PlayStation 3: $499 – Developers Speak

Um, $499 for a PS3 next year, or $150 for a Revolution (or whatever they end up calling it) this year? What a tough choice...

...NOT!

what about £s?

I'd be amazed if it's more than £299


(by the way SPOnG, this AC skin rocks!!)

So consumers get YET ANOTHER movie format foisted upon them and pay a premium for the honour. Lovely.

To be honest, all the PS2 had going for it was the sheer volume of software - it's best games were no better or worse than the GameCube's, there were just far more of them.

Let's hope Nintendo can claw back some support this time around and match the breadth the Sony machine had this generation.

I'd be amazed if it was £299, especially since we seem to get hit by the financial bitch stick from abroad a lot.

Also, I'm not sure, but i think the equivilent of VAT differs from state to state in the U.S. and so what we see as the set price, is actually the set price less tax - the actual price bumps everything up significantly. I'm thinking more like £350.

Yeah. PS3 all the way baby! And I'm not being sarcastic.

Well we have historically been hit with direct Dollars to Pounds prices (£499) but recently (PSP) we have had direct Dollars to Euros and conversion to Pounds plus a bit, which makes £360 - £380 a likely price point. However, if we get Dollars converted to pounds, we are looking closer to £300.

Conversions above are based on today's currency prices from xe.com.

Personally, I'm expecting £360.

Gafunfun gaga do gago tiiiuu, ghehehe PS3 gfuuuunn!!! YHEAAAA hihihi hii hihi hi...

Indeed it does vary state to state - and even county to county (subdistricts within each state - larger than a town or city - except in the very major cities such as New York, which has several, Houston, which is its onw, and so forth).

Here in Nashville, TN, it's basically 10%. That's high for the U.S., but we have the "benefit" of no state income taxes here, which most states have.

Of course, that's why our serivces tend to be among the worst in the county...But hey, I'm young and don't have kids, so it's fine by me (but also a reason I'll move when it is time to start a faimly)

Oh yeah. 499, huh? too expensive for me, even if I were interested in one. I imagine that most people will wait for a price drop (but of course, there will be that initial surge that sells out most PS3s when it's released, but that's no indicator)

The point I was trying to make was that converting the Dollar into Pounds fails to take into account that tax for goods differs from state to state and isn't accounted for in the price quoted by retailers in the states.

Thus any conversion would have to include a 17.5% mark up and then probably rounded up to the nearest £10 increment. Which apparently would come out to around £335 (ditto with using www.xe.com for conversions). Although I believe that's a unlikely so
assuming a small mark up, would give us the same £350-380 ball park figure.

Hopefully we're seeing the end of straight dollar to pound conversion shafting, I strongly disagree with Europe constantly paying a premium for (in general) lesser services, functionality and availability of games (although the PS3 being region free for games rocks hard in this respect).

Yeah, that's the excuse the console manufacturers have been using since the big bang to justify the Dollars direct to Pounds prices. Our prices usually include the 17.5% VAT charge, so they have to be higher, etc, etc.

I've never seriously suggested the price would be a straight conversion to Pounds from Dollars because we live in "rip off" Britain. I'd only quote conversion to Pounds prices to see how much we get ripped off.

You all seem to be forgetting that if you want one in the first six months, you're going to be paying $2,000 from some s**t on eBay.

I am willing to bet there is no consoles around anywhere for half a year and that SCE's production routines simply will not cope with even a fraction of the demand.

Xbox 360s shifted for over $2,000 and they were cheaper, less desirable and will likely prove to have been more abundant.

This is a RARE PlayStation 3 IN HAND READY TO SHIP we're talking about. It's going to destroy everything in its path.

Rougly what we thought it would be, but a little steep too. Will I buy one on launch day? Probably not because I'm still enjoying my PS2, which I only got a year ago (cheers again Spong).

The reason I did not purchase a ps2 earlier is because Sony love to keep their prices so high for so long, and I already had a dvd player. The Blu Ray might be new tech but PS3 would have been cheaper if they'd just left all that to dedicated dvd players.

I might do the same again this time. Get 360 and Rev first then PS3.

Bring on the Rev.

What ever happened to the "revamped PS3 controller"?... Yeah, 499 for the console, then another 100 for a sony hard drive, 50 for a sony memory stick, and 99 for a controller.

How big of a hit is Sony taking on this machine? Seems kinda steep. Possibly a PSP repeat, where hardware sells well, but software lacks. How many times can Sony be kicked in the groin before it falls. It's not as if they can fall back on their TVs or portable audio divisions for financial support.

If Im spending $500+ for a console, games, and "accessories" (aka manditory items), I might as well revamp my computer with some dual 7900's and a dual core CPU... I'd be basically getting the same deal, only now I can play play games while factoring a number with 500 zeros without any slowdowns...

I still don't see any reason to as why I should leap into next-gen consoles... the only thing that offers something new is the Revo...

What sold alot of people on the PS2 WAS the DVD playback option. One of the reasons Sony crushed Sega. Although Sony has been notorious in losing the format wars; beta-max, laser disc, and mini disc all spring to mind. Having a Blu-Ray drive is a good idea. Because we are ALL getting either a Blu-Ray OR an HD DVD player sometime in the future, unless your going to shun all future technology. It's a fact. One format is going to dominate and be the only choice, I only hope it's Blu-Ray. Microsoft is making an (read: ADD-ON!!!) add-on for the 360 to playback HD DVDs. This is saying that Microsoft admits that they should of had that built in, I infer at least. Or that they wanted to keep the cost of the system down and still compete with the Blu-Ray playback. I bet alot of people who own a 360 will end up buying one. Without any extra added game functionality or usage other than playing HD DVDs, makes the 360 a much worse option than the PS3. The games can be as big as 25 gigs (on the PS3)! No more 2 disc special editions. One disc baby! There's going to be alot that they can do with it and have an advantage over Microsoft with. If you disagree, think how the Gamecube was hindered by the 1.5 max capacity of their discs and how they couldn't fit any cg movies or extras in their games. I welcome Sony's choice and I think it's going to do phenominally well. I will of course scrutinize the launch and hardware as severely as I did the 360. No special treatment for anyone, unlike some of you posters.