PS3 vs Xbox 360 - Price wars

[franv8]

Okay - firstly for all the wind up numpties, meant this as a semi serious discussion, not 'only people of a certains exual orientation buy a 360' etc. etc.

Whilst the price of the 360 and PS3 matched a few months ago when the 40GB PS3 dropped to £299, it's been interesting to see the 360 price now drop to £160 for a core system or a decent deal (2 games, 2 controllers, HDD) for £199.

This surely brings the fight now very much to the Wii too (previously imho selling due to their excellent, unique fun formula target and significantly cheaper price than rivals), and puts less encouragement to PS3 ownership.

Discuss... (+ any predictions on ongoing sales figures)

[scorp]

My useless 10p's worth:

Microsofts machine is a lot cheaper to build (bluray+cell being expensive), they can afford to make these price drops. It would hurt Sony a lot to follow them down to 199.

Edited by scorp on Thursday 10th April 15:41

[escargot]

Quite scorp, and nor should they.

[franv8]

I wonder what the 'real' cost of the 360 is - and you ahve to remember warranty costs must have a significant impact here too - is this a Micosoft funded loss leader to reboost popularity?

[paul26982]

sony make a loss on the consoles and rely on the sale of games etc

[paul26982]

sony make a loss on the consoles and rely on the sale of games etc

[scorp]

paul26982 said:

sony make a loss on the consoles and rely on the sale of games etc

All sides do really (with a possible exception with nintendo), and your right, the majority of money is made on games sales.

[Steve Evil]

The Wii is the only console that makes any money, MS and Sony rely on software sales to make the money.

[BigAlinEmbra]

X360 + Bluray player isn't much cheaper though, is it?

And when you stack it up over 3 years, the 360 isn't cheaper.
£199 + 3*£40 = £319 vs £299.

Only deal breaker for me with PS3 is the PGR series, but I'm not willing to fork out £200 just for that.

[franv8]

Good point - I'd counter with this though:

What is the real demand for a blu ray player by your average Jo (I'll put myself in that) - looking at the prices of blu-ray media you can get a cheap blu ray media but you still seem to pay high end prices for the stuff you want to play on it?

I suspect the majority of console sales depend on the purchase price for the first set-up - i.e. console and one or two games + some of the essential accessories (hdd/headset etc.)

V good point about online costs.

[RobDickinson]

Nintendo have always made money on the hardware.

MS have been making money on the hardware sale vs cost of production for about a year, when you factor in other stuff (advertising etc) they made more loses but the entertainment division has been in profit for the last 2 1/4rs due to the 360 (cant be the zune eh).

In NZ the arcade 360 is $50 cheaper than the Wii, Nintendo have no reason to drop prices.

The 360 construction is a lot cheaper than the PS3, Cell, Bluray, internal PSU, better cabinet design etc. Sony cant match Microsoft on price on production and the PS3 has already eaten the PS2's profits and most of the PS1's, sony dont have endless deep pockets. But they managed it, they got the PS3 to a point where its survival is guaranteed if not an outstanding success.