even 350 and PS5 with disc for 500 or even 450, and that would basically mean there would basically be no way that MS could make Sony prices look bad. But they are probably wanting to be 50 or less cheaper than XSX with minimum loss possible.

Sony is definitely fixed on their price ranges, but I can see why they are waiting for MS.

For starters, MS has to announce the XSS eventually, and will probably be announcing price at that point. They can't say during their announcement "we have the cheapest console on the market" when sony hasn't said anything yet.

Then there's the actual price(s) in question.MS can price the XSSanywhere from $299 - $349. @$299 XSS, sony will have to price the PS5 DE at $399. But if MS comes in at $349, sony can then price the PS5 DE at $449. I this that's what this is all about.

Sony is probably willing to go as low as $399 for the PS5 DE, but only if they absolutely have to. So the best thing to do is wait and see where MS is at, sony probably knows its a bad idea to have a $150 price delta between the cheapest PS5 and cheapest Xbox.

MS on the other hand probably wants sony to go first so they can undercut them no matter what.

Yes, for sure they already have a lot of projections with each console price (theirs and MS) and have the interval that they prefer, but will wait on MS as long as possible to see the price that would better go with whatever MS announce. Another thing is that they may be monitoring the cost as well, it may change due to both covid and time (like when they finished the design some components could be more expensive than now) and doing bean count until the time limit before setting the price in stone.

And I agree with your other paragraphs.

I believe we have already got our biggest clue with regards to what you are saying here.

Sony's projected shipments for the PS5 in this fiscal year went up from 5M to 10M. 10M PS5s shipped by March 2021. For reference, the PS4 took about 10 months to sell that many consoles, and its shipments couldn't have been much higher than that.

I think two things should be taken from this.

One, whatever deals sony needs to make with its supply chain has been done for at the very least the first batch of consoles, and very likely another 10M consoles after that. I think saying to your suppliers that we want components to make 20M+ consoles within the first 12-13 months of our new product will go a long way to securing great deals. Sony wouldn't be committing to ship out that many units in such a short period of time if they haven't worked out some sort of great deal. If it was costing them a fortune to make, they would rather keep orders minimal and hope for price drops on the supply chain side of things.

And two, that they are willing to go as low as $399 for at least one of their SKUs. I would even take this a step further and say sony would ship the digital to disc-based SKUs at a ratio of around 3:1 in favor of the PS5 DE.

I had a thread some time ago about who would share price tag first. In any case, I wonder how long they can keep the price for themselves. We're heading to Sep and I reckon it has to come out before end of Oct. That's the only way to handle pre-orders in my opinion.

In theory, absolutely nothing stops either of them from waiting till as late as the end of October.

Their real issue is in getting the marketing ball rolling. You want to start having ads for the new consoles in around September or early October with the pricing at the end of it.

I believe neither company would wait later than September. At that point, whoever is announcing would just put their best foot forward.

That also give another info, that they are confident they will sell a lot, so their pricing will be aggressive.

It really depends how much each company can make. To a lesser degree Lockharts price and how aggressive MS will push it.

I think that 10m shiped was meant for 2020, so just for the hollidays, not fiscal year in march. but now im not sure. but 10 in 2 months does sound a bit crazzy. So im gona agree with it being fiscal year. 

Yep, the way that new was posted seemed like 10M in holidays and I agree it seemed crazily high. But I would love that, would be for sure a sight to behold and price would need to be really aggressive and hardly would lack HW to buy.