Sony Chief Says No PS3 Price Drop 'til June 2008

Sony Computer Entertainment America bossman Jack Tretton has gone on record to clearly state that there will be no price-drop for PS3 until at least June 2008.

In an interview with Game Informer magazine, when asked if price drops for the PS3 would be "as soon or as drastic as they were for the PlayStation 2," Tretton answered with a clear, "No."

The PS2 originally launched in the US in October 2000 at a price point of $299. The first price reduction on that machine, when the price was slashed to $199, was made by Sony in May 2002. Hence, if Tretton is to be believed, the PS3 is going to continue to set you back $599 (or the planned £425 in the UK) until well into the summer of 2008.

Tretton claims that the massive investment in research, development and hardware means that the PS3 is far "more difficult to cost reduce" than was the case with the PS2.

[Maldread]

i think that depends on how the PS3 will sell ( or not ). If it stalls completly, they may have no other choice. It will be a though choice for them, because of the high development cost, but i don`t think they can let their two competetors get to far ahead of them, that will cost more.

One thing`s for sure, i`m definatly not buying one until the price comes down, maybye MGS4 can change my mind, but we`ll see. ( Ps. the lame vote is because of the price, not the story.. savy ;)

[shikwan]

but at least you can surf the web and enjoy Blu Ray movies! All that for the low-low-price of...$600

[FirstknighT]

By that time the 360 will be half the cost of a ps3!!! Half the cost of a ps3 and better games??? PS3 is dead!

[TheThinker]

Because someone just made a dire prediction. I remember the same thing being said about the Xbox; more expensive than the PS2, yet in the end still there on the market making money.

Heck, if the Wii can have a market for gamers, certainly the PS3 can as well. Of course, its gaming library will have to be quite large to last or it will become another Dreamcast.

Speaking of which, I still admire the Dreamcast for its design features. In a way it was ahead of its time.

[KingJames1906]

Historically, gaming consoles lower their price within an 18-24 month period. Microsoft is in a position to do this by April\May of THIS YEAR. The market will not consider them weak as the there product as been out for some time. Will the price cut be 50, or 100 dollars is anyone’s guess. But if Microsoft is worried about Nintendo's success in the UK and US then I suspect a $100 cut. If they are not then 50 will be the number. But Microsoft could steal Sony's thunder in March with the UK launch of the PS3 with a 50-pound cut of the Xbox360. Price dictates everything and Microsoft is clearly in that position.

[calderra]

Sony won't have to slash prices- Japanese retailers have already slashed their prices up to 20%!
(see other news stories today)

[TheThinker]

o

[TheThinker]

to sucker in more customers. You don't think that may be the case for console retailers? If you think not, go do some actual research, get an annual report for Sony investors, and see if I'm wrong.

[Sphinx]

Now I know when to reconsider the purchase of a PS3.

[WarEagle13]

when they give the ps3 away

[Indigo]

WOW i think sony should change they're business maybe going into something like mortician cuz all they're doing is diggin they're own graves what a joke.

[richie007bond]

There wont be a ps3 in june 2008 if sony dont lower the price,sonys just to arragant to admit it they MUST to lower the PRICE or its gonna end up dead in the water

[Marriot VP]

This is the same thing MS did in a sense. They said there's no price drop in the distant future because they want people to buy their console now instead of waiting.

This is just simple PR.

[Dreamworker]

we will see

[The great Me]

...will be the earliest that I buy this system. By then it should have plenty of games to choose from.

[MicroGamer]

that developers go ahead and release for the system with the smallest install base before then. When a dev spends millions on a game they need to release it to a big audience, which PS3 just doesn't have right now. Look at GoW. GoW has 3 million sales in a base of 10 million consoles. That is 30% attach rate. We already know that PS3 games need 500,000 sales to be profitable. Even assuming that the 2 million number that the fanboys like to keep tossing around is true, that is a 25% attach rate. To achieve that number, the game would have to be an absolute smash hit on the same level as GoW, and we know that not every game is going to be of that caliber. Smart devs are going to wait until there at least 5-10 million consoles installed in homes before they release. That lowers the attach rate to a more achievable 5-10%, which even a mediocre game has a good shot at attaining. Sony has to step up and shift some machines and quick.

[DJ]

but developers still put the majority of their titles on the PS2 instead. With 110 million PS2 fans (and potential PS3 owners) that's just too large of an audience to ignore. There's something like 300 titles in development for the PS3 (possibly more) so there's no real worry there.

You can't expect to sell machines without games, and developers know this. Resistance was put out with full knowledge that not many units would be available at launch, but it was important to do it anyway. Sony's been doing this for eleven years; they know what they're doing.
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The point that Microgamer brought up is that Gears sold 3 million copies, but the main reason it sold so many copies is the same reason Halo and Halo 2 did as well. There's simply not that many high-quality titles to choose from, so ultimately people flocked to Gears.

The Halo series did extremely well, but even that wasn't enough to save the original Xbox due to fact that not much else was popular. Killer catalogs, not killer apps, determine the outcomes of console wars.

People are going to argue against me on this, but what matter is how well the entire library sells, not just one or two titles. What I want to see by next year is the number of titles each consumer, on average, is purchasing for their titles. And attach rates actually don't show this, because attach rates are fluid measurements determined by stagnation of hardware sales, amongst other things.

[TheExodus]

For a moment there I was speculating that Sony was going to let the PS3 anchor itself to store shelves while a Revision B with removable optical drive was worked up. Given how common the solution is in laptops it seems like a win-win solution to the price-point problem introduced to the PS3 by the BD-ROM.

Yes, Sony could have given us a:
1) $299.99 DVD-based PS3 w/optional $299.99 BD-ROM upgrade & lost just as much per unit
2) $399.99 DVD-based PS3 w/optional $399.99 BD-ROM upgrade & broke even
3) $399.99 PS3 w/optional $699.99 BD-ROM & turned a profit