In a radio interview George Fornay, president of Sony Computer Entertainment France and vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, stated that the PS3 will cost between 500 and 600 euro. Comparing to the X360's prices, 300 and 400 euro, that is quite a difference.
I'm taking this with a grain of salt, since it's not exactly an official statement by Sony. Then again, if it turns out to be true, the war for the holiday season shopper's money might turn out to be very interesting. This makes the christmas next-gen console line-up quite intriguing:
Putting the features next to eachother, reveals an interesting strategy of the big 3. Nintendo is aiming for a back-to-the-roots console, with a unique controller. Cleary concentrating on gameplay and not going along with the performance hype, which is a good thing I think. Microsoft basically offers their customers the choice what they want based on their needs, while delivering a powerful HD console. Sony on the other hand, provides a all-in package. Wether you need WiFi and Bluray or not, you're going to pay for it. And all this obviously translates to the price points.
Is Sony shooting itself in the foot?
The early adopters will not feel any remorse when they throw 500 to 600 euro on the counter for the new console. Without a doubt the console will be sold out during launch, as they projected 1 million consoles to be initially available worldwide. A Xbox 360 availability scenario is looming for PS3. This might also be why they put the price point pretty high. The problem I foresee is getting the casual gamer to pay that amount of money for a console, while everyone got used to the €400 sweet spot and Nintendo offering a cheap console. So either they will have to lower the price drastically when units are more readily available (until then, Nintendo and MS have even more time to expand their userbase), or simply forget about a huge userbase this time around... Sony is probably hoping for videophiles to get the system for the BluRay drive, but I sincerely doubt mainstream sees the benefits of HD movies and on top of that, the HDTV installed base is not that big either.
Sony's excuse? "...while this might sound like a lot of money for a game system, it is in fact cheap for a Blu-ray compatible playback system." Which is true, but this reveals a new strategy to me. With the PS2, Sony pushed DVD to mainstream consumers through the popularity of their console and their game franchises. This time around the marketing buzz seems to be the opposite: they are pushing their expensive console through the "future popularity" of BluRay. Wether they will succeed in this endeavor, remains to be seen. Considering Sony's previous attempts to push a proprietary format, they can only hope that history doesn't repeat itself.
What does this mean for the competition?
You can rest assured that the 360 will be on the shelves in big amounts, so I expect a killer holiday sales number for Microsoft, Japan not included obviously :p Clearly Sony nor Nintendo will have their production and stock at MS' level. I predict Microsoft will either drop the price a little, or make a special bundle. For example a 360 Premium with 2 platinum titles OR one new title. My bets are on the bundle ;) This would up the pressure on the contenders even more, and potentially create a huge sales momentum for the 360.
If Nintendo is going for the somewhat lower price point as I'm expecting, I see them doing very well this generation. They got quite some nice cards in their hands, a very nice playable back catalogue, a unique controller, solid and famous franchises, and most likely an attractive pricing.
Next holiday season however, the best cards will be in Microsoft's hands. A big next-gen game catalogue, a proven online gaming service, high availability and average pricing. A few months later, when PS3 and Revolution are more readily available, Halo 3 will be released (slated for March 2007). A very good strategy if you ask me, because they counter the competition and third party games wont have to compete with Halo during the holiday rush.
Nobody can predict what will happen. However, as far as I can see, Microsoft is doing their very best to expand their userbase, and has a well thought out plan to do just that. Nintendo goes back to the roots of gameplay and Sony just wants everything in their console :) Who will turn out to be the most successful this next generation? In the end it all comes down to the games and what the fanboys will do :D
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