What more do you need? Kaz Hirai is THE head of SCE. He has Ken Kutaragi's old job. He is Jack Tretton's boss. I would hope that he would know what the hell is going on within SCE. He said the 80GB would be $600 when the 60GB is sold out plain as day. Do I have to provide the link AGAIN?

jjseth, I thought you've claimed previously not to be a Sony fanboy...so whats up with the jab at Nintendo in a thread completely unrelated to Nintendo? Seriously, can't you guys leave off for even a little while? Sony's potentially stupid decisions have nothing to do with the other consoles.

As for the thread itself, my prediction is that it will take significantly longer that the end of July to sell out of the 60 GB version, unless they stopped making that version a long time ago, which is a possibility. I also see no reason at all why they would continue to produce the 60 GB version, as it costs more to produce.

So what I see happening is them using the "limited" edition 80 GB + game version to recoup the costs they will incur liquidating all those expensive 60 GB models. Like others have pointed out, Sony as a company needs to keep its promises to share holders or they'll have more problems than a few angry customers. If they've promised a reduction in operating losses, they need to make up the cost of this 100$ reduction per 60 GB unit somehow, and selling the less expensive to produce 80 GB model at $600 for as long as they can is the answer.

Think of Joe Smith walking into a store wanting a ps3. He doesn't read financial news, he doesn't read video games news, hell, all he knows is his kid is buggin him for a ps3. He sees two models, one that says 60 GB and the other saying limited edition 80 GB + motorstorm...which one do you think he's gonna buy? Free game plus a bigger hard drive, must be better.

I think Sony will probably want to milk this 2 SKU deal as long as they possibly can, because every 80 GB unit they sell at $600 dollars will help their bottom line.

I'm not a fanboy of sony, however the nintendo fanboys are here on this site in droves and focus on negativity (including some of the mods as well).  I guess you can say that I got fed up with it because of the amount of negativity aimed at a game console.  I do want them to do well as well as all of the game consoles.  However hearing so many people hoping and praying that Sony fails is not good for this industry.  Without competition, it will dry up the innovation and we'll hit a dark age for video games.  It's a potential stupid move, I will admit that if it's true and there is no plans to replace the 60gb version and there won't be a $499 pricepoint PS3 at all until the holidays.

It very well could take till longer then the end of July to sell out the current stock of the 60gb PS3's with the EE.  There are at least 1m unsold units, if not more here in the US.  Middle/end of August sounds more likely to me.

Darc: Like I told you in a earlier thread, I cannot view the video here at work, so I can't go off of something that i have not seen.

This is a churning process. The idea is that you're not getting enough sales, so you drop the price and shortly there after announce that it is a temporary drop. There is confusion as to whether there is a limited-time PS3 price of $500, and Sony is hoping that people will believe that the PS3 is only available at $500 until stocks run out of the 60GB PS3 (they didn't deny this today -- they just said there's a lot of 60GB PS3). The strategy makes business sense, even though it's deceiptful. Here's what it will accomplish:

(1) People will buy out the 60GB model, making it unnecessary for Sony to further drop the price of a 60GB model to get it to sell

(2) People who are on the fence may buy the PS3 thinking it will not be available for $500 for a while after the 60GB sells out.

People in the know would suspect Sony would still have to drop the price of the 80GB model to well under $500 this year and that there are literally millions of unsold 60GB PS3 units on the model and it will take Sony months and months to sell them. Most likely, there will still be 60GB units available in December even if they're no longer being produced.

It's deceiptful, yes, but if you don't care about your customers it makes good business sense.

jjseth: I think a lot of people are disgusted by Sony's business practices.  Which would explain why they want Sony to fail -- they don't want these types of business practices to become the standard and if they are successful, they'll certainly be an interesting blueprint to follow.

oh the stupidity.

60gb is still being sold, so whine and birch about it when they aren't and all that is available is the bundle.

since that will never happen you fanboys got to bitch now.

the price difference in 60 and 80Gb hard is rather small. say $25. a game costs sony practically nothing to make. the 60Gb PS3 say sells out by November. that's just in time for x'mas. so another price cut, this time on the 80Gb model, which is overpriced in relation to the 60Gb model to begin with, is totally within reason.

what can be so controversial?

Here's another article reporting on this story.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6427&Itemid=2

According to this, SCEA still has not confirmed this and may very well stick with the 60gb version for the forseeable future. Right now, they are in denial mode and once SCEA releases a official statement we will know exactly what the plan is.

 the contreversy lies in the fact they are to stupid to figure it out.

The August 1 sell out deadline was premature.

Sony is not going to make new 60 gb models but they are going to have those models around for a while still because there are a lot around.

Here is SCEA basically saying this:

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/13/sony-says-60gb-is-not-over-in-us/

http://kotaku.com/gaming/durr/the-great-60gb-phase-out-clusterfuck-278256.php

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6427&Itemid=2

By the time those sell out the 80 gb will probably not be special edition anymore and will be come the new sku.

I think a lot of people are missing the big story here. Besides the obvious PR guffaws, this news makes it highly unlikely that we will see a sub $499 price point any time soon. That's the big story.