Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Sony Playstation 3 Price - Deal or Steal?

Sony Consumer Entertainment (Sony) declinations to comment on the expected retail price of its date undeclared release of Playstation 3 (PS3) has not stemmed speculation.

Chris Morris in this week's column of Game Over at CNN Money.com comments on his recent survey of game developers concerning the expected release price of PS3.

There wasn't universal consensus, though. Some predicted the price would be closer to $450, others said they wouldn't be surprised if it was as high as $600. $700 was mentioned by a couple of developers, though even they said the number seemed unreasonable. And one game maker felt Sony would try to stay in line with Microsoft, offering the PS3 for just $399.

Bleeding edge technology like the Blu-Ray drive that Sony has announced it will include in PS3 is expensive. It has been reported that Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Consumer Entertainment, told attendees of a 2005 corporate meeting "it'll be expensive."

Chris Morris has suggested that Sony is "head faking" the competition and consumers by allowing a high price - as compared to Microsoft's Xbox 360 - to circulate. Similar to what occurred before Sony's PSP was launched.

Analysts, journalists and even publishers were wildly grasping for a solid clue about the launch price of the handheld device. (Atari's CEO even publicly proclaimed he expected the PSP to sell for $500.)

PSP launched at $249 - expensive but far less than the mind set Sony allowed. "$249, what a deal! I was expecting in the neighbor of $500 . . ."

Read Chris Morris here.

Hat tip to Gamespot.com for the ongoing updates linked here.

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