A Sony exec, namely Patrick Seybold, told potential Playstation 3 consumers that no holiday price cuts, let alone permanent, would be in the works as it would cost the company too much money. *FACTOID: Sony made $88.7 billion in revenue last fiscal year while Microsoft, whose company recently permanently dropped prices of their XBOX 360’s at least $50, made $60.4 Billion in revenue last fiscal year, $28.3 billion less than Sony*
While people with an HDTV are getting a 2 for 1 with the $399.99 PS3, it is still a little high for the average consumer. No help is the rumor that Microsoft has an external Blu-Ray player in the works that would sell for as little as $99.99.
While games like LittleBigPlanet and Resistance 2 will help a little with sales, the fact that the 360 has a bigger and ever-growing game library, the same quality graphics, and cost under $200 will have the cash strapped gamer prefer going for the 360.
Ben’s Opinion: Sony can’t seem to make their mind up on whether they are going to fully market and develop the PS3 when the PS2 is selling so well. The most recent bundle SCEA has come up with is a PS2 plus Lego Batman. Here’s a novel idea for a bundle: A PS3 with a PS2, that or put backwards compatibility back in. The deal is that Microsoft has stopped developing and making their original XBOX, which one has to assume is saving them some amount of money. How much money would be saved by stopping production on the PS2 and then passing those savings along to the consumer in the tune of a $50-$100 price cut to the PS3 and put backwards compatability back in on the high-end configurations (the 160gb).
When the Blu-Ray addon for the 360 does come out, Sony will lose a large advantage in the eye of the consumer. Sure the 360 won’t be able to play games from the Blu-Ray drive, but then again not many games other than PS3 exclusive games are really taking advantage of the higher capacity discs that the PS3 can use.
Sixaxis wouldn’t and isn’t be a huge advantage for 3 reasons:
1. The Wii’s motion controller works much much better, and if you’re going to buy a console based on it’s motion control, the Wii is the only way to go.
2. There’s a rumor going around that Microsoft is making a motion-based controller for the 360.
3. Really, honestly, who uses the sixaxis that much anyhow, and if you say you use it a lot, you’re lying.
While you can argue that the PS3 is more technologically advanced (and it is) all day long and that it’s better because of whatever reason, the fact of the matter is, that whichever console has the games that you like playing more on it, will be the better console for you. If you like casual games, it will be the Wii, if you’re more into hardcore games it will be the 360 or PS3, if you’re into MMO’s it’ll be a PC, whichever console is better is a matter of opinion, not fact, and (especially now) one of the biggest factors that affects people’s opinion, is the price. Sony might want to think twice about not lowering it during the holiday season, especially with the 360’s recent price drops.