OP:
I think that as the two hypothetical deadlines for a cut currently most predicted and trendy (well, I should say fad instead of trend, as if they are wrong, they'll quickly fade away, if they are right they'll quickly expire any way ) are so close, end of March or beginning of April, I'll try to resist from commenting until Palm Sunday, the last sensible due date before Easter...
Obviously the sensible due date reasonment would lapse in case Sony decides to take some of its usual horrible marketing choices!

what ppl don't understand is that SONY is a company, and companies are made to earn money. Do you guys seriously think that SONY wants to suffer a massive loss just so that a few more thousand people can buy the PS3?

If you were Sony would you sell 10 to 11 million PS3 consoles at break even and make $0 on PS3 for a year.

Or sell 15 million PS3s at $100 loss on each with price cut and generate a $1.5 billion or 1,500 million dollars in loss for a year?

Is an annual 4 million extra PS3 console sales worth that 1.5 billion in losses?

We all know the answer but I just want to see if anyone would try and say well 4 million extra PS3 would narow gap on X360.

With $50 PS3 price cut would result in 13 million PS3 sold in a year. 13m* 50 = $650 million loss . 2 to 3 million extra PS3 in a year for $650 million loss.

*I assume PS3 is currently at a break even position if PS3 sales price is left unchanged.

This is a great thread, many good points have been made. But I think a $50 price cut could happen "in the near future" and not endanger Sony. The only thing that might stop it is if Sony wants to take the profit from the (ex-) gaming division and use it to help the overall company situation, but I think that that would be a bad idea.

I Thnk it needs a price drop coz ps3 software sales are on a big go at the moment and even tho they will incur a bigger loss on evry unit sold after the price cut..their software sales will also shoot up!!!!!!!!!nd while it is a big risk im afraid they will hav to do it sooner or later becoz at the moment the ps3 sales are really down so the hav to increase its popularity..maybe they cud raise the price after 6 months or sumthng after the price cut and offer bundles!!!....

also i agree with most people dat the price cut shud be 50$ ryt nw then after sum tym wen the sales start to stabilize they cud put another 50$ price cut...at the moment i thnk sony shud wait until june or july for the price cut

I won't tell you how much I paid mine then !

I don't think a price cut will happen, but if it DOES happen then it can only be because somehow Sony managed to protect itself from selling at a loss.

Do you think they layed off employees, froze salaries and cut bonuses and out of the blue decided to cut the price of the PS3 just to negate the savings they're expecting with the announced measures?

Wake up call please.

It is becoming increasingly likely that the 50/50 cuts will occur. $50 at the start of the fiscal year, and $50 in the Fall. I think Sony should wait until September to do a $100 price drop.


Side note, the currency problem is more of a concern for financial reporting assuming Sony needs to report all revenues in their home currency. They don't actually have to exchange dollars/euro for yen at current rates. The root of Sony's issues do not involve the gaming division, their problems are with the TVs and financial services. Not saying they can afford for the gaming division to lose money, but they really need to reorg the other divisions.

Also, there is no evidence to support that Microsoft sells any of their xbox skus at a profit. Please don't derail the thread on that comment, but you stated it like it was generally accepted and it is not. Microsoft has lost 3.5 billion on the 19.5 billion it has invested in the EDD since 2005.

To me, and I say.

I disagree.  Microsoft Investor relations stated a couple of months before the price cuts that they were making progress in getting the xbox line to be profitable.  The fact that the xbox wasn't profitable before the price cuts, makes it extremely unlikely that it is profitable now.  I would say that is more evidence in favor of my position.