PS3 price drops again

CiDeRmAn

PS3 price point has dropped again, Sony presumably trying and probably will succeed on raking in the cash people don't spend on Wii consoles this Christmas.
40Gb PS3 €400,
60Gb PS3 €499 until stocks last, and is the starter pack too!
And in Gamestop,
Preowned 60Gb PS3 consoles are only €350,
thats pretty good, and is surely quite a lump to swallow of you are a recent purchaser of the machine at the previous higher price point.

The new console packages are awaiting confirmation, that is what you'll get for your money, but I do know that the 40gb machines were delivered today, presumably for sale next week, Friday 12th of Oct.

The 360 is starting to look like the most expensive kid on the block, only its game line up can save it now, lets hope the lure of that Bluray player at that price isn't too much and folk still hanker for a spot of halo3 come december!

super_furry

CiDeRmAn wrote:

Preowned 60Gb PS3 consoles are only €350,
thats pretty good, and is surely quite a lump to swallow of you are a recent purchaser of the machine at the previous higher price point.

They are? I've €120 worth of Gamestop vouchers, hmmmm. Does that come with any games or game offers?

shockwave

Bastards! I only bought my ps3 last week €599:mad:

Belle Ende

60Gb PS3 €499 until stocks last

This is the system to go for, in my opinion.

,
Backward Compatibility with ps2 games will soon be totally gone for good once these €499 packs are gotten rid of.

tman

Belle Ende wrote:

Backward Compatibility with ps2 games will soon be totally gone for good once these €499 packs are gotten rid of.

Can you post your source for that?

Very tempted to pick one up now... shame there still aren't any games out that would justify the purchase:(

Belle Ende

tman wrote:

Can you post your source for that?

Very tempted to pick one up now... shame there still aren't any games out that would justify the purchase:(

http://www.gamingtarget.com/article.php?artid=7667

"The price of the 60 GB ''Starter Pack'' will also see a price reduction to €499 (£349 in the UK). According to Sony, this price is good ''while stocks last.'' So if you want a PS3 with BC, you might want to buy it now."

,

,
I think I'll pick up one of these backwards compatible PS3s very soon before just the non-backwards compatible ones remain.

CiDeRmAn

My sources are Qj.net and a staff member who I don't want to get into trouble, but its all there.
Since posting I have confirmed that the 60gb pack at €499 will be the current starter pack and will ahve the extra controller and 2 games, that should be across the board but only confirmed in gamestop. The package of two launch games and extra controller and the machine is underwritten by Sony so I assume the cheaper price point will be seen in HMV, Game and Virgin, so their current deal will all be getting 130 blips cheaper in the coming week!
The 60gb will be the one to own for that all important backwards compatibility and once they are all sold we can expect the 80gb and the 40gb to be the two available units the Christmas.
Given that the preowned price for the 60gb is now 350 I wonder what the 40gb will be set at? Depending how the Christmas season goes we could see a lot of kids trading in either the 360 or PS3 they just got for the console of choice, whoever wins the schoolyard debate and becomes the toy of choice for teenagers, surely one of the most important resources to be exploited by Sony and Microsoft, not to mention the trend setters, capture them and you could well capture the market for the next 6 years.

Belle Ende

"Once stocks are exhausted (of the b.c. 60GB model) the new 40GB model (minus the b.c.) will be the only one available in the SCEE territories."

,

,
This means that ONLY the gimped 40GB PS3 will be available across the EU, once the short supply of backwards compatible 60GB PS3 packs are offloaded.

1huge1

Clearly following nintendo's path in terms of price, but as soon as people find out that they wont be able to play their ps2 games on it they'll mostly change their minds, bad move

steviec

Losing BC is a big blow. There are far too many great PS2 games out there to make up for the price drop in my opinion.

That said, it makes it a very comparable bundle with the 360, and the 360 isn't compatible with PS2 games either (I really doubt many people who cared about games on the original xbox don't already have 360s)

tman

The problem for me is, I don't have a PS2 any more and still want to play some of the games from my collection that I never got around to playing (Okami and ICO mostly...), and still have some PS1 games that I'd like to have a quick blast at (Dino Crisis 2, SFA III)
Ah well, guess I'll just fork out €500 next week and complete my collection of consoles gathering dust...

d22ontour

Technically it would be the console of choice but its initial pricepoint plus all the shenanigans regarding screwing over eu consumers really has sony in an awful position this time round.To me sony has lost this console war this time around and even if sales pick up in a year or two will still lag behind the other 2.The only downside to this for me is that the numerous games companies who swore by the ps2 'and rightly so' will fall into decline because of the wii outperforming the other 2 players with little to no 3rd party support and as gamers we will lose out on many un-named potential gems because of A : The sony factor and B: Nintendos previous 3rd party games.I may not have mentioned the 360 but we all know it aint a world conquering console and will never be

MooseJam

if it drops another 150 I just might buy one

CiDeRmAn

Really, it sounds like Sony have a winning package on their hands, what they need is the kind of 3rd party support the PS2 and now the 360 really could count on, now we have the likes of PGR4 on 360 looking and playing beautifully, where is the PS3s answer? We are still put on the long finger for GT5. Maybe, now that Bizzare Creations are owned by Activison, perhaps we'll see the Gotham series appear on other formats, especially the PS3, it really needs a racer away from the dry Gran Turismo series and pitched a bit higher than Burnout.

I also stand corrected, the 40gb edition will be available from the 10th of October, thats Wednesday next.

Dont be at yourself

2008 is going to be the make or break year for Sony. Their first potential triple AAA titles in Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet and so on will be crucial. If they tank, then the PS3 is in definite trouble. If they do well, they'll be finally up and running.

projectmayhem

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

2008 is going to be the make or break year for Sony. Their first potential triple AAA titles in Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet and so on will be crucial. If they tank, then the PS3 is in definite trouble. If they do well, they'll be finally up and running.

absolutely. the line-up for 2008 is near flawless. it's hard to see 360 releasing equally important games that cater to such varied tastes. the only issue now is if they can sell enough systems. if they don't, they wont retain exclusivity with the talent at kojima studios and media molecule (companies sony don't own, but treat well enough to get exclusivity).

the only way sony can not screw up is by having even more ambiguous advertising and not getting the price right.

CiDeRmAn

A flawless lineup for Sony?
Killzone 2? I mean after the disappoinmnt of the first one on the PS2 and we al remember that was supposed to break Halo's hold on the FPS market.
And Little Big Planet is an unknown, aside from the demos and press going ga-ga over it there is no way of knowing how the gaming public, especially the casual gamer who is not so interested in online shenanigans, and these are the folks who are yet to buy the machine, will it sell loads?
The 360 has a relatively seamless online service and it has so many titles in the market now and so many yet to come it is hard to see the 360 as anything other than a success, the PS3 may outsell it over its lifetime but territory by territory its hard to see the PS3 selling more in the US or even in Europe as a whole than the 360, only in Asia will the PS3 easily outclass the 360 and even then it has a long way to go to outsell the Wii, perhaps it never will.

And the 40gb PS3 will retain PSone backwards compatibilty, happy days!

Dont be at yourself

And Little Big Planet is an unknown, aside from the demos and press going ga-ga over it there is no way of knowing how the gaming public, especially the casual gamer who is not so interested in online shenanigans, and these are the folks who are yet to buy the machine, will it sell loads?

Whatever about the holes in the PS3 forthcoming line-up, one area where it seems to have an edge over Microsoft and even Nintendo is in games targeted towards the wider, casual audience. Whereas the 360 is rich with games aimed at the 13-30 year old male, it has some serious lack of quality outside of the action/rpg/racer genres.

Sony, with games like LittleBigPlanet, Singstar, Eye of Judgement, Echochrome and so on will widen the appeal of the console. Playstation Home could approve very appealing to the Bebo crowd, but I guess the jury is out on that one for the time being.

monument

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

2008 is going to be the make or break year for Sony. Their first potential triple AAA titles in Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet and so on will be crucial. If they tank, then the PS3 is in definite trouble. If they do well, they'll be finally up and running.

Agreed.

Kiith

So, does the new 40gb version have the PS2 backwards compatability? Because if not, then i will definatly not be buying one. To remove one of the main selling points of the console is an absolute farce.

steviec

CiDeRmAn wrote:

A flawless lineup for Sony?
Killzone 2? I mean after the disappoinmnt of the first one on the PS2 and we al remember that was supposed to break Halo's hold on the FPS market.
And Little Big Planet is an unknown, aside from the demos and press going ga-ga over it there is no way of knowing how the gaming public, especially the casual gamer who is not so interested in online shenanigans, and these are the folks who are yet to buy the machine, will it sell loads?
The 360 has a relatively seamless online service and it has so many titles in the market now and so many yet to come it is hard to see the 360 as anything other than a success, the PS3 may outsell it over its lifetime but territory by territory its hard to see the PS3 selling more in the US or even in Europe as a whole than the 360, only in Asia will the PS3 easily outclass the 360 and even then it has a long way to go to outsell the Wii, perhaps it never will.

With regard to 2008, I think the PS3 is looking stronger than you give it credit for, in comparison with the 360.

I don't want to turn this into a list but MGS4, FFXIII, GT5, LBP, R&C, Uncharted, the next games in the God of War and Ico series, next gen Singstar, Buzz and Eyetoy, Echochrome, Wipeout, the increasing Japanese support (look up Valkyrie of the Battlefield for a nice example, or a whole slew of JRPGs that are coming) really cover pretty much all sections of the market that the PS2 covered. I agree Killzone 2 is being way overhyped and personally won't be surprised if Haze, UT3 and CoD4 will all be better representations of the genre on PS3. The 360 will probably remain the console of choice for FPS, but then that was no different last gen, if anything the PS3 is looking far better equipped for that genre than the PS2, while the 360 has branched out a little more into other genres than its predecessor.

As for 360 exclusives, there really aren't too many left. That's because the 360's best games have come from Epic (next game is on PS3 first), Bizarre (confirmed their future games will be on PS3), Capcom (no chance Dead Rising or Lost Planet would have been exclusives if the PS3 was actually on the market in time), Realtime Worlds (confirmed no Crackdown 2, next game is a PC MMO), Irrational (who reference a PS3 version in the config files of PC Bioshock, though they're denying a port will be released), Bioware (have said they're looking into PS3 development) and even Bungie are now independent from MS, though they've said they'll continue to focus primarily on Microsoft platforms. Other third party games like Ace Combat, Eternal Sonata, Kane & Lynch and Beautiful Katamari were all listed a few months ago as 360 exclusives, but have all been confirmed in one form or another for PS3 in the meantime now that it is gathering momentum.

I think as time passes we're going to see momentum sway to Sony more and more, because their exclusives are far more tied to first party development and ties with Japanese companies which are stronger than Microsoft's ties with western developers. Microsoft have been aggressive this gen however so we could still see them make some major exclusivity deals with third parties in the coming year, but based on what we know Sony have a far stronger exclusive line up next year.

RobertFoster

Kiith wrote:

So, does the new 40gb version have the PS2 backwards compatability? Because if not, then i will definatly not be buying one. To remove one of the main selling points of the console is an absolute farce.

It'll have none at all. Not even software based backwards compatibility like the Xbox 360 has. If you really want one, your best bet would be to get a 60GB one (comes with 2 games [and 2 BR movies in HMV] I think) when it drops to €499 on Wednesday. The 60GB will be discontinued though once stock is cleared.

I wonder if Sony will now announce an 80GB with full BC and other wonderful things for Europe. The somewhat crippled 40GB on it's own isn't really that appealing tbh.

estebancambias

Where are they selling the 499 euro playstation 3's? I was in gameshop and they said it's 600.

ntlbell

estebancambias wrote:

Where are they selling the 499 euro playstation 3's? I was in gameshop and they said it's 600.

not till next week

CiDeRmAn

Apparently it won't matter if you have the 40gb or 80gb, Sony aren't supporting their back catalog anymore, unless its hardwired into the machine already, as in PSone compatibility.
The things that cripple the 40gb are not without precedent, when they updated the original Playstation they removed the phono outs to have the ubiquitous sony AV socket and also removed the System link socket too.
On the PS2 they took away the ieee 1394 port, so they have always been stripping out features that few folk use.
The BC, as said, is an issue for those horders among us, or those fans of classic games, but, it must be said, those in that frame of mond will always have a PS2 to hand, and those that won't probably won't have a PS2 game collection to worry about.
It's just a pity that I can't pop Ico into the 40gb PS3 and play it, Sony just don't see a profit in it, no different really than MS who seem to be a tad slow in their own updates to the BC list, still can't play Chronicles of Riddick!

mcgovern

To clear up a few points.
Bizare was bought, but Microsoft retain the IP for PGR so it will not be on the PS3 ever.
The PS3 config files for Bioshock were not made by Irrational, they are part of generic Unreal Engine files.
Chronicles of Riddick will most likely not be added to the BC list as it is being re-released on the 360 with improved graphics etc and extra levels/content.

Captain Chaos

Belle Ende wrote:

"Once stocks are exhausted (of the b.c. 60GB model) the new 40GB model (minus the b.c.) will be the only one available in the SCEE territories."

,

,
This means that ONLY the gimped 40GB PS3 will be available across the EU, once the short supply of backwards compatible 60GB PS3 packs are offloaded.

The 60 should be replaced by the 80 by then. AFAIK the 80 will still retain BC with PS2 games.

The 40 will be BC with PS1 games only.

rabbitinlights

Id imagine if there will be a new higher-end model it will be at least 120GB (rumours of 160GB in Japan) to equal the Elite.

S.

LookingFor

Just a heads up, but apparently toward the end of October and early November, there will be Pro Evo and Spiderman 3 bundles (the former being €429 on the continent, the latter for the same €399). These might vary from country to country though, but some European countries at least will have them.

As for the PS3 08 lineup, it easily looks better than any of the other systems right now. 2007 may have turn out to be the 360's best year, but the best is yet to come for PS3. Oh, and re. LittleBigPlanet..

and these are the folks who are yet to buy the machine, will it sell loads?

...a game's quality has little to do with how well it sells. But if LittleBigPlanet pulls off everything it's aiming for it certainly deserves huge success, and it seems to be resonating very well with the hardcore, as much as any casual appeal it might have.

grimm2005

not sure how accurate this is but apparently the starter pack will be replaced by a value pack (much the same as we already have but with only 1 controller) according to wikipedia:

"with the 60 GB Starter Pack receiving a reduction in price to €499[24] except in Ireland and the United Kingdom, where the Starter Pack will be replaced by a £349 Value Pack with two first party games and one Sixaxis controller (as opposed to two controllers in the £425 Starter Pack)[36]). Once stocks of 60 GB PAL model are exhausted, the 40 GB model will be the only one available in the SCEE territories."

CiDeRmAn

We'll have to see what transpires now this christmas, Microsoft have it all to lose and Sony have massive shareholder pressure to finally sell a few consoles, Nintendo are laughing the arses off, bugger all dev costs, plenty of profit, once the public don't get bored of novelty mini game bonanzas and reiterations of existing franchises with awkward physical gestures tacked on to give the Wiimote and Nunchuk a place to earn their wages. Super Mario Galaxy can't arrive soon enough!

Regarding the availability of the various sizes and models of PS3, it seems very varied across the different territories, the US gets the 80gb and 40gb, Japan gets the 60gb and possibly a 160gb package, and we get the 40gb device and the 60gb for the time being.