"So we thought if we reduced the price, we’d annoy a lot of people"

==> I agree that early PS3 adopters will be a little bit disapointed because of a so quick price drop BUT people that wanted to buy one would be so happy lol. And considering PS3 is doing not bad in europe ...

thank you for bringing the thread back on topic.

Of course you make a very good point, having a price drop so early will mean people who may have been waiting for $500 might start thinking "well, if it dropped this quickly, it might do it again. Maybe I should wait for $400 since there's no real compellng games yet..."

In this case, the price drop should be timed with a really big exclusive release, so that people say "omg I need this game, and it's only $500 now" and will hopefully purchase one before they think.

The problem now though is that the PS3 dropped price in USA and people in Europe might decide to wait it out rather than get impatient and buy one. You could see a drop in sales until the price is dropped. 

I still don't buy the "piss off early adopters" line though. Early adopters know what they're getting into. Especially European PS3 early adopters, since the console had already been out for three months in USA and Japan and it was pretty widely publicised that it wasn't selling great and really needed a price cut. They had to know it was happening,but they bought it because they thought paying more was worth getting the system first. It's the price they pay, they knew it was happening, they did it anyway. (I did the same with the Wii, but I think it was the correct decision)

They need to drop the price, SCEE are idiots, supoosebly the people that have ps3's are sony fans, they would be happy the sales would go up, and a value pack wont do anything for sales(maybe a slight increase), if its the same price its not worth it.

He is right, a price cut would annoy a lot of people at this early stage ...

If I remember correctly, a couple of months after the XBox was launched in Europe Microsoft drastically reduced the price and ended up giving every existing XBox owner a couple of games (in order to reduce their annoyance).

This doesn't make it a good excuse. The people who bought your system are probably not going to smash it and scream into the heavins "WHY!!" as they vow never to buy another Sony system; they are going to continue using their PS3 and buying PS3 games which means that you can make it up to them. For a couple of dollars worth of plastic and shipping costs you can give away copies of games that have sold most of what they will ever sell, or for cents worth of bandwith you could allow them to download games in a similar position, and yet most of these gamers would be placated by this.

I personally think bundling is a bad strategy because even if they put the PS3, 4 controllers, a Blu-Ray remote, 3 games and 10 Blu-Ray movies ("a $1200 value") for 6 easy payments of $99.99 there are only so many people who are willing to spend $600 on a PS3 regardless on what it comes with ...

Yes, price cut would annoy some people, but if Sony is so worried about annoying people, then why not just gift cards or games or something to people who bought the system for 600$. IMO early adopters dont care about price drops since they want the system as early as possible for as little as possible. On the other hand there are a lot more people annoyed by the fact that PS3's price is pretty high for a gaming system, so a price cut would give Sony positive press in Europe and more buyers, just like it did in North America.

PS I said this before but Reeves needs a PR person for himself to tell him what he can and cant say.

Whoa, relax there bro.  Roadkillers may be a sony fan, but he's definitely not a fanboy  (He is a mod for crying out loud)

 Back on topic:  If Sony didn't want to annoy people, they shouldn't have built a $600 console.

That's a very good point Leo. If the console you own is doing poorly in sales and you fear your console might be loosing exclusives, I'm pretty sure you would be praying for a price drop so others also buy the system you have.

Besides, was anyone pissed when they dropped the price of the PS2? If gas prices dropped a full dollar in one day would everyone piss and moan that its not fair to those that filled up last week?

If they werent going to fill up again at the new price point, yes they would. Youre not buying the console again like you buy gas multiple times so when the price is cut and you have it youre SOL.

But regardless, if people buy a $600 (more in Euro) with limited games and slow sales and they get upset th eprice is cut after they buy it they have no business spending that much money on electronics, imo.

Yeah.. I'll agree with that. You'll annoy less people by lowering the price than they did when they released it at that price in the first place and did all their early boasting.

There are some people who will take things like price drops personally, as if the company just didn't tell them they were going to drop the price in a month or something, and feel 'cheated' of that extra 50-100 bucks. You'd get that with any system though. If the 360 dropped next week, there's bound to be people who get upset they bought it this month, or last month. Same with the Wii. Some people are just really stingy with their money and are overly protective of their purchases.

My opinion is that the price cut would annoy mainly Sony. Now the throw up an insane argument to make it look like it would annoy consumers. There is something really messed up about Sony's PR. Can't they read around and see that statements such as this one are bad for their image? Why do they keep doing this so much? I really don't understand.