Sony President Still Not Ruling Out PS3 Price-Cut

Here we go again. Speaking to the daily Yomiuri Shimbun, Sony President Ryoji Chubachi has said they will "not rule out the possibility of lowering the price" of the PS3.

Sound familiar? That's because we've been here before. Less than two months ago. Same guy, nearly the exact same quote. Guess that means they're thinking longer, and harder about it.

If you're reading this, and you're in any way involved in PS3 PR, my heart goes out to you. Really. Your job, especially the bit about denying rumours about Sony considering a PS3 price-cut, just got a lot harder. Impossible, even. The guy's your boss. You calling him a liar? Luke Plunkett

Sony mulls cutting PlayStation 3 price [Yomiuri Shimbun, via news.com.au]

It´s obvious they´ll cut the price....

The PS3 has sold over 3 million worldwide and they are already losing money on it but do they really want to lower the price and lose even more money just because their console is not the market leader, especialyl when they seem sure it will last 10 years and Wii sales have no longevity.

 If one of their TVs was not market leader would they slash the price of that just to be number 1 or are they just afraid of having to eat their own words as the Wii increases it's lead week by week.

You almost make it sound like the PS3 is selling good. The problem is, Sony expected to sell 5 million of these puppies with little to no games. They are quite short, with sales gradually dropping since its launch in Europe. And, if the PS3 comes in dead last this generation, the chances of it lasting 10 years are slim. Even though the Gamecube was a profitable venture, support for the little guy has dried up. The PS3 NEEDS marketshare. Not only that, it needs high software attachment rates. It's been proven they can't move the kind of hardware they want at this price. Do they wait, and potentially widen the margin between both the 360 and the Wii? Or do they sacrifice some more coin to gain more marketshare?

A rock and a hard place, indeed.

they have to try a "short term pain,long term gain" move,and of course, they have to hope it works.

The big questions are:

Can Sony take the kind of "short term pain" cutting even a hundred dollars of the PS3 price would cause?

and more importantly 

Would it be enough? Even if they scalp 100$ from the price, it's still that much more expensive than the second priciest console, and that's assuming they don't lower prices. 

They can't do a huge price drop any time soon. How would you feel if they cut after a year $100. That's like paying $100 extra just for playing Motorstorm and Resistance.

If the want to do something they should bundle PS3 + Game. They need to publish some good first party games. After they've done that a pricecut makes sense.

Cutting the price would only solve one problem, and I'm not sure that $100 would be enough of a drop, the 20gig version didn't exactly do well.

They simply don't have enough must have titles out, that is what many people are waiting for. If they drop the price they will take a huge hit in the pocket, hundreds of millions of dollars. They would do better to invest heavily in exclusive new games and functions like Home that will get people wanting to buy a PS3, they need the hype!

how many times has this been said and shot down? I think sony is just confused.

 The PSP got sort of a price reduction after one year.  What they did was get rid of the $249 Value Pack and create a new $199 Core Pack at the low end, which meant the price of getting into a PSP went down $50.  Year two (this year), they trimmed the price another $30 to $169.

The 360 got a totally new model after a year and a half. 

The Nintendo DS became the DS Lite after a year and a half.

There are no hard rules anymore.  Everyone's just breaking all conventional wisdom. 

 However, I'd expect any sort of PS3 price cut to also mean the elimination of the Emotion Engine from North American models, which early adopters got.