back to article A PS3 price reduction? You must be kidding!

Sony has no intention of helping cash-strapped gamers avoid the credit crunch. The firm has confirmed that there’ll be no UK PlayStation 3 price cut this year. David Reeves, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), this week told website videogaming247 that SCEE is “not going to drop the price this year”. …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How much more do you want?

    It's had £150 price cut since launch (£425, now £275), and the HDD spec had been upped.

    You are already getting one hell of a deal for the current asking price, considering the tech inside.

  2. Sam Green

    Nnng?

    "which retails for around £200 (€134/£107)"

    That broke my head. I need an emergency trip to the pub, and quick.

  3. Eddie Edwards
    Pirate

    @ AC

    It's also had a major feature cut since launch. Personally I wish your employers would add the GS back and make it PS2 compatible rather than reducing the price further.

    Anyway I bet it has a price cut before Xmas whatever Reevesy says.

  4. Matthew Terrell
    Paris Hilton

    How much more...???

    ... How about the moon.... on a stick... yesterday!

    Paris, because she should be "on a stick"!

  5. DiskJunky
    Unhappy

    not here...

    You won't find prices that low in Ireland... They're at least 100 euro more than what you've listed there

  6. Gerard Krupa

    Re: How much more do you want?

    "How much more do you want?"

    One or two games that are actually worth shelling out £40-50 would be good.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surprised?

    Of course he's going to say that though, isnt he? Lets face it, he's not about to say "Yeah, we'll be dropping the price in time for christmas, so all you people who were going to buy them now at the current, higher price might as well save yourselves a few quid and wait a couple of months."

    SCEE are in business to make money, and thats it. If they quash roumers of a price cut, more people will buy now, then curse their luck if/when the price does drop, all to the benefit of SCEE.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is this a surprise?

    You only cut the price if you need a sales boost.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Boo hoo

    and there they were, banging on about how Blu-Ray was going to take over the world, replace DVD sooner rather than later, and so on, all because likely the PS3 will be as cheap as £100 to £150 by Christmas.

    So certain were they. lol.

    Even the PS2 is has barely broken the £100 barrier (RRP), and that's after 8 years!

    The biggest mistake Sony made with the PS3 *if* they wanted it to be a successful games machine, was Blu-Ray. Should have dropped the BD stuff and launched it much earlier, letting developers get good titles out and allowing it to sell cheaper without the BD drive. I doubt many games really need to take advantage of the space on Blu-Ray anyway. Not for the important stuff (i.e. the actual game play rather than pointless movie cut-scenes).

    They might have even come out of HD cloud cuckoo land and spotted what Nintendo were doing and come up with a challenge to the Wii.

    Of course that would have meant Blu-Ray would never have "won" its pointless little war (as lets face it, it never stood a chance without the PS3), and we wouldn't have overpriced Blu-Ray films struggling to sell in a world that doesn't really give a rats about HD anyway.

    Paris - she's not concerned with the price of things.

  10. Alex Walsh
    Thumb Down

    It's still too pricey

    £300 is still too much. And frankly it's baffling to see Sony commenting on games driving sales- there are a few (mostly poor) system exclusives and all the multi-format games are inferior to the Xbox 360 versions.

    I'd love a PS3 but only really for the BR.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Eddie Edwards

    I don't think my employers can do much about it...

    Anyone crying about PS2 compatability has had plenty of time to pick one up, they only really have themselves to blame for missing out..

    Personally, I suspect that Sony is working on a full software BC solution which includes GS chip emulation. There are already PC emulators that do it, and they already have the EE side of things emulated.

    if they want to attract PS2 owners, then they need to throw them a bone.

  12. Rob Beard
    Gates Halo

    Well I won't be buying one this christmas

    Although I've been hankering after a new console (to sit beside the Wii) I'm not going to be buying a PS3 this year. Saying that I didn't invest in a PS2 until about 3 years after it's release.

    Sure I can see the attraction of Blu-Ray (rather than buying a standalone Blu-ray player) but I think I'm probably going to invest in an XBOX 360 and HD-DVD drive so I can pickup a few bargain films at a fiver each.

    Rob

  13. John HInchliffe
    Thumb Up

    Xbox 360 60Gb Price

    £179.98 on Amazon - bargain!

  14. TimM
    Thumb Up

    @Rob Beard

    HMV are doing many HD DVDs for £2.99 now, delivered! :-)

    Dead format, but who cares. It's cheaper than renting and you get an HD film out of it! Cheers Sony :-)

  15. eddiewrenn

    Won't pay for the Blu-Ray

    I still don't get the fuss over Blu-Ray. Give me solid-state media (e.g. hard-drives containing uncompressed video files) over an over-priced, relatively-small capacity plastic disc.

    That's the reason I havn't shelled out on a PS3 - £200 is going on tech I don't need or want, so I plumped for an Xbox 360 and *may* pick up a PS3 in two/three years when it's cheap and finally has a proper games catalogue.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WE HAVE A WINNER...

    "Gerard Krupa • Friday 22nd August 2008 12:32 GMT

    One or two games that are actually worth shelling out £40-50 would be good."

    That's so last year...

    Seriously, I think most people won't have to much trouble coming up with 10 or 20 PS3 games worth having..

    Lets try...

    Grand Theft Auto IV

    Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

    Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

    Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

    SuperstardustHD

    Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

    Orange Box, The

    Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

    Ninja Gaiden Sigma

    Bionic Commando Rearmed

    Burnout Paradise

    GRID

    Unreal Tournament 3

    Resistance: Fall of Man

    Soulcalibur IV

    Madden NFL 09

    Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas

    NHL 08

    MLB 08: The Show

    Virtua Fighter 5

    Looking ahead to the rest of 2008, PS3 is where the great games are (Gears2 aside possibly).

  17. Iain

    @Mark (sorry, AC - good idea)

    Umm, your list of 20 games consists of no less than 14 that are on other, cheaper platforms. 15, if you don't count NG:Sigma, which is just an enhanced version of the XBox game. So that's why people who already own 360s complain there isn't much to entice them over.

  18. Vince
    Thumb Up

    Games

    Ps3 no price cut, doesn't matter, the longer they wait the worse it'll get for them. Xbox has pretty much every game PS3 has, expect the ones made by Sony.

    Face it, Xbox has all the games, the user community, and a whole lot more. They can go toe to toe with PS3. Now if Xbox creates a new box in the next couple of years and messes that up, then PS3 will come out on top, but it all comes down to what MS is going to do and how PS3 is going to counter it.

    So for someone to list a bunch of games and say that the PS3 will have great games, that maybe true, but make sure you look up the list, more then 90% of those games listed are also on the xbox with the same or better graphics.

    Games for the xbox to watch out for:

    Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Final Fantasy (why FF cuz it's finally coming to a MS platform)

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: £179.98 on Amazon - bargain!

    Not really a bargain, 360 is pretty much end of life these days, and on life support..

    It's also not really £180, as Microsoft will gouge you for more money at every oppertunity.

    Want to play online? £50 a year please.

    Want to connect wirelessly? £90 please.

    Want to play HD moves? Sorry HD DVD is dead.

    Want to play and charge? £25 please..

    And so on...

  20. Timi
    Alert

    Correcting the ps3 fanboy's comment on MS pricing

    errr as an xbox 360 owner i would like to correct this 'anonymous coward' above me on a couple things, -

    Want to play online? £35 a year. Fair enough its more than the Playstation's free network but its also a couple hundred times better

    Want to connect wirelessly? £50 please. You win this one lol. But when added onto the overall xbox 360 price its still the cheaper console

    Want to play HD moves? Sorry HD DVD is dead. True, but how many blu-ray dvds do you have? how many do you buy a year? buying a ps3 just for the blu ray is a waste of money. It would be smarter to get a fully dedicated blu ray player. Put it this way, - would you prefer a Handyman to fix your plumbing? or a certified plumber?

    Want to play and charge? £9.99.

    All in all youre source of information sucks. With MS you get great service for what you paid for (apart from RROD lol)

  21. Alex
    Boffin

    @Timi

    Agreed with the more realistic pricing, Timi. But I'll bring you up on one major flaw in your theorem:

    I very much doubt that the majority of PS3ers bought the console PURELY for BR. Nope, not even a single percent (i'm sure). BR is an added bonus. The PS3 was benefited by sales coming from peeps buying it becasue it had BR INCLUDED, yes, but I can not accept your comment. Put it this way: would you prefer to have an off contract certified boiler engineer fix your boiler, or your Gas Supplier? (I know which one will be cheapest AND be certified at the same time! ... yes your supplier) So why buy a standalone player, when for the price of say 90 pounds, you get BR as well. Job done

  22. Iain

    @Alex, Timi

    Of the first 10 people I know who bought PS3s, every single one was at least primarily to use as a Blu-ray player. Two of those have yet to have a game disc even put in them to this day, because they have no interest in videogames.

    I can buy a standalone for £160 from Amazon now, but until 6 months ago the PS3 remained the best player at any price, and remains the best without spending more money on a high-end Panasonic.

  23. Alex
    Stop

    @Iain

    I truly can not believe that mate. The only peeps to actually buy a PS3 for the BR purely would be a (and I use this term loosely due to these guys paying stupid money for AV hardware) cheap-skate AV-phile. Again, the vast (VAST) majority of PS3 owners ARE buying games. It's only (and even though this is a guess, it's probably VERY true) a % or two that would consider buying it for just that. No one in their right MIND would buy a PS3 purely as a BR machine... I agree with you, it was the best BR machine out there, but even so! If anything, the PS3s AREN'T being used for BR, but that's another topic, and flame-war that is already going on.

    Every single person I know that has one is a hardcore gamer. The majority have a Xbox360 and the majority of the latter majority (still with me?) have a Wii. Yes, some do own just a Xbox and wii, and no I'm not going to get into who has what.. Counting off the top of my head, that's approximately all of my mates, brothers mates, and people at work (guessing around about 40-50 peeps). So say 30-35 have a PS3; ALL of them have and play games. Not one has just bought it for a BR..

    Iain, mate, not trying to antagonise you - just my experience.

    Maybe it's the social circles we mix in ;o)

    Anyway, prices change, and it's not surprising that the SCC isn't going to announce a price cut 4 months before Xmas (Naughty El' Reg for trying to stir...). It's a prize time for console sales. I would expect a price cut on all consoles for Xmas (apart from handheld NDS and PSP)

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