Sony announced their new PS3 Slim overnight, and if you’re hoping to pick up one of the chunky older models at a bargain price before the new model hits shelves on September 3, you should probably hold off until next week.
David over at Kotaku was on Sony’s case from the early hours of this morning getting more info on the Aussie release, and it looks like Sony are planning on dropping the price of the 80GB PS3 to the same $499.95 price point as the 120GB PS3 Slim 10 days before the new model goes on sale (or next Monday, August 24 for those who can’t be bothered working it out).
But unless you’re über keen on Linux support, the new Slim model looks like it’s definitely the way to go.
[Kotaku]
Anomaly
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 9:32 AMFrom japantoday.com… “The consoles will be priced at $299 in the United States, 299 Euros in Europe, and 29,980 yen in Japan.”
So what’s SCE’s rationale for making it “under $500″ (I’m assuming $499) in Australia?
FWIW:
US$299 = $361
EU$299 = $511 (Boy do they get shafted!)
JPY29,980 = $381
Russo
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 10:07 AMValid point Anomaly..
It seems the PAL consoles are more expensive…why?
Tim
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 10:40 AMBecause PAL territory people are damn fools, and we keep buying them at inflated prices…
HyRax
Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 2:04 PMPAL anything is more expensive because there are a multitude of languages to translate the console and software to. Japan is JUST Japanese. America is JUST US English. They are both NTSC regions.
The rest of the world is PAL with dozens of languages. Unfortunately we ALL pay for the “privilege” of living in these regions by paying for the extra man-hours it costs to provide the console and its software in a zillion languages.
While I don’t completely buy the idea that it’s that expensive to translate anything, and I’ve totally excluded things like import tariffs and local taxes, unless you want to use an NTSC unit, we’re made to suffer extra costs.
Freddie
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 11:58 AMHave a look at the Kotaku comments. They’re complaining over the price tag there too.
It is never a simple USD-AUD conversion.
Camdiggy
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 12:15 PMIt’s cause the Oz market has low amount of buyers and since we have less people to buy the consoles, each console needs to be marked up to meet minimum company profits etc.
I agree though…
It ain’t right!
Trevor Piggott
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 1:29 PMI think if Sony followed a business model as open face retarded as “The less people that buy your product, the more expensive you should make it”, they would have been out of business years ago.
Besides, who makes profits on console sales?
matt
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 2:06 PME.U. has 500 million ppl in it, and they are ripped off even more than we are…
Erik
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 5:32 PMAh, Trevor, it’s not just Sony here. Every company does it in Australia. Hasbro are the most notorius, charging us roughly 2.5x the price in the US.
Ben Anderson
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 6:02 PMIt’s called price positioning. Price is used as a mental shortcut for determining quality in the consumer’s mind. Sony have always proposed that their product is higher quality in the market and that people should be willing to pay more for it. It’s arrogant, but it’s better than competing directly with Microsoft in a price war.
nomoresony
Friday, August 21, 2009 at 1:08 PMIt is not a problem of USD=AUD conversion. It is all about respect. The Australian have never won the respect of SONY.
Just look at the price for XBOX360 and Wii, which follow precisely and nicely the USD-AUD conversion+ GST. That’s the sole reason why I buy M$ Xbox and Wii, but not PSX.
SONY is arrogant.