7/9/07

Is Sony's Price Drop Really a Price Drop?

Well, one of my E3 predictions has already been proven wrong (but then again, this happened before E3 so I guess I'm still good) because Sony just announced today they will drop the price of the PS3 by $100. Starting Monday you should be able to find a PS3 in stores for $499.

I have a slight issue with this move though. They didn't just announce a price drop for their system, they announced a new SKU as well. This new SKU will be have a $599 price tag (same as it was before) but it will sport an 80GB hard drive and come bundled with Motorstorm. Now my issue with this is that they've really not dropped any price on anything. Remember when the system launched and their were two SKUs, a $499 and a $599. Well if you don't remember, no big deal, nothing's different now.

And to top it off, most stores are going to be promoting the more expensive system (the more money the better) so the average customer will still be seeing the more expensive version. As happy as I am that we are now getting more memory space on the PS3 hard drive, I'm just not sure this move is even a price drop at all. I think it would have been smarter to drop the price to $499 and hold off until later this year to add the new 80GB version. That way you get more free PR simply by announcing the new SKU and you can get the mind set in the consumer that the PS3 really isn't all that expensive before announcing the pricier system.

Either way though, the more features for a smaller price is always good for us gamers. Maybe Microsoft will actually drop a price next time rather than increase it (Xbox 360 Elite).

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