They're not the first company to have "too much riding on it to mess it up". And yet, some of those companies did mess up. Sony is not untouchable.

"They won't fail because they can't (afford to) fail" seems to be a bit circular.

Does anyone really think that Sony is stupid enough to try and sell a $700 console? Even if the console costs $900 to make, Sony would still make more money by selling a lot of consoles at $450-$500 than very very few consoles at $700. I was talking to a Sony rep yesterday, and he said Sony is expecting Microsoft to do a 360 price drop by $100 when the PS3 comes out. He also said Sony realizes the average consumer won't see a huge difference in the graphics of the PS3 vs 360 initially. So obviously Sony knows their competition and the market. No way this comes out at higher than $500.

Major agreement!

They will not sell out at $700 Not even at $500 unless they ship very low quantities like the Xbox 360 did at launch. The PSP was readily available on launch day because Sony chose to increase the price to $249 from the Japanese launch price of $189. The Xbox 360 put down the price gauntlet at $399, if the PS3 launches any higher than that, sales will suffer greatly. I even think that if Xbox 360 would have shipped any reasonable quantity at launch (>1M), everyone that wanted a 360 would have gotten one at launch. I don't think there is that big of a market at $400 for a console.

That is exactly the time that I may be in the market for a 360. $300 is the max price that I will pay for any console this generation. Period.

I still say it's going to be $500 - the Blu-ray player alone should push the price above the 360. There has to be some perceived value to the latest and greatest technology.

The PSP is still an insane example, as that system SHOULD have cost at least $299. And people are buying UMDs, which is also insane. No one could have accurately predicted this stuff - and those that did just happened to be right in this case. It could just have easily swung the other way.

Sony has already gone on record and said the system will be expensive. To me, that doesn't mean "the system will cost the same as the competition." I hope it launches at $500, I hope it's a big failure and I hope Sony realizes that doing their own thing (UMD, Pro Duo, Blu-ray) is hurting the industry. Forget this "living room doninance" bullshit and get get back to the business of making FUN GAMES.

This is probably true. However, to a gamer, any added cost is a negative. Sony's plan should be to use the PS3 as a Trojan Horse to get BR players into households to spur the media sales and shut down the HD-DVD camp. You can't say to these people, "but the extra money is worth it because you get this other unrelated functionality!"

Now, to techophiles, that's another story. They see the value of both and would actually consider themselves ahead.

:bow: :bow:

True, but they saw what happened to Nintendo, so I'd be shocked if they fuck this up.

They have huge brand loyalty to help them, though i suppose that could make them overconfidant.

At any rate, I'd be shocked if there wasn't a $400 PS3 on store shelves this holiday season (well, they'll probably sell out instantly so not on shelves, but you get the idea).

Again, history shows us that this is also bullshit. Sony said the exact same thing about the PS2. It was going to be expensive. Analysts estimated the machine would cost $900. You know what happened in the end? Sony launched the thing at the exact same price as the PS1 launched at. Its called delivering a false sense of a bargin - make you think you are getting a great deal even if it cost a lot (because you thought it would cost a lot more). I'm not going to bite on any of this, because its just a repeat of the PS2 pre-launch era.

This is a little different. DVD players were on the market mainstream 2-3 years before the PS2 came out. There are virtually no BR out on the market right now. For them to say that they are spending $300 on the drive wouldn't surprise me. That is how much I spent for a first gen DVD burner. You can get the same one for $60 now.

I agree with this completely. When the PS2 came out DVD players were already being sold for less than $200. Right now HD-DVD players are starting to be announced and the cheapest player I've seen is $499 with most being between $799-$999. I'm guessing (just a guess, I could be wrong) that BluRay players will be priced around the same. I don't see the PS3 costing less than a stand-alone BluRay player.

If the PS3 actually launches in 2007, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that both HD-DVD and BR players drop in price after the first holiday season. Not much, I'm sure, but possible.

Another thing to note here is that Sony is planning to make PS2 versions of PS3 games through 2008 at least. So the PS3 may be $500, and cater to people who have HDTVs, while the PS2 stays around and gets the same games, just with PS2 level graphics. People with less money buy a PS2, people with more money buy a PS3. But it won't be $700, and it won't be 2007. All these analysts must be living on Neptune to make those kind of predictions.

True, things are a bit different this time. Before, Sony had to pay royalties the DVD Forum (where they established by then?) in order to provide DVD playing capability on each and every unit (Microsoft got around this by requiring the purchase of the kit - the payed the royalty with each kit instead of each console). Now they don't have to pay that fee. Also, last time Sony foot the majority of the bill for the Emotion Engine, but now its been split pretty evenly between IBM, Toshiba, and Sony. Also, technically Blu-Ray has been out in Japan in one form or another for the past two years. It has just now been standardized.

Wait, isn't Sony part of the DVD Forum?

Sony is going to sell the console at a loss, that is for sure. I honestly can't see Sony going into this thinking that a $500 or more console would work. If I had to guess I would say $399.99 and they just eat the balance of the cost. It will probably be worth it to them to crush two major competitors at once. Microsoft and HD-DVD.

Assuming there's no supply problems, Sony will sell about 1MM PS3s in a very short time (whether thats hours or days or weeks we don't know yet). Taking a $100-300MM loss is no small matter.

Sony paid no royalties on DVD for the PS2.

That is what I thought. They are part of the forum why would they pay money to themselves.

:lol:

Where does that information come from?

From reading your posts, I halfway think you work for Sony.

= J

Come on a machine that can render a pixar movie in real time has to cost $900. :lol:

Luckily, the same article which made the speculation about PS2 rendering Toy Story graphics, also has a blurb about the rumored price:

http://terror.snm-hgkz.ch/mirrors/ww.../n990228b.html

And BTW, Sony owns no patents on the DVD technology, so they did have to pay the DVD Forum who then gave the money to the group of companies that owned the patents.

Finally found some information on that. Yes, they belong to the DVD Forum but they still pay the DVD Forum. A little strange that, but apparently several technologies were combined for the DVD standard and as you mentioned those patent holders get paid. Sony is one of the patent holders apparently as they and Phillips have a patent on the push, pull tracking used. So I guess they pay themselves at least partly. I could not found out anywhere how much the fee is per PS2, but I found estimates of $2-$5.