Nintendo laughs at Sony price drop
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 8:58am by Jack
Ok, so there was no laughing. From Nintendo anyway. I, on the other hand, had a guffaw or ten. Two hundred and forty days into the life of your console, and you’re cutting prices? Sigh. And I was having such fun battling the PS3 as a rabid Nintendo fanman (I am no boy).
Nintendo’s George Harrison takes Sony out to the woodshed and beats the snot out of it with his trusty solid silver custom Wiimote:
George Harrison, Nintendo vice president, stated that the firm isn’t at all threatened by Sony’s latest move. He implies that a $200 price cut would be necessary to significantly boost sales of the console. “A $100 price drop won’t make a difference,” said Harrison. “Can Sony afford a $200 price drop? I don’t think so,” he added.
Funny, because $200 is exactly what Kazumi Kitaue, head of Konami’s North American and European operations, said the PS3 needed to get back into form and … wait for it .. retain Metal Gear exclusivity:
“I don’t expect a substantial impact… With $500, you can buy a personal computer,” he said. “Since Metal Gear was born on the PlayStation, we would like to keep it a PlayStation game. But we might have to take some steps.”
And spare me the digg.com stories says sales are up 2400% and Amazon.com’s top seller right now is the $499 PS3. Sales went up after a price drop? You don’t say!
July 10th, 2007 at 9:22 am
You called George, Phil. If he finds out he may be using that gold wiimote to smack you up side the head.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Sorry ,I meant solid silver.
Who owns the gold wiimote?
July 10th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Gold is notoriously soft. I don’t think a golden Wiimote would stand up to such a pounding. Especially on the thick skulls over at Sony these days. Thanks for the typo catch however!
July 10th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Sales rank is up 2400% (#25 to #1), increase in sales units is unknown…
July 10th, 2007 at 10:14 am
yeah, spikes are a price drop are expected, but how long will they last. also it helps that many places arent only dropping the price $100, they are giving out free games and blu-ray movies. sony is being aggresive with this new push. i dont see it lasting though. its still too much money.
and sony is losing even more money on their systems now, hurting them further financially. increased sales without enough increase in games sales will only hurt them a greater deal. they should have saves the price cut for when games actually start coming out. say, september or october maybe.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:17 am
wanted to also say, that is not nintendo being rude there, or beating up sony. its only nintendo being honest when asked a question. its true that $100 is not enough, it simply is. the $200 drop would have made them competitive with MS, but this does nothing. people that want a cheap blu-ray player have already had the $500 option for awhile. as for a gaming machine, it still doesnt have any more games then before the drop. and wont for another few months. and still $100 more then an xb360.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:54 am
[...] Link [...]
July 10th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I definitely will still not get a PS3, as $500 is still too much. Although even $400 for it is really not worth it yet either, seeing as how it has absolutely NO must have games right now. Not to mention the loss of exclusives….Resident Evil 5 will also be on the X360, GTA IV will be on the 360, Devil May Cry 4 will be on the 360. All Sony has left, at THIS moment are Metal Gear Solid 4, whatever the next Final Fantasy is, and God of War 3. I don’t believe for a second that MGS4 will be a PS3 exclusive, that sucker will be on the 360. As for Final Fantasy, who knows….but then again I haven’t played a FF game since FFVII so I can’t comment. So assuming it stays, you got 2 games….wow.
Right now for me, MGS4 is the absolute only reason I want a PS3, and when it is announced it will be on the 360…I’ll only pick up a PS3 when you can get them out of the bargain bin for $100.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Nintendo chortles at sony’s boner.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I seriously question how much it will help. It seems to me that most of the people who were going to buy a PS3 for $500 or $600 respectively have already done so. I mean, who out there was sitting around saying, “Well, I like the price of the $500 PS3, but the hardrive space of the $600 PS3…if only they could turn the $600 PS3 into the $500 PS3, then we’d be in business.”
To me, it seems the consumer base will continuing seeing the same thing: two PS3s, one for $500 and one for $600. That paltry 20 extra gigs and the inclusion of a racing game won’t help dramatically increase the sales of a still expensive system.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Doofus_J, don’t forget the PS2!! I picked up one a couple of weeks ago for $90.00… Now, THAT’s a bargain!!
Right now, Nintendo and MS fear more the competition from the PS2 than the PS3, if at all…
But it’s not really the price, it’s the games.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
yeah, sony needs to make their system competetive. the drop is a good step. now they need software. after years on leaning on the video game business to prop up their lagging walkman and other brands/ventures, I feel they’re at substantial risk. Things ARE, however, turning their way as bluray generates more support and looks increasingly to beat out hd dvd.
oh, and yippee skip. the competition is having trouble. why are we laughing again? i like competition, it keeps companies in check and provides options.
July 10th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Metal Gear born on the Playstation?
I think not…
July 10th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Invisible_man – That’s true, the PS2 is still selling phenomenonally well. That should tell Sony something about the value of having a low price point. I think Sony was really over reaching this generation, trying to cover too many points at one time … it’s like a kid screaming, “Oh yeah, well I can do all that stuff too, only better.”
On a side note: I heard that Wal-Mart has struck some kind of deal to begin selling HD-DVD players for dirt cheap. I wonder how that will affect the format war, as well as its impact on one of Sony’s key selling points with the PS3. Any thoughts?
July 10th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
I agree with the walmart assessment. I would start buying walmart stock by the bundle because they have a couple more deals in the works to sell name brand electronics substantially cheaper than their competitors. How do I know this? It is my job…
July 10th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
the walmart hddvd deal sounds like a harbinger of hddvd’s weakness. that is, the price may cave as demand plummets. who wants an hddvd when the format wont even by supported by blockbuster (who’s strategy of combining a netflicks service with brick and mortar instant gratification is great for building mkt share, btw, imho)?
July 10th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
That’s some good thinking, deepthought. In the overall scheme of things, however, I simply don’t see hi-def movies, on either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, as being the next big thing. Personally, I think your average person isn’t going to repurchase his or her DVD collection. No doubt, Hi-Def movies look great, but I don’t think the jump is as significant as that of VHS to DVD. Say Blu-Ray wins the so-called format war, I wonder how big of a selling point that feature will be on the PS3 in that scenario.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how well the XBOX 360 HD-DVD player is selling, since it’s separate from the console?
(By the way, this is the best Nintendo site I’ve found for good, old fashioned, civilized conversation. A round of applause for all the site staff and all the readers who are enlightened enough to visit here.)
July 10th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal that Sony has dropped the price of their console in the July after its release. They dropped the price of the PS1 in the May following its release, and it didn’t start selling well until they did.
I’d like Sony to be humbled now just as I was glad to see Nintendo humbled then. But I don’t think 500 bucks is low enough. Some people say “well, look at all you get”, but what I see is “well, look at all you’re forced to buy into.”
July 10th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Still to much money for a system that only seems to have a FF game as its exclusive left.
The 360 and the Ps3 are very, very close interms of Power, graphics and games. With the 360 being cheaper and more exclusives.
Buy a 360 and Buy a Wii it is the best gamer conbination EVER
July 11th, 2007 at 4:06 am
I loled at “fanman”
I’ve never owned a PS2 (nintendo/xbox all the way)
though lately I have been thinking about getting one, especially if they drop below 100 bucks. PS3 will have to drop below 100 for me to say the same…
July 11th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Remember folks, there really wasn’t a price drop at all. Sony is clearing out the smaller PS3 so it can introduce the 80GB one for $600 later on. The PS3, for now, still has SKUS at 500 and 600.
July 15th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Yeah, in fact, it’s starting to look like there won’t even be a $500 SKU this xmas, and the price of entry for the PS3 is back to five hundred ninety-nine US dollars.