People keep saying the PS3 will last longer because the PS3 is at such a high price that they have a long ways to go for a price drop. Thats not true at all. Sony is giving basically a super computer with a blue ray player and a massive hard drive for $400. Develping costs is at least $400 or more. The arugument does however work with the Wii or Ipod as those have an incredibly high price for what it is. A $200 mp3 player and $250 Game cube with motion controls. If either of those sales started to sag, Apple or Nintendo could slash prices and still make a very good profit. Nintendo just reported a whopping $5.7 billion dollars in profit for the last fiscal year. About 1/3 of the entire corporation of Microsoft on only 2 products!!!! Wow!! The PS3 howeverhas no room for a price cut. The blue ray player is no doubt a very expensive technology for them and for consumors.

Sony asked for it. The only way to save Blu Ray was to put it in the PS3 and watch it sell. Blu Ray's value at that time shot the PS3 price through the roof. They are paying for it this gen, but also they are profiting from Blu Ray still being in existence, which without the PS3 it wouldn't. You don't get it, Sony doesn't care if their gaming division takes a hit. I think they should be more watchful of their gaming division, because that is what brought them market share dominance and was the only thing that made them a threat to Microsoft in the first place. Sony will have to keep devaluing the PS3 in order to drop the price and you know it. The next phases of the PS3 will keep getting shittier and shittier in quality. Like Paris said upon seeing the Trojan horse, "burn it". The Trojan horse would soon make history out of Sparta.

Remember this, and take heed. Sony wasn't giving anything, they were trying to save a failing product that the market rejected.

I see your point. But a higher price is a higher price, regardless of it being artificial or not.

Using economics as a basis - which should be used. The quantity demanded is low for the PS3 at that price point. If price drops, sales will go up.

However, I don't believe PS3 will last longer and the PS2, nor will it have a 10 year plan for that matter. Because sooner or later the demand for the PS3 is going to drop because of other factors not related to price (competition - xbox720, wii2, age, low 3rd party support, etc).

It does matter if its artifical or not. GM was the number 2 selling car manufactuer in the world up until the end of last year. The problem is that they were losing a $1 billion dollars a month as they sold most of their cars at a loss to retain market share. The reality was, that they were in last place as far as demand goes. They were selling $6,000 Chevy malibus against a $15,000 Honda Civic. Sony could slash prices to increase marketshare, but with their losses, their heading straight for a GM like situation. They dont have room for a price cut with out shedding another $billion dollars.

Unlike GM, for Sony to lower prices, they will take out quality hardware out of the PS3. They wont just take the risk for marketshare. This is why they are in hesitation mode as we speak. They will drop the price, the question is when? You cannot compare the price of the PS3 to the Wii or the Ipod. Things are actually cheaper to make and cost more because of name value. The Wii I believe, takes $185 to make. Sony came into the game in the negative. If they want to make money, yes, they would have devalue the system because of low demand at its price.

A supercomputer with Blu-Ray and a massive hard drive, for $400?

First of all, hard drives are about $80-90 for a terabyte these days. I'm not sure I'd call 40GB "massive."
Second, blu-ray, yeah that's about $80 for a drive.

And supercomputer? Is that a joke? Maybe it would have been a supercomputer a few decades ago (I'm pretty sure many modern cell phones would be too), but it's pretty weak compared to the standard fare you can buy at Dell.com, and I don't think they sell supercomputers.

I get were you are coming from but, the PS3 is in much better shape than you are trying to put it in.

1. PS3 is priced well out of the mass markets acceptable price range, which even if it is cool, people are not going to just snatch it up.

2. Sony has many no sacrificial price reductions in the works right now. The drop to 45nm tech in the Cell and RSX, the smaller BD drive, less cooling tech, and a smaller motherboard. They may even be able to look at a smaller form factor as early as this September, or as late as next September. In any case they are looking at an easy shead of $100 dollars with everything said and done. Then it will not be long before they drop to 32nm tech, and shave another chunk of change.

3, As PS3 becomes profitable, which it will be for sure by this holiday, Sony has no reason not to take its push to move the system into overdrive. They could leave the PS3 righ were it is at $399, and decide to push the fact that PS3 has motion controls, it has Blu-ray, it has VOD, it has games, internet, Home, Music, Pictures, and more. With the hardware being profitable, Sony can shove butt loads of money into advertising. They can run commercials all day long, on every channel, as long as they want. That is were Nintedno was day one with the Wii, and that is a big reason why it got off to the start it did. Turn on the TV, and there are people having fun, teaching exactly what the Wii is.

@S.T.A.G.E.

Sony put Blu-ray in the PS3 because they new that a system with the power of the PS3, or the 360 needs more storage space than a DVD can offer. They went with Blu-ray because they were already behind the format. The PS3 could have launched at $399 without the BD drive, but it would have been pathetic. Forget Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone 2, Uncharted Drakes Fortune, and Little Big Planet. Forget every game that is coming out for PS3 for the rest of its life cycle.

Sony looked at Blu-ray the same way back then as they do today. PS3 will make it viable, and Blu-ray will in turn sell PS3's. Why do they think this way? Because they have data that shows, people bought a $129 PS2 for DVD use over $29 stand alone players.

Supply.....

and....

Demand!

Coming soon to a theater near you!

Dude....the PS3 is the sole reason Blu Ray survived. Sony played it very smart. It's always a good business rule to undermine the market and use another market to meet your quotas. When I took marketing classes in school, my teachers told me that the people decide the lifespan of a product. This holds no candle to the fact that if you have multi-billion dollar corporations controlling things, they can take away choice and make the choice for you. You cannot find a computer in a notable store that isn't Apple without the MS OS. Do you see where I'm getting at? MS might have to gain respect from consumers to gain marketshare, but Sony no longer has to.

As for the PS2 DVD player sales, haven't you guys already noticed the trend that Sony survives using the gaming industry because if they have a format selling and implement it into their systems, it helps their electronics division? It's a instantaneous translation.Their electronics division was in deep shit before they joined this industry.