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Gamespot wrote:Report: PlayStation 3 to cost £425 in UK
UK price of high-end version of Sony's next-gen console may cost $200 more than US counterpart; no-frills 20GB model may not be option in region.
By Staff, GameSpot UK
Posted May 19, 2006 2:51 am PT

Sony Computer Entertainment UK has confirmed that the retail price of the 60GB PlayStation 3 is currently planned to be £425 ($799) in the UK--although there is still a possibility that this will change before November's launch. SCEUK MD Ray Maguire told industry magazine MCV that the "60GB version looks like £425 in the UK at the moment".

However, there is no guarantee that the cheaper 20GB console will be launched in the UK. "The lower-end 20GB version of PlayStation 3 has no Wi-Fi, no HDMI, and none of the other slots in it, so it's really a question of where we would position it. It's more likely that we will only launch the 60GB version," Maguire told MCV.

A price point of £425 would, at current exchange rates, make the UK console over £100 more expensive than a direct conversion from the $599 US retail cost, and about £10 more than a direct conversion from the European price of 599 euros announced at E3. The 20GB version will retail for $499 in North America.

Online retailer GameStation has closed its preorders for the 60GB console "until Sony are in a position to confirm initial allocation volumes".

The PlayStation 3's chief rival, the premium Xbox 360, currently sells for £279 ($525) in the UK. The same unit costs $399 in the US.

Dominic White, of the SA forums, wrote: Oh, and before some lolbertarian smartass comes in with 'EVIL TAXES HAHA', I'd like to point out that even if they added full 17.5% VAT onto the price, it'd be closer to $700, not $800.

Also, they often bypass full tax on consoles. A Premium 360 over here costs £280 - approximately $530.

So, me to Sony: Fuck you guys, I'm buying a Wii to complement my 360, and won't be touching your console until it's £300 AT MOST, and even then I'll be hesitant to go near it.

So let me get this straight: Sony has a shockingly high-priced console that they decide to retail in the UK for an even higher price. And that makes sense... how?

Let's put this in some perspective. Aside from consoles released in the 70's when everything audio/video was expensive, there have only been two consoles to match the PS3's price, the Neo Geo and the 3DO. The Neo Geo was a success, but only because it was used in arcades. I never spoken to or even heard of anyone who owned the home console. The 3DO was one of the biggest failures in console history, so catastrophic that the company never made another console again. Seeing the wrecked remains of previous attempts at high-priced consoles, Sony decides not only to release a $600 console as a follow up to two $300 consoles, but then to jack up the price for the mainland Europeans, and then jack it up even higher for the Brits.

Is there some chapter of "How to completely fuck up a console" that Sony is missing here? Because it seems to me like they've checked off every single item on the list. Unnecessarily high R&D cost caused by using the Cell, when off-the-shelf technology would have worked just as well? Check. Inclusion of a ridiculously expensive component that doesn't add to the console's ability to play games and few people care about or have the right equipment for? Check. Baffling price scheme? Check. Execs making ridiculous statements in public, so that the whole company looks like fools? Check.

Short of something absurd like egging developers' houses, I don't see how they could have possibly botched this worse.

Fuck that, I'm seriously thinking about going for the Wii. The industry seems to be in a mess.

Meh, gonna stick by my PS2 / PC combo for a while longer then.

I'm still trying to figure out what market they could possibly be aiming for. Children can't afford it, neither can your average student unless he/she is willing to forego any other form of payed entertainment, parents aren't very likely to buy it for their children when they see a virtually identical system selling for half that price...

Who's left ? Lottery winners ? Yuppies ?

2000AD wrote:Meh, gonna stick by my PS2 / PC combo for a while longer then.

Same here, not that I was planning on getting a PS3 anyway, just one more reason not to.

Although, I might get a 360. My PS2 has become a bitch when it comes to playing DVDs; Donnie Darko, Natural Born Killers and Revenge of the Sith won't play in it now, they used to, but now the damn thing just makes irritating whirring sounds, have to play them on my PC.

Worst part for me - my slimline PSTwo is fritzing out, and I need a replacement. I'm not holding out for the AU$800 PS2, though.

I never spoken to or even heard of anyone who owned the home console

I have. Even played on it. Was pretty awesome. But he was rich.

The nerd inside me would actually kinda like to find an old NeoGeo. They had a huge range of samey arcade shooters and fighters, but it's like the late 80s arcade scene in one box.

Fuck Sony then. Like the SA goon said, I won't be touching it until it's below 300 quid. MGS4 is the only game I really want the console for right now. Other than that, I'm almost hoping this will bankrupt Sony.

Ninty, here I come.

But guys, the PS3 is more than just a game console it's a way of life! The price is too cheap for its greatness!

Hands up. Who here used their "media station" PS2 for more than gaming? Anybody? Anyone at all?

Kutaragi is full of shit. It's a fucking games console, and only the delusions of Sony execs. dreaming of a jack of all trades piece of hardware say anything otherwise. I certainly couldn't give a shit for Blu-Ray or any HD media format bar HDTV. And a 60 gig hard drive? Why? What's wrong with a decent and cheaper small drive or flash based card system?

The Cell chip I can understand, almost. It's alleged to be revolutionary in power and architecture, but we've all danced this dance before with the fabled "Emotion Engine". I remain skeptical at best of this delivering, because while the games previewed do look the mutt's nuts, they aren't "WOW!" like the hype suggests.

For 425 squid, I expect it to fellate me on command.

Admiral Valdemar wrote: And a 60 gig hard drive? Why? What's wrong with a decent and cheaper small drive or flash based card system?

I'd imagine the savings would be negligable. 60Gb drives are cheap as hell these days.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Hands up. Who here used their "media station" PS2 for more than gaming? Anybody? Anyone at all?

I did use mine as a DVD player for a while. Then it broke, and stopped playing DVDs, so I went out and bought a brand new standalone DVD player for $30 from Best Buy, and as a bonus I didn't have to deal with the Playstation's idiotic parental control scheme anymore (hello, I'm 25 years old and there are no kids in the house, I shouldn't need to imput a fucking code every time I want to watch Dawn of the Dead). Why Sony expects anyone to pay $600 to go back to that crap when most poeple don't even own a HDTV yet is a mystery to me.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Hands up. Who here used their "media station" PS2 for more than gaming? Anybody? Anyone at all?

Kutaragi is full of shit. It's a fucking games console, and only the delusions of Sony execs. dreaming of a jack of all trades piece of hardware say anything otherwise. I certainly couldn't give a shit for Blu-Ray or any HD media format bar HDTV. And a 60 gig hard drive? Why? What's wrong with a decent and cheaper small drive or flash based card system?

The Cell chip I can understand, almost. It's alleged to be revolutionary in power and architecture, but we've all danced this dance before with the fabled "Emotion Engine". I remain skeptical at best of this delivering, because while the games previewed do look the mutt's nuts, they aren't "WOW!" like the hype suggests.

For 425 squid, I expect it to fellate me on command.

That's the thing, the Neo Geo was such an amazing console that it blew away stuff that came years later. Sure, it was high priced, but even after the Playstation came out, there was stuff that the 5 year old, cartridge based Neo Geo could do better than the PS. Metal Slug, for instance, came out well into the PS's lifecycle, and was completely amazing in its colorful and fluid graphics.

The PS3, on the other hand, is either going to be slightly more impressive than the 360, or about the same. Its processor is potentially more powerful, but numerous experts have said that it will be a decade before the tools exist to fully utilize the Cell's architecture. They would have been better off putting together a quad-core, higher frequency chip than the 360. It would have been cheaper and yielded a larger advantage over Microsoft's console.

Microsoft had four years to put together the X360 (counting from when the X-Box was released). Sony had six. If they had simply released a console with architecture similar to the 360 but faster and better, they would have been a lot better off.

RedImperator wrote: I did use mine as a DVD player for a while. Then it broke, and stopped playing DVDs, so I went out and bought a brand new standalone DVD player for $30 from Best Buy, and as a bonus I didn't have to deal with the Playstation's idiotic parental control scheme anymore (hello, I'm 25 years old and there are no kids in the house, I shouldn't need to imput a fucking code every time I want to watch Dawn of the Dead). Why Sony expects anyone to pay $600 to go back to that crap when most poeple don't even own a HDTV yet is a mystery to me.

You had to put in code to play DVDs? I never had to do that with mine. I actually used my PSII a lot for playing DVDs.

What pisses me off is this region code crap. I bought several games in the US, e.g. Katamari Damacy (which is not sold over here) and can´t be played without one of these Boot Discs. I mean what the fuck? I pay money and can´t use it?

Anyway, the 425 pounds are ridicolous. I´ll get a Revolution or whatever its name´s going to be when it comes out.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Hands up. Who here used their "media station" PS2 for more than gaming? Anybody? Anyone at all?

I knew one guy who did until I beat into him a DVD player was cheaper in America.

For 425 squid, I expect it to fellate me on command.

Only? I expect it to clean my condo AND bathe the cat as well for that much.

Hands up. Who here used their "media station" PS2 for more than gaming? Anybody? Anyone at all?

I did and still do, although its getting a bit old now. It is a first generation machine.

did use mine as a DVD player for a while. Then it broke, and stopped playing DVDs, so I went out and bought a brand new standalone DVD player for $30 from Best Buy, and as a bonus I didn't have to deal with the Playstation's idiotic parental control scheme anymore (hello, I'm 25 years old and there are no kids in the house, I shouldn't need to imput a fucking code every time I want to watch Dawn of the Dead). Why Sony expects anyone to pay $600 to go back to that crap when most poeple don't even own a HDTV yet is a mystery to me.

You could switch that off in the settings you know...

I think Sony's throwing away their console market share lead in order to win the next gen format war.

If the PS3 were to end up with a 30% marketshare (down from the PS2's 70%), that would still mean about 40 million homes have Blu-ray, and probably kill off HD-DVD instantly.


Oh, and check this out.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3150935

SCEE CEO brimming with confidence regarding PS3. When Sony Computer Entertainment Europe CEO David Reeves admits that "key launch titles" will slip into 2007 he also admits that to Sony, it doesn't really matter what ships at launch.

"We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games," Reeves told Computer and Video Games in an interview. During the same interview, Reeves admits that Heavenly Sword, Motorstorm and Formula One will all see release in early 2007 within the PS3 "launch window." Insomniac's gritty World War II shooter (with aliens) Resistance: Fall of Man will be there at launch according to Reeves.

It's not games like Heavenly Sword slipping into the "launch window" instead of the "launch day" category that is concerning -- it's Sony admitting that even if there were no games to purchase, consumers would still be lining up en masse to grab the PS3.

We get it, Sony, you were the market leader for two solid generations of console making, but you might be placing a little too much faith in the perceived strength of your brand to ask people to fork over $600 for your console regardless of the available software.

Let me quote the relevant part again...
"We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games,"

Talk about arrogance.

We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games.

Hmm, that sounds so familiar. Oh right, that's basically what Atari said way back before the video game crash. Should we expect to see a million buried PS3s in the desert, too

Of course, knowing that he's talking about the diehard Sony fanboys, he might actually be right. But are there really five millions of them?

I'm getting visions of Palpatine and something to do with some unstoppable weapon system for wiping out the Rebellion.

Sorry, Sony, but I'm not a fanboy of such religious devotion as to buy something when it doesn't deliver the goods. Either I get my money's worth or you can kiss my queen heads goodbye.

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Hands up. Who here used their "media station" PS2 for more than gaming? Anybody? Anyone at all?

Kutaragi is full of shit. It's a fucking games console, and only the delusions of Sony execs. dreaming of a jack of all trades piece of hardware say anything otherwise. I certainly couldn't give a shit for Blu-Ray or any HD media format bar HDTV. And a 60 gig hard drive? Why? What's wrong with a decent and cheaper small drive or flash based card system?

I think that the argument is that the PS3 will be a media center as opposed to a simple gaming console (although, obviously, they need it to be a gaming console, too). I don't actually know what features it has beyond playing Blu-Ray discs, but media center PC's are handy and so if it managed to duplicate most or all of the features I get out of my system (while playing videogames) then I can easily see someone spending several hundred dollars on it.

As I recall, the PSX had all the media features of the PS3 (except the Blu-Ray player, obviously) and a few more besides. As I also recall, it was a complete flop.

Fuck that... £425 so I can play Gran Turismo and GTA. I can just go and buy a car, and play with super-realistic graphics! for the same price.

Dooey Jo wrote:

We have built up a certain brand equity over time since the launch of PlayStation in 1995 and PS2 in 2000 that the first five million are going to buy it, whatever it is, even it didn't have games.

Hmm, that sounds so familiar.

Personally, that sort of arrogance brings to mind Apple.