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[Nightbringer]

The key for opting for a BluRay is important because if you are Sony you pay around 50 USD more than for a normal DVD Drive in manufacturation therms. Later and thanks to the excessive price of the BluRay Players you can sell PS3 for 499$ and be marketed as cheap compared to another BluRay Players.

 

[urk]

There's just no way in hell PS3 will cost $499. They're willing to take a lost rather than see the Playstaion brand lose its ground to Microsoft and Nintendo.

Willing to take a loss? The games division is one of the few withing Sony that is profitable. They can't lose money just to bolster the name brand.

That said, I find it hard to believe that they are going to approach five hundred bucks, but hey, even if they do, they're going to sell a shit ton of them.

 

[Mrbob]

Playstation 3 will not be more expensive than $349 at launch. The time PS3 comes out MS shaves $50 off the price of the core and premium pack. This way PS3 is the same price as the premium 360.

 

[SKOPE]

This is the most unintentionally funny thread on GAF ever.

 

[Insertia]

Willing to take a loss? The games division is one of the few withing Sony that is profitable. They can't lose money just to bolster the name brand.

That said, I find it hard to believe that they are going to approach five hundred bucks, but hey, even if they do, they're going to sell a shit ton of them.

Sony has never broke even when launching a Playstation product. They'll do the same with PS3, I figure. If PS3 is $500 consumers will simply look elsewhere ( I know I will).

 

[SolidSnakex]

Willing to take a loss? The games division is one of the few withing Sony that is profitable. They can't lose money just to bolster the name brand.

They can sell the PS3 at a loss and still turn profit in their game division. It's not like the PS3 is the only thing they'll have available at that time.

 

[Kasra]

Playstation 3 will not be more expensive than $349 at launch. The time PS3 comes out MS shaves $50 off the price of the core and premium pack. This way PS3 is the same price as the premium 360.

:lol


OH man you're in for a serious shock.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Sony has never broke even when launching a Playstation product. They'll do the same with PS3, I figure. If PS3 is $500 consumers will simply look elsewhere ( I know I will).

But even at $500 isn't it expected that Sony would be taking a >$100 loss with each unit sold?

 

[Amir0x]

Well, they better price at 399 if they wanna be competitive. Otherwise, screwed. So I'm putting down 399, but at this point it would not surprise me if they went above that. And then i'd call it Sony's BIG MISTAKE™, and declare Microsoft and Nintendo victors over all.

 

[Mrbob]

:lol


OH man you're in for a serious shock.

Not really. I'm preparing myself for $399, even if I'm predicting lower. Any higher than $399 and I'll just wait for the price of the system to drop before picking one up.

 

[BlueTsunami]

$399.99 or less

Sony HAS to stay competitive, even if this thing costs $800 to manufacture. It WILL not sell if its abobe $499.99.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

:lol


OH man you're in for a serious shock.

Are you just saying that or do you have some information that confirms this?

 

[snatches]

$399.99 or less

Sony HAS to stay competitive, even if this thing costs $800 to manufacture. It WILL not sell if its abobe $499.99.

$399 or less and Sony's stock plummets. Howard Stringer doesn't have enough time to make the other electronics divisions in the company profitable, the layoffs won't be enough. Sony needs major re-organization. If SCE loses money than Sony's financials will be miserable. Sony planned on relying on strong PS2 and PSP sales in 2006 to offset heavy losses on PS3. Sales of both will fall well below Sony's expectations in 2006 IMO.

 

[Insertia]

What is the manufacturing cost of PS3?

 

[urk]

They can sell the PS3 at a loss and still turn profit in their game division. It's not like the PS3 is the only thing they'll have available at that time.

They have more invested in PS3 (and Cell and Blu-Ray) than they do in PS2 and PSP at this point.

Of course the console is going to sell much lower than the manufacturing and R&D costs, that's true of every console. So, I'm not saying they won't be willing and able to take a hit right out of the gate. What I am saying is the PS3 has to be profitable as a platform and Sony will not risk taking a bath on it for name recognition alone.

There are plenty of people willing to sell their first born for the PS3. $500 would not be unreasonable at launch. Sony will consider a whole range of factors when it comes to pricing their newest machine. I just happen to think that name recognition is not going to be one of them.

I think Gofreak has the right idea. $449 sounds right. It's under $450 for the marketing people and just far enough above the 360 pricepoint to establish it as the premium system. I think we have to keep in mind that rabid Xboxers were dishing out over one thousand bucks a system on Ebay this last Christmas.

 

[Flo_Evans]

I am gonna go on record as saying "I have no fucking idea!"

They may go nuts and price it at $299. They may go COMPLETLY nuts and price it $500+

oh and all of you master of international finance: I would love to see your reports on how sony simply can't afford to lose cent on the PS3. A breakdown of their assets, liabilities, and avalible credit would also be nice, oh and if you could find out the actuall cost of the PS3 for sony to manufacture that would be great too. Oh, wait... you don't have any of that information do you? All you know if that the playstation division was the only part of the company posting a profit? What about the playstation division around the year 2000? What? Massive losses? hmm...

 

[hukasmokincaterpillar]

E3 '06.

Phil Harrison calmly walks on stage...crowd hushes.

"ahem"

*mic hissing*

....

"Two Ninety Nine. Thank you"

Phil Harrison clicks his heels and strolls off stage. Crowd explodes.






OK I wish. $399 with a solid proprietary accessory fisting.

 

[urk]

What is the manufacturing cost of PS3?

It's not even in manufacturing yet. No realiable estimates either.

 

[Pimpwerx]

It'd be stupid for even Sony to charge more than $399 for the PS3. That'd be like handing this generation to Xbox 360 on a polished blu-ray disk.

I said the same thing about the PSP and $200, but while it's still getting beat by the DS, it's selling remarkably well. It's certainly generating a lot of revenue. If it's enough, Sony won't drop the price. I can then see them trying a $450 PS3. Who knows? It might sell. I'm kinda scared. I'd get a 360 if the PS3 is $450.

I like gaming, but I don't see a justification for a premium over the 360+HDD+Live. For that money, the 360's out-of-box setup is better, just b/c of Live. Sony better have a free, and kickass network for that price. PEACE.

 

[Kasra]

What is the manufacturing cost of PS3?

Who knows, but it's gotta be around AT LEAST 100 bucks more than 360. What with the Blu Ray drive, HDMI ports, 3 extra USB ports, Blue Tooth, 3 ethernet ports, etc... Plus supposedly Cell is more expensive to manufacture.

iSuppli's cost breakdown of the 360 puts it at 525 dollars for the premium unit.

 

[hukasmokincaterpillar]

oh and if you could find out the actuall cost of the PS3 for sony to manufacture that would be great too.

Also, a detailed prognostication of how the PS3 components will scale in cost during the overall console cycle would be nice, because thats whats most important. Whats the manufacturing cost going to be 2, 3, 4 years down the line? A lot of these cost predictions dont seem to take into account Cell's advantages in redundancy for good yields and the fact that it'll be mass produced in other areas as well, for example.

Sony fabs all their stuff in-house, and they pretty much wrote the book on loss-leading in the console market. They're certainly going to be tested, but a lot of this initial skepticism doesnt seem warranted, or even fully thought out.

 

[urk]

What about the playstation division around the year 2000? What? Massive losses? hmm...

Massive losses? The Playstation division was one of the only bright spots for Sony, pulling in twenty percent of Sony's revenue by itself. In fact, it was so lopsided in 1999, that Sony dedicated a full quarter of it's fiscal 2000 operating budget to its games division.

 

[damisa]

I think it will be $400. If it gets delayed to late fall, even $350 wouldn't surprise me.

 

[elostyle]

http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02.html
Always fun to link to.

 

[Ponn]

I'm expecting it to be 499 with BRD playback. I will be ecstatic if it's 399 or less.

 

[Chittagong]

I'm betting 499 at the moment. Could be 449 too. Anything less would be a huge surprise to me.

 

[hadareud]

I don't think Sony would ever launch higher than 399.- (and I think that it will be 350 or possibly even 299).

They are prepared to take a loss in the first year, they'll get it back anyway eventually. The cost of hardware comes down - plus, the real money is made off the games and the accessories.

The price of the components does not matter for now (unless it is over 500 - 600 dollars, which I doubt very much) - if they make a loss in the beginning it will be an investment for the future.

edit: having read the other guesses now, I get a strange feeling that some posts are "preemptive damage control" from one side ("oh my god, Sony fucked MS. Sony is god. I would have never thought they would give us such an amazing deal for this unbelievable piece of hardware and all the awesome components it includes.") or wishful thinking from the other side.

 

[KeithFranklin]

Im thinking $499.

If it is $399 then it is console and wired controller (possibly no controller). Will come with just the cheapest composite cable to hook up to TV. If you want HDMI or Component or S-Video you will need to purchase it.

 

[Timedog]

You, the people who voted "1 million dollars". I know who you are you SOB's. I won't let you do this to my Sony. Not my Sony. My Sony will tend to my special needs, and for only 399.99. It will be a glorious day:

"There are those who said this day would never come. What are they to say now?"

Me and my Sony will be vindicated!

 

[Flo_Evans]

Massive losses? The Playstation division was one of the only bright spots for Sony, pulling in twenty percent of Sony's revenue by itself. In fact, it was so lopsided in 1999, that Sony dedicated a full quarter of it's fiscal 2000 operating budget to its games division.

yes they where making money off the PSone and losing money on the PS2. Some people seem to be having problems connecting the dots to the PStwo and PS3.

Infact, sony has said that they could of made more money off of the PSone if they had supported it longer into the PS2's life, a mistake they didn't want to make again.

People also seem to be under the impression that its "one more bad quarter for sony and they are finnished!" I wouln't call sonys situation rosy, but they are not as close to the brink of bankruptcy that some would like to believe.

 

[alr1ght]

i'd say $449.99 for it, but no component/hdmi cable/extra stuff. Just the console(w/ hdd), controller. They could offer a BLU-RAY add on pack for ~$50 that includes the HDMI cable and a BR movie (spiderman?).

 

[qirex]

If it is $399 then it is console and wired controller (possibly no controller). Will come with just the cheapest composite cable to hook up to TV. If you want HDMI or Component or S-Video you will need to purchase it.

It has an HDMI port, you don't need to buy a Sony cable to use it. I can definitely imagine them using a HDMI cable as a value-add in a bundle though. I still think the thing is going to be $300-350 depending on included accessories. At this point it would probably cost Sony more to add a corded controller to the line-up than it would to go by their plan of having them wireless.

 

[Diablos]

Sony is going to sell so many PS3's in 12 months it's going to be ridiculous. Therefore, I predict a $299, POSSIBLY $349 pricetag but no more than that. They will no doubt take a loss on consoles sold, but they'll be selling so many of them it won't matter.

So many people on GAF said PS2 would be $350, $400, $500, $800 (we know who said that ); this is like deja vu. Yet PS2 retailed for $299.99 after all of the unnecessary crying, complaining, flaming, and bitching.

I'm excited for the next gen to be completely ushered in.

 

[XMonkey]

Sony/Kuturagi would love to read these responses. All this talk of a ~$500 price point because they've been dropping "expensive", "get a 2nd job", or got this crap to come off CNN is setting you guys up for a sigh of relief when the PS3 sells for nothing close to $500. Well played, Sony.

 

[hadareud]

nm

 

[alr1ght]

also look for it to be cheaper than expected because sony wants those blu-ray players in your homes. if they win the format war thanks to ps3, thats 10+ years of extra revenue from BR royalties.

 

[Blaster1X]

Playstation 3 will not be more expensive than $349 at launch. The time PS3 comes out MS shaves $50 off the price of the core and premium pack. This way PS3 is the same price as the premium 360.

http://www.edn.com/contents/images/6290451.pdf

Going by thes numbers MS already makes a profit off Premium Edition; this is why MS is selling Premium Edition for $380 in small markets like Hong Kong and Taiwan....

MS is already profitable and can drop $100 by this year's Xmas, putthing $199.99 Core Edition against $499.99 PS3 available in an extremely limited quantity(~300K units)

 

[gjb-sensei]

I really think that Sony might do the absolute unthinkable and launch the PlayStation 3 at $299, especially if it doesn't come with a hard drive. Realistically speaking, however, $399 seems like a safe bet.

 

[qirex]

MS is already profitable and can drop $100 by this year's Xmas, putthing $199.99 Core Edition against $499.99 PS3 available in an extremely limited quantity(~300K units)

Given their lower than expected manufacturing yields and the fact that they were still air shipping units to North America through the end of December and their not exactly insubstantial marketing costs even if those numbers were true [and they're $60-100 less than anyone else's estimates] they're still losing money and lots of it.

 

[Flo_Evans]

http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02.html
Always fun to link to.

this article is complete bullshit.

#1 he is talking about the US PS2, which is not where it launched. IIRC they had already sold around 1.5 million in japan before launching here.

#2 sonys estimate that they could of made an extra $175 million (if they had been able to sell an extra 1 million consoles) is counting on game and asccesory sales for that profit.

If you really think sony was making $120 profit on PS2 hardware in the year 2000.... I don't know what the hell to tell you. But hey since anything is possible, lets assume that this article is correct and sony are manufacturing gods. They should be able to produce the PS3 for about $200 and sell it for $299.99! Hell why stop there?! they could sell it at cost, and still make a tidy profit from accesories and games.!

$199.99 PS3 FTW! you heard it here 1st folks! :lol

 

[elostyle]

this article is complete bullshit.

#1 he is talking about the US PS2, which is not where it launched. IIRC they had already sold around 1.5 million in japan before launching here.

#2 sonys estimate that they could of made an extra $175 million (if they had been able to sell an extra 1 million consoles) is counting on game and asccesory sales for that profit.

If you really think sony was making $120 profit on PS2 hardware in the year 2000.... I don't know what the hell to tell you. But hey since anything is possible, lets assume that this article is correct and sony are manufacturing gods. They should be able to produce the PS3 for about $200 and sell it for $299.99! Hell why stop there?! they could sell it at cost, and still make a tidy profit from accesories and games.!

$199.99 PS3 FTW! you heard it here 1st folks! :lol

I'm not thinking anything. I just linked to that because it's a fun read. If I remember correctly some of your points were addressed in it.
Of course they were not making $120 of each hardware unit sold, however, reality is far away from this "all consoles are sold at a loss" bullshit people take for granted.

 

[DaBuddaDa]

I will bet every single member of this forum $5 that it'll launch for $400.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

It's ridiculous to think Sony would charge over 400 for the PS3. No matter how much it costs, they're not going to alienate their consumers and allow MS to get a bigger foot hold by being that much cheaper. Back when the PSP and PS2 specs were announced, everyone said they could never launch for the prices they did. Well, Sony managed to do it twice (thrice? PS1?), and they'll do it again.

 

[Vieo]

Meh. Selling consoles below manufacturing costs, taking a hit, and trying to break even later on through software royalties, sounds like a bad idea in the first place. You're basically gambling.

 

[piccolosan]

The PS3 will be very expensive due to the fact it's meant to be part of an entertainment center that supports HD. HD is not cheap. If TV prices are anything to go by, the HD sets go for about twice as much as the regular TV sets. If the PS2 was $299...I'm gonna go and say it will cost about $500 since Sony will most likely take a hit to avoid alienating too many audiophile and videophile consumers. Sony is pushing the HD capabilities on the PS3 and that means they are not really going after the average Joe with average income.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

$499 without a doubt

 

[velvet_nitemare]

449.99 seems most likely to me....but i'd pay Good money to see what happens on GAF if they priced it at $299 or > $500

 

[sonycowboy]

$499 is my vote.

Also, consider this.

They won't have enough systems in any region, so whatever price they name, they'll get. It's a bit of raking the customer, but given the launch prices of BD players (and HD-DVD players for that matter), it would be a completely justified price and they can drop it $100 when more stock is available after six months or so. They can also throw in some "bundle" items to make it look like a great deal that really cost them nothing (Spider-Man 1 & 2 on Blu-Ray, HDMI cables, a headset - sound familiar?).

 

[xaosslug]

I will bet every single member of this forum $5 that it'll launch for $400.

OK! i'll PM you my info when the price is announced.

 

[xaosslug]

$499 is my vote.

Also, consider this.

They won't have enough systems in any region, so whatever price they name, they'll get. It's a bit of raking the customer, but given the launch prices of BD players (and HD-DVD players for that matter), it would be a completely justified price and they can drop it $100 when more stock is available after six months or so. They can also throw in some "bundle" items to make it look like a great deal that really cost them nothing (Spider-Man 1 & 2 on Blu-Ray, HDMI cables, a headset - sound familiar?).

this man knows his stuff. given what we know: HD-DVD's bargain priced HD-DVD player is at $499. so, one could extrapolate that BR-DVD's bargain player will most likely be the all powerfull PS3. if it is priced higher, expect it'll include a bunch of value stuff ala PSP.