I'm really wondering what they did as a company to be the focal point of so much negativity.

I personally have nothing against Sony but I know a lot of people were annoyed by the fairly shoddy quality of the PS2 (many broke) and even more so by Sony's undeniable arrogance at the start of this generation. Saying that 5 million people would buy your console with no games and that you will give a considerable amount of money to anyone who can find your console on the shelf (and then reneging on it once it turns out that there are indeed plenty of consoles on the shelf) is not the way to win friends.

there will always be people who think the current price is too expensive ,even if the PS3 was $50 by now

but at $400 (or better 400€ , for it's european only so far , but I do expect an announcement of an us version within the comming weeks) there are far more people who think it's a good price/value packet than when it was $600

At $150, it would make a nice Linux box. At 400€, no way.

I don't know where that site is getting its numbers, it seems to be talking about buying the same product over time, which isn't an accurate metric of inflation. The official inflation numbers are from US Bureau of Labor Statistics, right here: http://www.bls.gov/cpi/#tables

According to the BLS, $299 in 2000 would be $361.02 in 2007. So the $399 PS3, assuming it's actually released this holiday, really is quite close to the price-point of the original PS2.

I stand open for correction,

The console as far as i know will be made available in great britain at 299 GBP. That is over 610 dollars not 400 dollars. Over 600 dollars for the "core" version, Over six hundred dollars for the second rate version without any backward compatability.

In the rest of europe the second string PS3 will retail at 565 dollars not 400 dollars.

So will somebody please correct me if I am wrong or  have i misunderstood this whole thread wrong. I think i must be on a different page than anyone else and again am open for correction.

400€ is way more than a video game console should launch at, much less cost a year after release, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

I wonder how much it'll end up being in Finland, since we pay 680-700€ with the current price. =/

 and that's EXACTLY why this generation is totally different as opposed to the last one

but they still don't understand do they

That is correct. The "crippled" PS3 will also be retailing for $700 in Australia. Sort of ironic, as our dollar is at a 20(?) year high against the US - at close to 90c. That's $630 US. Even if you discard our 10% GST, its still a whopping $570 - way more than the US is paying ($400).

...

All that said, the PS3 has been selling *pretty* well in Australia - with almost 80k sold (Wii sitting around 170k). 30k of that was launch day.

It should get a significant boost at 30% off.

BluRay/HD-DVD is non-existant here, although Sony have started to crank up the HD-DVD advertising campaign. Some stores do sell BluRay players (never seen a HD-DVD player, although never really looked).

Probably be at least next-Xmas before there is any serious push for HD players.

If Nintendo would have priced the Wii at 1000$, I still would have bought it. 400$ is not expensive for a game console.

 a 1.5 cube please!!!

and you?

are you one of those that payed less than a year ago  600$/500$ for a console????

the 1.5 cube still costs the same...and people buy and have fun...

the other two are deep in a price war because they have to fight for a piece of market...

the "same" old Halo or FF or GT games...

 ( I turn back the old accuses about the "same" zelda mario games...!!)

 same old Halo ,same ff XMXC version,same old GT game WITH NO SHADOWS ( as seen in suzuka demo )...