Nope.

Joop_de_gekste said: madskillz said: Lord N said: There are too many people who believe that any of this actually matters. First of all, the 360 has only outsold the PS3 by about 3 million since it launched, and whether the PS3 or the 360 finishes in second is irrelevant as it would be a far distant second with neither being able to claim a decisive or clear victory over the third place console. It will matter. Why? MS finished second to the 2-time champ Sony. Now, Sony will have fallen off the throne to dead last. Oh, that's not significant to you, but to shareholders - investors and the like, oh, it matters. Lower returns = unhappy investors. OT: Lowering the price of the PS3 is the only way it will survive. KZ2 will sell - LBP is selling better, but the current offering of games are not moving the PS3 as much as Sony had liked.   and lowering price doesn't plaese the shareholders

Sony is losing money on the PS3 - losing money if they cut the price - losing money if they stay stagnant vs. MS which has been posting a profit for a while now. If they cut the price, they are just cutting into their profit. Correct me if I am wrong ...

I want that number to grow. Hopefully it will push Sony to make that price cut sooner. When they do Ill buy one. But Ill get it used of course.

Whats interesting is the assumption that sony has some good releases for 2009 and will drop the ps3 price and ms wont react.

Yet every time Sony have made a move ms have reacted and either canceled it out or bettered it. The 360 is a much cheaper piece of hardware to make than the ps3, its sold significantly more and has been in production for over a year longer as well. Much bigger scope for production / manufacture savings.

Plus MS have deep pockets and didnt even expect to make a significant profit this generation. The only option sony have at this point is a big price drop to get sales moving in the right direction. Yet they cant afford to loose anymore money and MS will just drop the price of the 360 again if they start getting market share back.

Sony are in a very bad spot with the ps3, It will be very interesting to see how 2009 plays out.

Sony is not or will not be in a position to cut the price anytime soon. The earliest anyone really can hope for would be around OCT/NOV of this year and that will probably be aound $50. So more than likely they (Sony) will be behind by as many as 10-11 million consoles before this happens.

Sony will finish a distant 3rd place this gen. I think Sony is in full recoup mode where they accept this and try to be profitable from here on. If they are foolish enough to get into another price cut battle with M$ they are even bigger fools than they have proven to be thus far. M$ could probably give away their 360's and lose less money this gen than Sony has.

You have to keep in perspective the gap was at about 5.3million when the PS3 launched. If the 360 can make the gap widen to about 10 million then this thing is over.

The best thing Sony can do is to cut the price by 50 bucks in April to make it more desirable, then cut it by another 50 bucks in September to keep the momentum going. Even if they can afford to do a $100 price cut in April, they shouldn't. If anything, a $100 cut should be in August at the earliest. It's all about momentum, the 360 price cut was perfectly timed.

Its probably already been said, but whilst yes the gap is as big as its ever been, as a ratio of total sales its shrinking. Meaning, if that gap was 10million when the PS3 is at 40mil and xbox360 is at 50 mil (hypothetically), then thats nowhere near as extreme as when the ps3 was at 7 million and the xbox360 was at 15million. Thats not me saying the gap isn't bad, just that the financial implications of that gap are getting smaller.

As for Sony catching up, well its hard to say what impact a price cut for the PS3 will have. I mean at the moment in Oz the PS3 retails for around $670, and the Xbox360 Arcade is $250. The Pro is $388, so thats a massive price difference. As the PS2 showed, it becomes harder and harder to cut costs as you drop the price, whilst the PS3's hard drive will mean its price floor will always be higher than the arcade, there is still a lot mroe room for Sony to cut costs (with die shrinks, component integration, reduced power requirements) than Microsoft has.

There will be a day when the Arcade is $AU150, (current price of PS2) and the PS3 is $AU300. At that point, the most desirable console will win, because both will be priced in the sweet spot where its low enough for price to not really be an issue. And to be honest, given how the PS3 has sold at such a high price point, I'd say more people desire the PS3. They might get a Xbox360 is the meantime, but I think once the price drops down, a lot of those people will jump back across. A lot did it when the PS3 dropped to $699, and it'll continue to happen as it drops. We'll see.