The question is, how quickly will it drop? It will be $600 through Christmas 2007. The earliest I could imagine any kind of price drop would be spring 2008. If the sales lag during 2007, it could do major damage to Sony.

Based on the reasoning that anyone spending $500-600 on a gaming system is doing so because of it's significant advantages over current systems, and the largest advancement the PS3 has over PS2 is image resolution. So one would assume that given the choice between hooking up their PS3 to an HDTV, or to their secondary SDTV, the majority are going to go for the HDTV.

If you have reasoning to think otherwise, please state it.

I have many reasons otherwise:

Some people like getting game stuff first, independent of the state of their home theater.

Some people just want to play the next Metal Gear Solid/Final Fantasy game.

Some people will buy it because it says Playstation.

Some people will buy it to sell it on ebay.

Some people will buy it for their kids, and not hook it up to their main TV (if they even have an HDTV).

Those are just a few reasons I can think of.

What would constitute lagging sales though? Only 4 million units sold? Only 2 million? That's still a significant number of PS3s that could potentially create regular BD consumers.

Ah, but the real question is, how many units PLUS attached media will it take to convince studios to stay exclusively with BD? Because Sony sold BD to the studios with the promise that the PS3 would boldly carry BD into everyone's home.

If the PS3 were $400 for the premium, then they might have been able to pull it off. As for now, I would be very hesistant to use the word "potential" when referring to anything about BD.

In the end, the point is, you could very well be right. But I could be just as right. And if I am, all of your arguments go right out the window.

If they even have motives. I stand by my supposition that Sony is just plain stupid. They take the easiest road to product development, and cheapest if possible, although the PS division seems to behave a bit differently than others on the cost issue.

They also think consumers are stupid, so they don't have any reason to not be stupid themselves. And, unfortunately, they are often correct.

The topic was of people who already have HDTVs putting the PS3 on a non-HDTV. So this reason doesn't apply.

Doesn't apply to attaching it to a non-HDTV though. They may only be wanting to play games, but if they have an HDTV they'll be wanting to play it on that.

So....they're not going to use it?

Not applicable, since the unit will eventually end up with an actual user, who is the person we're actually concerned about. You may as well have mentioned the original retailer, who is just going to let them languish unused in a box until someone else buys it.

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A possibility, although $500-600 isn't money you just throw around; there'd have to be strong justifications for the upgrade, with a main one being increased resolution. And if it is an amount of money the parent can just throw at their kids, one would wonder at the state of their secondary TV.

Dude, I'm not going to argue this with you anymore. Clearly you are positive that the moment people open their PS3's, their first thoughts will be to run to Best Buy and purchase Blu-ray discs. I'm just trying to point out that your logic is really just your best guess, and there's no way we will know how people will react until the PS3 actually comes out. You could be right. But I could also be right. I'm going to leave it at that.

haven't been in this section for awhile. I see the "PS3 is going to sell a gagillion BD discs" stuff is still going on. oh well, I guess I'll check back in another month and see if anything changed then.

No idea. How many units plus attached media will it take to convince Universal to stay exclusively with HD-DVD, or better yet, to convince Universal to cover BD as well? I figure Columbia will stay BD exclusive until the bitter end.

I think raw sales will concern studios more than attachment rate. By the end of the year, HD-DVD's attachment rate will have to be 50-100 times better than just PS3's attachment rate for titles to match in sales.

Likewise with your arguments. I just assumed such an obvious observation was a given.

Check back in December.

Here is how I see it....if Sony ends up with any kind of backlog, it will probably constitute lagging sales. I say that because the 360 is at 10 million units and still isn't sitting in huge amounts most places. I think Sony will consider lagging sales if they don't sell at least as many PS3s as the 360 in the same time period. Judging by how high they are on their place in the industry, I would even think that merely doing as well could be seen as lagging, at least to them.

Personally, I could not believe when I had read that the 360 had that many units out. Amazed me.

Nope. In fact, I think a significant percentage of PS3 users will, at least intially, have little to no interest in BD video. However, given the sheer volume of PS3s planned to ship, even a small percentage is a significant number.

For example, HD-DVD shipped 20,000 units by end of June. Let's assume that number quadruples by end of the year, and all those units sell, making a total of 80,000 units. Given Sony's stated numbers of 4 million PS3s by the end of the year, if only 2% of PS3 users use it for regular BD video use, they've just matched HD-DVD users with just the PS3.

Yes, but at what attachment rate? The attachment rates on HD DVD players have been absurdly high. If 2% buy 3 titles each, that won't be enough to match HD DVD. Especially not by the holidays.

Xbox 360 had shipped 5 million units so far as of last month. 10 million is their projected shipments by November, which is slightly optimistic.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060721-7321.html

Microsoft shipped only 1.5 million units by the end of last year. Sony plans to ship more than that amount by launch, while planning to ship more than triple that number by the end of the year.

Again, due to the sheer volume of PS3 units expected, even a pathetically low attachment rate can match HD-DVD in number of discs sold.

Based on the same number of hardware units from my last post, an average attachment rate of 0.2 BDs sold per PS3 would match an attachment rate of 10 HD-DVDs sold per player in terms of units sold.

And that's still not counting any other BD players.

I have to say, i am shocked at how amazingly well Jay G is responding to the HD-DVD fanboys attacking him. Well played sir. I especially love the 2% of ps3's = all of HD-DVD comment, then someone replys saying "YAH BUT HOW MANY WILL BUY MORE THEN 3 MOVIES" blah blah. Amazing how blind most people on this forum are.

Bravo to you.

p.s. - Im going to buy 4 BD movies when i get my ps3 just to spite supermallet LOL

Actually, Blitz, what you're perceiving as a man defending himself against attacks is actually a person making a point, and another person making a counterpoint. That is called a discussion. It's not what you engage in. You make wild unsupported statements and then get shocked--SHOCKED!--when people dismiss you and ridicule you.

And you can buy 4 BD movies when you get a PS3. I'll be happy at home knowing you just wasted your money on badly encoded discs which will be played on a video game system.

And good luck getting that PS3, by the way. Maybe I can sell you one, just $3,000.

Mallet.

I already have my PS3 reserved and accounted for. Thanks for your concern however! And i appreciate the warmness you are offering to anyone not backing your opinion 100%, you're the greatest, dawg.

Look at my conversation with Jay. It wasn't a fight, or a shouting match. I didn't call him names. But you came in here, took one of my points, and said it was just "Blah blah blah." YOU threw the first punch, and again, seemed shocked--SHOCKED!--that I would retaliate in kind. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. You are no martyr.

Edit: And welcome to my ignore list. Jay, we can still chat.

This is so flawed it's not funny. Every single solitary HD-DVD player (including the XBox one) is guaranteed to move HD-DVD media. There is no other reason to buy one aside from movies. The dedicated BD decks fall into this category as well. Ps3 DOES NOT. There is no certainty that the BD deck in PS3 will translate into media attachment. The PS3 owner's "media dollars" will be, at best, split between games and BD movies.

I've said it for a long time; the adoption rate of the software is way more important NOW than the adoption of the hardware. HD-DVD's lower MSRP helps media attachment.

The more I hear about delays, and the higher prices for games, etc. the less I think that PS3 will be a success. As noted, it will be 2008 before the unit sees a price drop, and XB360 will surely have a drop in that time. PS3 will have two much cheaper competitiors both with less expensive games.

One area that BD is whippin HD's ass so far is public perception. By that I mean in the course of a night, I see at least two or three commercials that mention Blu-Ray. Tweeter mentions BD in their ads on the radio. Their media penetration is better. HD-DVD needs to pick it up on this end if they want to keep up.

Of course they used to mention movies on DVD and UMD but now there is no mention of UMD anymore...

I think the big HD DVD ad campaign starts up in a few weeks. I'm sure we'll start seeing an aggressive push at that point.

Did Sony move their estimates up? I thought we both agreed the "2MM at launch, 2MM more in 2006" was their real estimate.

Im sure it will. But, that doesnt matter. Like you said, all electronics drop in price.

The production cost for the PS3 is still higher than previous gaming systems. So, it will remain at a high price for a while. Even if it drops in price, the Xbox and Wii will probably always be priced lower.

In the past, Sony has driven price. Now, the shoe is on the other foot.