Well, we’re in the home stretch! A new format for E3 brought a new look and feel, a few challenges and most importantly a great opportunity to show off our wares for all PlayStation platforms. All the planning, preparations and hard work has paid off into what was a great E3 for SCEA. Congratulations to everyone involved in making that happen! And a thanks to all of you guys for your positive comments regarding the press conference and what we showed there. I know Jack was checking out all the comments on his post and really appreciated your feedback. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing our games via the trailers on PlayStation Network. I just wanted to also let you know that yes, we hear you, and we are working to make those great games you saw into more interactive content and demos.
One quick thing before I head to the show for the last day. I just wanted to clarify something. I’ve seen a lot of posts this morning related to the 60GB SKU and the comments by SCEE President David Reeves. As we announced this week, SCEA’s product offering in North America consists of a 80GB PS3 available in August and a 60GB PS3 available now for $499. We will have ample supplies of both models to meet the needs of consumers for the foreseeable future.
Talk to you again soon, once we get back from Santa Monica.
I think everyone should wait and see what Sonys plan is, the 499$ PS3 seems to be selling out. Going back to 599$ with a PS3 that probably is cheaper to make is beyond me.
The thing I think Sony need to do is have their SCE bosses work togheter and not try to compete with eachother, and the David Reeves attitude belongs in Microsoft. Their is no one in any company I rather listen to more than Phil Harrison. I don’t mind Jack, he did a great job at E3 but David Reeves in my opinion doesn’t have that Playstation attitude we know from Phil.
@everyone who thought Dave Karraker actually posted a comment
You guys are idiots… seriously. Mr. Karraker hasn’t yet posted a comment yet nor have any of the other Sony higher ups. #331 is a faux because the post isn’t outlined in red like it usually is when the higher ups post. Jeez… pay more attention guys.
@Shane_O
Read number 241 paragraph 5
Thats the problem
thing is though it is a price drop. you can get the same sku for $100 less. so till that sells out it really is a price drop. you dont know how the pricing situation will be in the future. adding the new sku with motorstorm is just limited. till you see a box that says 599 80 gig ps3 you cant say anything.
Fact of the matter is that u can get a ps3 for 499 and to try and predict the future is foolish
Dave?Will the 60gb still be produced after they’ve all sold out?
Hey guys great showing this year!!! You guys need to get some spin going on the priceing situation. The press are having a field day with it they swooped in on it like they have everything regarding your company in order to portray you in a negative light. They are robbing you of the momentum you have gained over the past few days dont let this happen!!! please!
Fonze is also right. that is not dave. if it was his name would be outlined in red
so blizzard, srry but your legendary 241 post is useless
@haldalish
I am not predicting the future. I am commenting based on the comments of Sony people.
[…] alas, Sony is saying it’s not true (in a very vague way). David Karraker, PR magician, had this to say on PlayStation.Blog: As we announced this week, SCEA’s product offering in North America consists […]
@haldalish
My good, talking to you is useless. That is a quote from another interview.
blizzard you still dont understand marketing do you. companies dont just go out and tell the world about all the plans and pricing strategies. that would just make ppl wait on buying a product. sony denied the 60 gig price drop before it happened and look what happened. to tell your consumers that u have a price drop coming soon is horrible marketing. seriously go to walmart and buy marketing for dummies
Well then where are the demos that were promised. I’m glad to see what is coming to my system this holiday but where are the demos of new upcoming games like lair, HS. And please don’t phase out the 60gig cause it seems like you got MS with the exclamtion point like the ones in MGS over their heads so please, demos and and demos please.
@haldalish
It’s true that you “dont just go out and tell the world about all the plans and pricing strategies. that would just make ppl wait on buying a product.” But it’s also true that it is THE biggest mistake to trick the customer into thinking there’s an actual pricedrop when it’s only getting rid of an old sku AND rolling back to the $599 price. You don’t even need to buy a marketing for dummies book to know that.
oh just a point to all of you argueing nowhere does it say *limited time only on any advertizement so i wouldnt worry too much about not being able to get a $499 ps3 they just need to get the press on this under control.
@haldalish
I know a bit of marketing. If you take in mind all of the controversy around Sony and the fact that it seems like our posts are not being read or maybe ignored (Our requests too) I can’t be nothing but pissed.
I feel like is a lie or something like that. They already said that having 2 SKUs confuse people, then why did they do that 2 weeks before that announcement?
If they know that several SKUs is a mistake, then think of another marketing strategy.
You can afford things like this when you are on top.
Is Sony on top right no? Hell no. So, they better listen to the customers.
I rather have a discount for a HD if I buy a PS3 than an overpriced PS3.
Am I clear enough for you?
THIS IS WHAT SONY SHOULD DO:
– If they still didn’t end the 60gb production, they should keep it going and have both the 60gb at 499 and forget the useless 80gb model.
– If they actually ended it already, then it would be wise to drop the 80gb model to 499 as soon as there are no more 60gb left.
The FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT obstacle for gamers to get a ps3 is the PRICE. I’m a Sony addict, yet i don’t see myselft buying it. I’m even thinking of getting an XBox 360 while waiting for a reasonable price for the PS3
One thing that Sony may need to understand is that their customers are no longer 10-12 year old boys.
A person who can afford a 600 machine is (mostly) older than 20 and we have another point of view.
I still don’t understand the 80 GB move. There is not real gain in that.
They say that the 360 doesn’t have a disk which is bad. Well, some of us might not have the EE so they still need to update the BC.
Maybe I ma wrong. I take critics, but from people who is polite…
it might be a trick but its smart marketing and production wise
this is how i see it. Sony is trying to have only one sku, the 80 gig( for production reasons)
-announce 60 gig for 499 and say production will be stopped (this generates interest in consumers and makes them seem like they have a limited time to get it at the good price)
-also announce a 80 gig model with no EE chip(this cut cost by a good amount, actually cost more to make the 60 gig than the 80)
-package it will a game so when consumers see it they think ” o this one has more space and comes with a game…cool”
-discontinue the 60 gig
-reintroduce the 80 gig for $499 with no game bundled
everyone is happy. consumers have a lower price ps3, sony saves money on production and has one sku.
to thing sony is dumb enough to discontinue the 60 gig and only have one sku at 599 for chritmas is laughable to me
“For those who didn’t get a PS3 earlier this year… this is your chance $499 go for it now, before the supplies deplete. The 80GB will take over soon enough, with everyone rushing in store.”
Sony just don’t touch the bundle you’ve set in the UK (exept making it better ofcourse), am finally pleased and happy about getting a PS3, July 18th! It actually feels like a good investment now, I’m stoked!
Your E3 was great… all I wanted to see was Killzone2 and I was impressed… along with the other games, which were killer, but I had no major headaches about that. Knew you’d deliver I just had to see it tho… just keep this pace going guys, we’ll make it, slowly but surely!
And yeah, demo’s are a great idea again, cuz we could actually send feedback to help the developers fine tune some stuff and helps making games known to people who just go in stores! Almost like BETA testing, but Sony style, you’ve been doing it since the days of the PS1 remember?
One more thing… hold on to MGS4, don’t lose your grip on this one, ever!
@haldalish
You know what is Marketing? NOT to say that the price is going to stay at 599.
You DONT have to do that. Why? Because now we are thinking that there is no real price drop, and if they are REALLY thinking of doing that there will be no surprise.
I think that the correct response to our questions should be this:
“We won’t be making any further announcements regarding our PS3 model hardware strategy in North America until the 60GB model is exhausted and market conditions are evaluated.”
Which is correct but that statement saying that the price is staying at 599? Not cool.
w/e blizzard ill be bumping this in a couple months to laugh in your face
@haldalish
Again, you just said to me not to think nothing until Sony says something and thats exactly what you are doing.
I also believe that is going to happen like you said, but it doesn’t take the fact that I feel like an idiot for thinking that it was a price drop.
IF (and read IF) you take the word that the 599 price is coming back, then that’s playing with the customer.
I see it that way.
PS. As you see, I just bought Marketing for dummies. Nice reading.
@haldalish
Alright, and I will give you your present for your tenth birthday.
Good luck
plain and simple ppl if you dont want to pay for it $499 or $599 then dont buy it…. the end.
it is a price drop. go to eb games, amazon, best buy, and look how much the ps3 cost……499. When the 60 gig is no where to be found then come back to me and say there is a price drop
There was a price drop to say otherwise is ignorant
Kaz Hirai:
“We’re no longer in production for [the 60GB PS3], so once that product is gone from the retailers shelves, then we’re back to the $599 SKU only, so it’s not like we have a two-price strategy here in the US market, which we found out very early on, that consumers react mostly to having one SKU as opposed to two.”
answer these question for me, just simple one word answers will do?
was the ps3 60 gig $599 a week ago?
is the ps3 60 gig 499 now?
can you find the 60 gig in stores?
That is actually Dave Karraker [DaveKarraker] who posted, probably not outlined in red because he doesn’t have admin rights to the blog. You can check the other entry he made back at the beginning and see that it is him.
I hope u guys are planning something special to unveil once the 60gb is depleted.
You know what, I bought your product with all faith in Sony. The more and more I see you guys make a marketing announcment the more and more I vision your graves. It makes me sick to think you are even trying this whole “bait and swtich” thing. Do you guys just not care what your consumers think? Well that was a stupid question in itself. I know the answer to that. Why is your product not selling? Why does no one want to adopt your console. Stupid decisions like this is exactly why. You have honestly lost it Sony. From a once devout PS player, I tell you, you guys are in for a terrible death. Thanks for my 600 dollar bluray player Sony, but how about you give a few decent games to play before your gone. Thanks.
God, I did not realize that someone at Sony already answered us. (#331)
Well, I guess that means that when the 60 is gone, some prices might change.
blizzard182 owned
@haldalish
My god how old are you? I am talking about my 1000 dollar investment not some child thing.
Sony nobody wants a replacement Sku, they want the $500 price not 80 gig and motorstorm for $600.
Keep the 60 gig for $500 and keep producing it.
Your taking 1 step backward back to high pricing with this new Sku replacement. It’s not even a price drop if your getting rid of that Sku.
I don’t know why this is such a shocker if it even ends up true. Odds are they will do exactly what they did just now with the 60GB dropping to the old 20GB price, if/when they phase out the 60 after they sell them all.
6 months from now they’ll take all the extras out of the 80gig set and lower the price of the 80 by itself to the price of the current 60, like they’ve done here with the removal of the 20GB version. Unless closer to Christmas they end up doing a full price drop.
This is hardly a big deal since the only thing changing is the size of the HD which is swappable by us so in 6 months when the 80GB drops a $100 you could OPTIONALLY buy yourself a 200GB drive of ANY brand for relatively cheap and still have a more valuable system than the latest bare bones system offering (even after owning it for a long time), pretty damned nice value if you ask me.
The reason they are doing this is obvious, in 6-8 months a 60GB drive will probably be more expensive for them to mass produce, while they could make 80GB drives at the same price the 60GB’s cost now.
Honestly, if you want the bare box cheaper they may still do that at Christmas since some of the publishers seem to be convinced that’s still going to happen, but I fail to see any reason to postpone buying it now if there are games that interest you with all the games coming starting in August and the only thing changing on the hardware being the size of the HD which isn’t even proprietary and can be upgraded at any time by yourself, or you can even upgrade your own HD whenever Sony brings out that new model with a bigger HD for the price of your old one, months later. Just go to Best Buy and buy the same size HD they are including in the box, you could probably get it cheaper and you’ll have been playing and enjoying your system for all those intervening months.
Sounds like nitpicking to me especially since we’ve seen the rotating cycle between the 20GB, 60GB, and 80GB… Sure we all want them to lower a bare bones system package in price but it’s nice that they keep improving the value of the $500 price point. And it’s EXTREM|ELY nice that the only difference is in the HD size since you can upgrade even further than they are offering at your local Computer Shop, and so in that way you can have your system a full 6 months (for example) before the 80GB drops to $500 instead of the 60GB model, and then after those 6 months buy yourself a 200GB drive for a nice price and still have a system that’s much more valuable in terms of what you have in your system than the latest offering.
For example, I bought a 20GB for $500, 8 months later they’ve lowered the 60GB to my old price, but I’ve recently upgraded my HD to a huge one so my system still has comparable value to their latest offering, AND I’ve been enjoying it for 6 months. Seems like a WIN – WIN to me.
Thanks for clearing up the rumors.
What a mess. I already have a system so this doesn’t affect me. However, good luck trying to clean this one up Sony. =/
[…] One quick thing before I head to the show for the last day. I just wanted to clarify something. I’ve seen a lot of posts this morning related to the 60GB SKU and the comments by SCEE President David Reeves. As we announced this week, SCEA’s product offering in North America consists of a 80GB PS3 available in August and a 60GB PS3 available now for $499. We will have ample supplies of both models to meet the needs of consumers for the foreseeable future. PlayStation.Blog � Another E3 Winding Down, Plus a Quick Clarification […]
Sony, I love PlayStation, but I gotta say something.
The general public does NOT have $599.99 for a game console. Many of them feel its way too much for a console. Pricing the 60GB at $499.99 was an excellent move and Sony should never charge $599.99 for a console again. If you want to release the MotorStorm bundle, sell it at $549.99-$579.99, to keep that $599.99 price tag forgotten. If Microsoft really drops the price of every Xbox 360 SKU by $100, you can forget PS3 having any sort of success, especially if you’re trying to compare it against a $599.99 SKU. Please Sony, I really love the PlayStation brand and I’m okay with it being priced slightly more than the 360 (since it is worth more), but do NOT ever price the console more than $499.99 for now. Third party devs will stop bringing games to PS3, your own 1st party game sales won’t be too high (due to a tiny userbase), and the bad press will continue making people weary of buying a PS3. Yes PS2 was successful, but if you keep the price too high, people will buy the competition and skip PS3.
With PS3 being priced at $599.99, you sell 70k a month (which is pathetic saleswise) and you even get beat by the GBA (which is already dead basically). Please, don’t ever price a console at $599.99 only again. If you do, I might have to consider getting rid of all my 175+ PS2 games, 57 PSP games, 50 PS1 games, and 12 PS3 games.
I’m okay with PS3 not being the market leader, but I do want to see decent sales so PS3 gets good support. Sony’s makes the best first party games, but third party devs are greatly important too.
Basically Sony, we all want the 60GB at a more affordable price. Please, don’t forget the cheapskate student gamers like me!
Yeah, I agree, they really need to get all models under that ugly $600 “psychological barrier”.
Hopefully they can get the lower priced SKU down to 450-400 by Christmas. Even as a PS3 owner and even if I was an owner who bought one in the next month or so I would personally not feel ripped off and wouldn’t mind Sony doing that because it would instantly spike sales which would make the more expensive price I paid to buy earlier more valuable since more publishers would sign on and more games would be coming.
I hope they can do it somehow, but I hope that people buying now won’t complain since it would be the best for all of us even if we paid more for not waiting, it’s still in OUR best interest for them to do it.
I think if sony wants to be the market leader this gen they can’t afford to sell it at only $599, it just doesn’t sell well enough (even with great games). As you can see sony, we have spoken, it’s entirely up to you, I can only hope that you do not discontinue the 60 gig sku. I was so excited about the future of the PS3 after the price drop and the showing at E3, but after hearing the news of the loss of the $499 sku I am now worried about the PS3’s future.
pathetic… we rather just upgrade the lower price ps3 our own hdd! we can find alot bigger and cheaper.
unless this new 80gb includes the shock axis.. just say it if it does then all these complaining will go away.
but we rather still have a price drop or sony will never catch up with MS..
I’m tired of getting my hopes up, only to be dissapointed. I’ve waited 20 months to make a decision on which console to buy. I will trade in my PSP for a 360. MGS4 is no longer enough to keep me interested in Sony. If in a year from now the PS3 is cheaper and MGS4 is still a PS exclusive, and I see that the PS3 is looking towards a strong future, I might pay my hard earned money for a PS3. However, as long as the company continues to treat its fanbase like stupid sheep, I’m done. Thanks for many great gaming years on the PS2.
I think the point is that only blind people really see them selling ONLY at the $600 price point. No matter what they say to get people to buy right now and not wait for the 80GB to drop in price, it’s ridiculously OBVIOUS to anyone who thinks about it for five seconds that they aren’t going to ONLY sell a $600 SKU.
Though I do agree, in this day and age of the Internet they really do need to have the SCEA, SCEE and SCEJ PR guys who are allowed to make statments all have regular meetings with each other with Conference Calls so they all say the same messages and specifically tell us which region the messages are for. And consumers need to stop expecting announcement for all regions to happen the exact same second because it’s logistically impossible (time zones for one thing), we need to give them a couple of days to tailor announcements to each country.
I guess the problem is that this price drop does not look like it. Also, Sony said I was not really a price drop.
Looks like your are playing with us. That was the problem for me.
Also, I know you are all busy, but is this Blog was created to take feedback from us and interaction, I think we deserve just two paragraphs telling us which is the future or ideas and what are you doing to make my 1000 investment worth it.
(Yeah, here it costs 1000 dollars, so as you see, I could not care less about the price. I care of the future)
Will there continue to be a $499 60GB PS3???
I dont really care about the 80GB or the 60GB continuation, i have my PS3 from day one and its good to hear that Sony is listening to its ‘paying’ customers and i just think that is a little too much too late, the E3 has come and gone and not one single demo….bad bad show, even if the games look amazing, they did back at E3 2005 when sony lied about Killzone back then,
Ok, I know what is going on here……80 GB will be $499 after the supply of 60 GBs run out (and we know there are millions of 60 GBs waiting to be purchased right now).
Sony, please do not take all this goodwill you have gained for the PS3 from E3 and flush it down the toilet. Make this right, sell the 80 GB for $499 after the 60 GBs run out. This is probably your intention all along, and you (for obvious reasons) can’t tell everyone that, but just make it right. Try not to mess around with the minds of consumers with this one.
Yet another stumble for the latest-gen PlayStation: the closing of this E3 has been marked with a PS3 cost-cut that was ultimately enacted to liquidate a now discontinued model. This will undoubtedly over-shadow the hype of upcoming software titles “for the forseeable future.”