PS3 price will drop soon, predicts MS Comments by Ellie Gibson

I think it should be noted that while the 360's reliability is pathetic the PS3 is by no means impressive. Of the 2 people I know who own one, both broke within 1 and a half years, neither was used regularly (the odd exclusive). I've heard many similar stories so I don't think its 2 isolated incidents. Could be wrong obviously.
Granted the 15-20 people I know who bought 360's are all on at least their second console but at least every single one was replaced free of charge.

@Gormless
wireless can be bought for around 45 euro, 13 months live for about 30 euro.

I love the way MS still insist on comparing the 2 consoles.

Do the math
PS3 - £299 (or less)
360 arcade + BD Player (one that close to the PS3) - £330
360 elite + BD Player (one that close to the PS3) - £430

Granted the 360 is cheaper than the PS3, but if you want the BD capability too it works out cheaper, so MS maybe its time to use some common sense stop comparing the consoles, hell they have different specs in the end!

edit: the BD Player i was using as an example is the Sony BDP-S350 @ £199 + 6 free films from Blockbuster. You can get a Logik BD Player in Currys for around £129.99, but the Logic player is well... crap.

"/shakes fist at UK sites that won't ship console hardware outside the UK

Basic 80GB PS3 in the shops with no games = €400 here. "

Look harder - there must be tons of places that will ship to you - the main problem will be paying for it cos most UK places will assume that a 'European' credit card is fake/stolen ...

That BD player isn't needed to play games on 360 though.

for many like my son and his friends using SDTV's it'd be a huge waste of money so a direct comparison of price is perfectly fair.

@ influenceuk

The PS3 also loads Blu-ray movies considerably faster than any other Blu-ray player on the market.

I have seen a blu-ray player for £100 and if you have a resonable media PC then its a £50-£60 upgrade.

As mentioned the PS3 is good value if you need it all, my games consoles are to play games, I don't want/need wireless, bluray.

Also the thing about paying for xbox live, I think its great value. I look at it in a simply way for how much longer does it keep me playing a game, the best example was halo 2 for me, I spend easily 50 times longer online than I did on the single player.

The game cost me £30, so £30x50 = £1500 worth of entertainment for £25...

Yes its a funnt way of looking at it but the amount of life it has added to games for me makes it a no brainer.

Nevermind how many 360 games are cheaper than PS3 versions, you soon could pay for a year on xbox live with that difference, overall the cost of xbox live comes out of my games budget and not hardware.

If all you want to do is plug it in and play games then the 360 is the better value.

it would be sods law if they reduce it as i just bought one. mind you i only play wipeout on it. 360 for everything else.

As other have said, the whole "360 works out more expensive cos you have to buy a wireless adaptor, pay for XBox Live, and buy a BD player to equal a PS3" argument only works if:

A: You don't have your router near your 360 or you don't want to run cables between rooms
B: You want to play online.

Neither of those arguments apply to me, and probably doesn't apply to the vast majority of normal gamers, who just want to play the big name multi-platform games (FIFA/PES, GTA, COD) and don't care about online capabilities. That's the market that bought millions of PSones and PS2s and put Sony in the lead in the, and it's that market that Microsoft are stealing from Sony by offering a console that can play FIFA etc at over £100 less.And I really don't think BD even comes into it.

C: BD movies are more expensive, and as the vast majority homes don't have HD TVs, the difference in quality between BD and DVD is irrelevant.

So what we really come down to is what happens when Mr Average walks into Game and wants to buy a new console to hook up to his flat screen TV. He's not a serious gamer, but likes his footy and driving games. He's got a DVD player and boxsets of his favourite movies already (Rocky, Aliens etc) and he's happy with that. Now he can buy either a PS3 and a game for around £300, or a similar 360 bundle for around £170. Not a difficult choice really is it...

@IneptPercy
the pricing of the games is a good argument not enough made.
i buy most of my games via the internet or second hand via ebay or something.
or i buy from the classic range, this is the xbox budget line, there are over a 100 games in there, so it;s really cheap to get a great gaming experience. if you compare multi format games xbox vs ps3, a lot of times the price difference is 3-5 euro in favour of the xbox. that's the price of a month live gold......

still if i could afford both, i would get a wii first ;)

My main argument for not buying a PS3 would be that they've been taking the piss out of the european market this generation. For the launch they we're offering an inferior model at a later date for a higher price than the japanese / american model. You could import a superior PS3 from Asia for less than you could buy it in your local shop. That alone pretty much made me want to boycott it.
Then screwing europe so monumentally this generation was exacerbated by MS and Nintendo really trying to level the playing field with worldwide console / triple a title release dates. They haven't always succeeded but at least they're trying. It might piss you PS3 owners off (and I do apologise for that actually) but I'm going to slate Sony at every given opportunity because I genuinely hope its a monumental failure this generation, if i can help that happen with a rant, I will. That way we might just get a reasonable deal next generation (I would like to own a console with MGS, LBP, God of War, ICO et cetera).

The PS3 is overpriced particularly in the current economic climate. Its been out 2 years and its still €400. That must be by far the most expensive console at this point in its life. No one can argue that its so much superior to previous consoles to warrant that price.
I don't want a blue ray player and i hope it too is a monumental failure. The storage capacity is overkill and I don't want to upgrade my dvd collection so soon after updating from VHS. The change in picture / sound quality is minute.
I can live without the exclusives (that'll change when team ico release a new game or Disgaea 3 get released, it'll be very difficult to resist at that point). No one is taking advantage of the apparent advantage in power it has over the 360 (I'll believe it when I see it) and they're not going to.
Anyone with half a brain given the choice of 360 or PS3 will take the 360 - its far better value (awaits flames). The end. (I'll agree having both is the best option if possible).

trebell, Yeah agreed that if the console is only meant for SDTVs than maybe 360 is a better buy. But these are HD consoles and so will ultimately be intend for use on such displays in which case the BD argument is valid. In fact I would argue that as this gen moves further on the argument for BD will become stronger.

Sony WON'T drop PS3 price any time soon as they have been losing $50 or more per unit and still counting.

Hypothesis
This is just another clever marketing scheme by M$:
"Tell people that the PS3 price will drop soon... and that, will stop the PS3 sales increase, because people will rather wait than buy now!"

Thesis
Sony has the better Machine (Cell processor, Blu-ray, etc) but Microsoft has the better Marketing strategy (came out first, have great exclusives, they have more $$$) plus both the Cell processor and Blu-ray are UNDER-USED.

Prediction
By the time Sony is able to leverage their investment in the Cell processor and Blu-ray, Microsoft will have already come out with a better machine and storage device (ie. Software Downloading)

when the ps3 drops to £199 i will buy one, as will millions of others.

i can't wait for the smirk to be wiped off microsoft's face!

Yeah me too!

Too bad that by that time I'd be purchasing the previous generation console XD

"I've only recently picked up a 360 and whilst I've enjoyed it so far, in retrospect I do feel the PS3 is considerably better value for money for my needs. I have a new Full HD TV which I can't watch full HD movies on due to a lack of sky/cable or bluray player. I had to pay £40 for a wireless network adaptor for the 360. I can't browse the internet at home on my 360 (my laptop died).

So really if I'd thought about it more in advance my 2 options were:

1) Buy cheap blu-ray player (£150) + buy 360 (£150) + wireless adaptor (£40) = £340 (and I'd still have no way to browse internet at home)
2) Buy a PS3 = £279

So there you have it Mr Microsoft Exec. The PS3 would actually have worked out better value for money for my circumstances and for an extra £50 I could have got PlayTV to record TV and it would still work out cheaper to have the PS3.

Am I missing something here? I'm sorely tempted to dump my 2 week old 360 on ebay and get a PS3. "

Well if you're seriously considering that then that probably underlines your apparent inability to assess your needs and priorities versus what's available on the market.

Noone can say what you should have done cos your own values are your own values but if you ain't got much cash or current equipment and want to embrace 'modern media' then yeah, a PS3 is good value - just be aware why you're buying it though - it ain't for the best gaming experience on offer as that's clearly the 360's domain. You will, however, be filing lots of holes in your, er, 'lifestyle' perhaps although none of them with anything like the best quality out there but if you want/are happy with a price/performance compromise for your modern media needs then the PS3 is just that I think ...

Personally, in your situation, I'd want to do it all properly and (this is exactly what I've done BTW) just put together a simple HTPC (a *way* better HD media player than any dedicated h/w will ever be) for £300-£400 for my HD watching and Net surfing and keep the 360, best of all worlds then mate ...

"trebell, Yeah agreed that if the console is only meant for SDTVs than maybe 360 is a better buy. But these are HD consoles and so will ultimately be intend for use on such displays in which case the BD argument is valid. In fact I would argue that as this gen moves further on the argument for BD will become stronger. "

Umm, kinda.

As time goes on, BD will penetrate into more homes obviously but I don't see the momentum building at all, over any time period. I think it's dead-tech with a growth lifespan of a couple or three years at best ...

As for the PS3's BD, this is devaluing by the day so any arguments re value cos it's included in the PS3's are going to be moot by the end of this year ...