Sony Exec Offers More Clues About PlayStation 3 Pricing
Posted Fri Apr 7, 2006 at 05:54 AM PDT by
How much would you be willing to pay for a high-def DVD enabled PlayStation 3? MTV News reports that recent comments made by a Sony honcho are
buzzing around the online gaming community like a pinball, after the exec appeared to suggest that the PS3 could cost as much as twice that of its predecessor when it launches this fall.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe VP Georges Fornay told French radio that a retail price of 500 Euros ($611 U.S.) would be "tres bon marche," or "quite reasonable" for a souped-up machine that plays next-gen games and Blu-Ray high-def DVDs. Apparently at Sony, "reasonable" translates as the most expensive game console yet -- the most pricey system to hit the market so far, Microsoft's XBox 360, debuted last fall at $399 U.S.
(Editor's Note: a reader, Chris Leiter, writes in to say the Xbox 360 does not, in fact, hold the record for most expensive console system. In 1990, SNK's Neo Geo console was released with an initial MSRP of $649)
Sony has made no official announcement on the PS3's official price at launch, nor has the company publicly commented on the Fornay interview. The VP's statements come only months after PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi made similar comments to media at a PS3 conference last year. "I'm not going to reveal [the PS3's] price today," Kutaragi said. "I'm going to only say that it'll be expensive."
UPDATE: On Friday, Sony Europe's PR team said that
Fornay was misquoted, and that he gave no indication of the possible price of the PS3 (which has yet to be determined) in the French radio interview, and instead was commenting on the price of standalone Blu-Ray Players.