# Playstation 3 to cost $500 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 7, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588 "2005-01-07T16:45:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chastain86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Chastain86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chastain86)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/21 "2005-01-07T19:23:45Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > You can get a DVD player for \<$50. Does anyone use the PS2 to play DVDs? I doubt very many people do. True enough, but there’s still a **perceived** value there, even if very few actually use it for such. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/22 "2005-01-07T19:26:11Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > You can get a DVD player for \<$50. Does anyone use the PS2 to play DVDs? I doubt very many people do. I have…when the DVD player was out in the living room, and the PS2 was in the bedroom. It’s a great way to play porn. :o ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/23 "2005-01-07T19:31:56Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > It’s a great way to play porn. :o Man, we _really_ need a new “embarassed” smiley. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/24 "2005-01-07T19:32:35Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > You can get a DVD player for \<$50. Does anyone use the PS2 to play DVDs? I doubt very many people do. I know a guy who bought the remote for the PS2 and uses it for DVDs. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/25 "2005-01-07T19:34:00Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > Man, we _really_ need a new “embarassed” smiley. In one way, this one is perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/26 "2005-01-07T22:13:05Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > You can get a DVD player for \<$50. Does anyone use the PS2 to play DVDs? I doubt very many people do. Yeah. _Now_. How expensive were they four years ago, when the PS2 was first released? And I know quite a few people who use their PS2s as DVD players. > [@pizzabrat](#): > > Well, Nintendo had to have been doing something right to have had such a great run with NES and SNES . What, all-of-a-sudden are they doing wrong? Dude, the SNES came out _fifteen years_ ago. We’re almost three generations past the 16 bit era. That’s my entire point: they went from completely dominating the home console market, to battling it out with johnny-come-lately MicroSoft for the honor of being a distant second to Sony. They’re still fighting off persistent rumors that they’re going to get out of the console business altogether, the way Sega did. There’s no “all of a sudden” to it: they’ve consistently been bleeding marketshare for more than a decade, ever since they were slow off the gun to release a console that was competitive with the Genesis. What have they done wrong? Just looking at the GameCube: [ul]No DVD capability. [li]No online capability.[/li][li]Poor third party developer support.[/li][li]Smaller discs, necessitating disc-swapping. _On a console._[/li][li]No backwards compatibility, ensuring that releasing a new console kills off sales of the games from the previous console. PSX games are now[/li][li]Failure to position themselves as an all-ages console. The game selection may tell a different story, but look at the GameCube: with it’s candy colors and fat-buttoned controller, it screams “kiddie console.”[/ul][/li] Look, I like Nintendo. They make _amazing_ games. But let’s not fool ourselves. Their board of directors don’t even rise to the level of a crack team of monkeys. They’re more like a team of monkeys on crack. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/27 "2005-01-07T22:16:46Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > You can get a DVD player for \<$50. Or you can get a PS2 for $150, and it’ll play games as well as DVDs. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/28 "2005-01-07T22:20:09Z")
Gotta go with **Chastain** here. Sony might be having leadership problems nowadays, but they’d have to be deaf, dumb, and comatose to think a $500 game system will sell in the US. The road to video-gaming is littered with the corpses of 3DOs and Neo\*Geos as reminders. Whatever Sony’s new box costs, they won’t sell it for more than $250, tops, even if it means taking a loss on each unit. At worst, they won’t release the unit in 2005, and wait for component/manufacturing costs to go down first. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/29 "2005-01-07T22:28:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Didn’t Microsoft try something like this a few years back? I seem to remember them marketing what appeared to be an overpriced PC that was supposed to be a PC/TV/VCR/DVD all rolled into one. Sony had some mumblings about a Super-PS2 or something that was to be a media center as well as playing PS2 games. Anyway, consoles nowadays are always sold at a loss (yes, even the PS2 was). The money is in the games. The thing is that Sony’s Cell architecture (the backbone of the PS3) is going to be dumped into a whole lot of other products. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to get actual numbers on Cell’s performance (Sony’s last press release claimed “1,000 times better than current processors” or some other riduculously bloated boast). They could either have the biggest flop of the millenium, or a revolutionary product on their hands. But, ultimately, I doubt the PS3 or Xbox2 or Nintendo-Whatever will retail for $500. I can see them pushing it up to $350, but anything more than that will have nasty consumer backlash. At that price point, you’re probably just better off upgrading your PC’s video card and throwing in another stick of RAM. ---
**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/30 "2005-01-07T22:29:23Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Whatever Sony’s new box costs, they won’t sell it for more than $250, tops, even if it means taking a loss on each unit. At worst, they won’t release the unit in 2005, and wait for component/manufacturing costs to go down first. Or they’ll spend a fortune up-front on R&D to make the manufacturing costs go down _now_…remember, unlike Microsoft these guys manufacture their own hardware…then recoup their investment by selling the units at a reasonably low cost and at a profit at the same time. Which is pretty much what they did with the PS2, back when PS2’s were still selling for over $200. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/31 "2005-01-07T22:32:35Z")
Wasn’t the PS2 like $250~300 when it first came out? I seem to remember it being as high as $400, but that might have been for an import version. I’m mostly waiting for the PS3 to be released so that the PS2 (or whatever it’s called these days) can finally drop below $150. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/32 "2005-01-07T22:43:08Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Yeah. _Now_. > Dude, the SNES came out _fifteen years_ ago. The hell it did. I wasn’t 12 when it came out. SNES was released in 1996. [http://snes.mobygames.com/company/history/companyId,1891/](http://snes.mobygames.com/company/history/companyId,1891/) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/33 "2005-01-07T22:46:46Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > The hell it did. I wasn’t 12 when it came out. SNES was released in 1996. [http://snes.mobygames.com/company/history/companyId,1891/](http://snes.mobygames.com/company/history/companyId,1891/) :smack: er… NES64 came out in 1996. Why the hell did I think they were the same thing? ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/34 "2005-01-07T22:47:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Or they’ll spend a fortune up-front on R&D to make the manufacturing costs go down now…remember, unlike Microsoft these guys manufacture their own hardware Uh, no. Toshiba developed the processors for the PS2. Sony is working with IBM (and also still Toshiba) to develop their cell processor. ---
**Author:** ![Chastain86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Chastain86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chastain86)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/35 "2005-01-07T22:49:34Z")
> [@dotchan](#): > > Wasn’t the PS2 like $250~300 when it first came out? I seem to remember it being as high as $400, but that might have been for an import version. It was $299 at launch. I know, because I stood outside a Target at 4:00am in the freezing-ass cold to get one. 🙂 The Target we were at distributed tickets to the first 42 people in line, ensuring us a chance to buy one. I had people walk up to me and offer me $300 **for the ticket itself.** It was mind-blowing. I’m a little sorry now that I didn’t take someone up on the offer, but _que sera_. ---
**Author:** ![Soapbox\_Monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Soapbox\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soapbox_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/36 "2005-01-07T22:52:04Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I hope you all are right! I’m already missing the next FF! FF X-2 just didn’t do it for me, too damn cutesy and a lot of boring parts. Uhh…I’m pretty sure Final Fantasy 12 is being produced for the PS2 as we speak. At least that’s the impression I’ve gotten from all the reports and screenshots. ---
**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/37 "2005-01-07T22:58:26Z")
> [@SPOOFE](#): > > Uh, no. Toshiba developed the processors for the PS2. Sony is working with IBM (and also still Toshiba) to develop their cell processor. Sony [developed](http://www.cyberiapc.com/vgg/sony_ps2.htm) the hardware in conjuction with Toshiba, from what I can tell. Based on my brief Google-fu, it seems I was silly to say anything about who _manufactures_ Sony hardware…they farm it out to Taiwanese companies like everybody else. Nevertheless I still say that Sony’s R&D can give them an advantage on the per-unit price of PS3; I won’t be surprised to see them sell the units at a reasonably low cost and still make a profit. Especially if they charge a higher price in Japan, where the market seems to be able to bear it. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/38 "2005-01-07T23:04:41Z")
Well, I imagine that Sony hopes to offset the R&D of its cell processor simply by putting it into more than just the PS3… imagine if Sony entered the desktop CPU market and competed against Intel and AMD? Madness. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/39 "2005-01-07T23:06:31Z")
Oh, and if you wanna talk R&D, keep in mind that MS had to do almost NONE of it in order to build the Xbox… they just used current market derivatives. And they’re gonna be following a similar trend with their next-gen consoles… all three big names are using processors that were developed (or in Sony’s case, co-developed) by IBM. MS is also going to use a derivative of ATI’s next-gen PC graphics chip. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588/40 "2005-01-07T23:13:15Z")
> [@Lord Ashtar](#): > > Didn’t Microsoft try something like this a few years back? I seem to remember them marketing what appeared to be an overpriced PC that was supposed to be a PC/TV/VCR/DVD all rolled into one. Yeah, it was the Windows Media Center PC, with a special version of XP that was supposedly “optimized” for media. Every review I read of the things was identical: It’s overpriced shite. You could buy an “ordinary” PC, slap in a tuner card for about $1K less, and you’d have a better machine than what they were offering. Evidently, the software was crap. They’re relaunching the things, and from what I’ve heard, they’ve made no improvements. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/playstation-3-to-cost-500/283588.md?page=3)