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PS3 Price Cut in April, Analyst Predicts
Wedbush Morgan's veteran analyst Michael Pachter anticipates that the 80GB edition of the PS3 will see its price cut by a huge figure this April, dropping from $399 to $299.
Along with this, he believes that Microsoft will announce in June, the month in which E3 takes place, that the price of the 360 Pro edition (oft called ‘Premium’) will fall $50, taking its retail value to $249. Pachter adds that the Wii – for obvious reasons – will not see a price cut.
"Once the PS3 is at a more affordable price point, we think that sales of that device will once again begin to grow” Pachter said in a note to investors.
Neither Microsoft nor Sony has claimed a price drop will occur.
Pachter also endorsed the estimates made yesterday by Jesse Divnich that the Wii will have sold a staggering number of units across America in December, predicting that more than 3.25 million units had been sold during the Christmas month.
Pachter differed, however, with the many commentators who believe that 2009 will be a rocky year for the game industry: "We think that concerns about weakening consumer demand for videogames are overblown," he said, adding that "in our view, the best indicator of future demand is hardware unit sell-through.”
In regards to that sell-through, Pachter again reflects the belief of Divnich that hardware and software sales will have soared last month, improving on 2007’s December retail performance by some17 percent.
"This bodes well for continued software sales growth, as a large installed base of hardware households is likely to continue purchasing some software, while new console households are likely to buy software to accompany their hardware purchases," he added.
NPD data on the platform holder’s sales performance in December is expected on Thursday.
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It wouldn't surprise me if this Wiiboy was another incarnation of someone we already know, except with a Nintendo slant rather than a Sony one...
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Developers are watching the PS3 hardware sales numbers quite closely right now. Sony may indeed be willing to drop the price by $100 to gain some much needed momentum in 2009. If the Sony numbers don't start to close the gap on the 360 numbers, certain developers will decide to stay away from the console altogether. Sony is currently offering decent money and incentives (dev. kits; marketing) to developers for the prospect of an exclusive (even if it's only for 6 months) but it won't be enough to get developers into bed if they don't see the console race start to favor the PS3.
Sony, please...please....please, drop your price by $100!!!
And on a side note, DC Online is not coming out until 2010...and I doubt it will be a system seller.
Let's see...What can Sony do to cut the price down?
Wiki says this about the SKU's:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3#Retail_configurations
So what from the list can we cut to make the PS3 cheaper? (after all, that is what they do to make it cheaper, cut features)
Not much left. They could cut it down to 1 USB port. Or they could cut out the Wi-Fi and make it wired internet only. But really there is nothing left to cut.
The two parts of the PS3 that makes it so expensive in the first place are the two things that make the PS3 the PS3. Cell and Blu-ray. Those cannot be cut.
I do wonder how much money those two extra USB ports, card reader, SACD support and the PS2 BC were really costing them. They were probably spare change compared to the two elephants in the room.
The only thing they can do to make the PS3 cheaper is to make the manufacturing process cheaper. That is not as easy as cutting features. Since that is the only thing left that they can do, we'll have to wait and see how that works out.
i have an extremely hard time believing Sony will drop the price by as much as $50, let alone $100 seeing as how they've already lost so much money to this point. however, i'm not Pachter and there's a reason he gets paid to make these speculations and i don't. period.
but he isn't always right, hence the term 'speculation', so i will remain cautiously optimistic.
i don't have a ps3 because the software library doesn't impress (and they've been rumored to cause hair loss) but a high-end Blu-ray player at $300 will absolutely get me off the fence, no question.
Sony need to make money at the moment and can't cut the price of the system because they simply can't afford to do so.
With the PS3 easily having the best line-up for 2009 out of the 3 firms, Sony can hang off a little longer as they potentially have 5 system sellers released this year i.e. Killzone 2, GT 5, God of War 3, Heavy Rain and DC Universe Online to name a few.
With such a great line-up for 2009, Sony should wait until Q4 before reducing the price of the system.
But that fact is that the xbox 360 Elite is cheaper than the PS3 80GB an i think it will always be that way.
Thats why i dont have one cos of the price.
Then again, it is Michael Pachter.
I'm not particularly sure how much faith we should be putting into his predictions.
PS3 costing $448.73 in Oct.2008 compared to $690.27 in 2007. So they are still loosing money but the cost of the PS3 is coming down. You can find the link to the article here:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/sonys-playstation-3-costing-it-les...
Well I'll guess we'll see what the next few months brings..
Although I can't see Sony pricing the Playstation 3 below that of the Xbox Elite. I terms of value for money at the existing price the Playstation 3 in my view is still better than if you were to directly compare the price with that of the Xbox Elite.
Where the value for money slides is when you consider that each of the Xbox's peripherals can be bought separately, building you system and be achieved modularly rather than one outright purchase which is my view is a very good idea, not saying that Sony should copy Microsoft approach but you can see the advantages of having three systems at various incremental levels.
Now is definitely NOT the time to considerin buying a Playstation 3, since there will be such a big $100 price drop in April.
Waiting that short amount of time is like waiting for $100 free dollars. It's not like anything special is going to be released during that time period...So, it makes a lot of sense to wait for April.
Kim_Naroz said:
Now is definitely NOT the time to considerin buying a Playstation 3, since there will be such a big $100 price drop in April.
It's only speculation. If the price cut doesn't materialize then one will only look like the guy below.
Are you Pachter's and Greenberg's son or what?
But wait Gyak, he actually is hinting that the actual possibility of purchasing a PS3 exists and may even be a good idea. He says it makes sense to wait for April to buy a PS3. He actually said it MAKES SENSE TO BUY A PS3. An honest mistake, or an obvious change of heart from ol kimmy over there? I'm going with the former.
LOLOL funny shit Nick.
Thanks Ryda. Kim has been in rare form today.
Sony is still losing money on each console sold and simply cannot afford to drop $100 or their shareholders will abandon them in even greater numbers than they already have been. I expect they'll drop $50 in April, but there's no way they'll drop $100 unless they are desperate enough to risk sinking the company at that point. Given Stringer's recent comments reiterating a profit over market share emphasis there's no way it will be $100.
MS will probably drop the Elite and Pro by $50 at E3 and maybe drop Arcade by $20 or so if the Sony price drop proves effective for a month or two. However, if PS3 sales remain tepid they'll likely hold tight at the current price point a bit longer.