you have to remember that part of the reason why it didn't see a price drop for two years is because it was selling so successfully, and Sony didn't see a need to drop the price when they could simply make more money. I'm sure Sony could have dropped the price earlier, but they would have made less money. This is the same situation the Wii is in right now, they probably could drop the price $50 but it wouldn't increase sales and would just make them less money.

 yeah I agree with you omgwtfbbq.  Sony isn't stupid.  They are very aware of the need for a drop and I think as soon as they can get the price down to 500 or less sales will start to pick up to a much more reasonable number.  Obviously Sony won't be getting more than 50% of the market like last generation, but they can still pull off something like 30%, which wouldn't be bad at all for a system like the PS3.  Especially when they are trying to push a new media format with it.

Since we're doing graphs, I found this interesting: http://www.vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS3&reg1=All&cons2=Wii&reg2=All&cons3=X360&reg3=All&align=1 If we align all launch dates and look at cumulative sales, the 360 and PS3 track very closely, yet no one is calling the 360 a loser at this point. I admit there are different circumstances - the 360 launched while the PS2 was still in full swing and many were not looking yet for a Next Gen console, whereas the launch of the PS3 and Wii pretty well signaled the end of the Last Gen and should have prodded more people to pick up a new machine.

Of course, the "align launches" trick! People need to realise that it quite simply does not have any relevence when comparing consoles in the same generation. The simple fact is currently the X360 has a 6-7 million unit lead on the PS3 and that lead is increasing (and not only that, will be very unlikely to decrease until 2008.

The situations are different. X360 launched into a void, and they had a year to get their act together. Sony does NOT have a year. They have to get their act together NOW. You can even see on that graph that the PS3 is about to dip below the 360 (not to mention the phenomenal sales of the Wii), taking this last PS3 fanboy straw away. Very soon PS3 will have the lowest sales, as well as the lowest "launch aligned" sales, the lowest software sales and the lowest rate of sales.

I would call that a losing system. 

Looks like PS3 did 46,000 worldwide this week, a new low, but higher than my prediction of 43,000 for the week.

There is no way it will decrease at the same rate as it has been. I think whats happening right now is those folks who really wanted the PS3, finally saved enough to get 1 which increased the sales for the 1st 6 months (how sad is that if you think about it?). Now the PS3 is facing partial consumers who really have no alegiance to any console. This is probably what we are seeing. In other words, they launch hype period is probably over and the numbers are finally leveling off to normal.

All this can of course change if there is another hype period from a game or something but how much of an impact a game can make is hard to estimate. We will easily be able to see it once it happens. We know Halo will sell 360s but no one knows how many. If we see a steap increase in consoles sales that month then we will have an idea.

Part of this was also due to the slow rollout of the PS2 globally. Wasn't it nearly a year between the Japan and European launches? Sony was not about to cut price in one territory when it had just released the system in another. It could also afford to sit back because it had no competition for most of that time, and when the GCN and XB launched, they were at comparable prices with far inferior libraries and narrower fan bases. Remember the losses on consoles do not persist throughout their lifespan - after 2 years Sony almost certain had cut most of its losses on the PS2, just as MS is doingwith the 360. That game them the ability to cut price soon after the competition was launched, forcing MS and Nintendo to follow suit and possibly hurting their bottom line (almost certainly for MS).

This time, Nintendo is making a straight profit on the Wii, and MS is the one that has almost eliminated its losses, so they are both in a good position to cut prices, and Sony knows this. Whatever price cut Sony rolls out, MS and Nintendo will follow suit, so whatever benefit Sony would get would likely be marginal, so I don't see them accepting a guanteed loss of profit through console sales in order to take a shot at a slight boost in sales. I do think they have to be sweating at the idea of MS cutting price though -they too are creeping up on 2 yearswithout a cut, and the launch of HALO 3 would be an ideal time to announce a drop for all their systems. That would force Sony to follow suit, even though they won't be in a good enough financial position to do so. 

Part of this was also due to the slow rollout of the PS2 globally. Wasn't it nearly a year between the Japan and European launches? Sony was not about to cut price in one territory when it had just released the system in another. It could also afford to sit back because it had no competition for most of that time, and when the GCN and XB launched, they were at comparable prices with far inferior libraries and narrower fan bases. Remember the losses on consoles do not persist throughout their lifespan - after 2 years Sony almost certain had cut most of its losses on the PS2, just as MS is doingwith the 360. That game them the ability to cut price soon after the competition was launched, forcing MS and Nintendo to follow suit and possibly hurting their bottom line (almost certainly for MS).

This time, Nintendo is making a straight profit on the Wii, and MS is the one that has almost eliminated its losses, so they are both in a good position to cut prices, and Sony knows this. Whatever price cut Sony rolls out, MS and Nintendo will follow suit, so whatever benefit Sony would get would likely be marginal, so I don't see them accepting a guanteed loss of profit through console sales in order to take a shot at a slight boost in sales. I do think they have to be sweating at the idea of MS cutting price though -they too are creeping up on 2 yearswithout a cut, and the launch of HALO 3 would be an ideal time to announce a drop for all their systems. That would force Sony to follow suit, even though they won't be in a good enough financial position to do so. 

If Sony isn't stupid then its a only a fraction of their people who fit that in trying to right the wrongs of those of those who resulted in this mess. CEOs are yelling at CEOs, the company trying to keep certain people quiet, others stepping down like the guy who designed the PS3. Its honestly hard to say whether they're stupid or not, perhaps more arrogant than anything.

it will be funny to see, how people will shut up after E3 show in July. =))) only 6 weeks left.. :)