July 9th, 2007- Having just denied any plans for a price drop recently, it was expected that Sony was holding off from an announcement until E3, but now Sony has just confirmed that in the US, the 60GB PS3 console will now retail for $499US, the same price as the now discontinued 20GB model. However at this stage the price drop is only applicable to the North American market, making the $1000AU price point an even greater rip off (relative to the US price) than before!

In addition to the price drop announcement, Sony has stated that the 80GB PS3 console will be released in the US in August and will retail for $599US, the 80GB model will also be bundled with a copy of Motorstorm, since $100US for an extra 20GBs of hard drive space is probably asking too much. The PS3 sales performance had been lagging behind the Xbox 360 and the Wii and the US, and so a price drop announcement was certainly inevitable.

It appears Sony is attempting to get a head start on generatng hype for the PS3, as later this week, all three console manufactors will be holding press conferences at the newly designed E3 to show off their latest upcoming products, it appears that Sony is wasting no time, and rather than announce the price drop at E3 itself, they have pushed the announcement early, in order to generate some excitement for PS3 in the lead up to E3.


Source: Gamespot

*insert cursing here*

Why oh why are we always getting screwed? And 3 different versions of the PS3 is getting pretty ridiculous (even if one is being discontinued, it's still the same reaction). Just sell the HDD seperately, like the X360, there's no need for all this confusion

Kid: "Mum, will you buy me a PS3 for my bday?"
Mother: "Why sure honey, which one did you want?"
Kid: "Well I was thinking of getting the US's PS3 v1 with a smal HDD which doesn't have a wireless connection but has a PS2 compatibility chip, but then I thought of getting US's v2 which has a bigger HDD, a glossier logo but no controllers, or Australia's v3 which has an evan bigger HDD than that and comes with a game and a controller but it costs 50% more and uses the PS2 emulation software so only 10% of my collection will work on the damn thing"

:lol: Yeah it does get pretty ridiculous.

This "price drop" is also similar to the 360 Elite situation, drop the price of the highest end model but then introduce a higher model at the original higher price :P

You have to wonder are these multiple SKU's actually doing any good, or just confusing people?

I wish they'd just release the 20gig model for $500 so i could buy the damn thing and then pick up a cheaper bigger hard drive later on.

It doesn't have wireless but I've already got several cables running through my place, another network cable running down the hallway won't kill me! :P


If this 'Price Drop' happens here, I reckon the 60gig will drop down to $850AU which is still shit

Yeah $850AU sounds about right, even though as you said, still shit.

If you go to the Gametraders store in Perth you can buy the PS3 with 3 games of your choice for $1099 so it seems like the console only costs $800. But all the current PS3 games aren't worth $100 each imo. Ridge Racer 7 which is one of the games I want can be purchased for under $50 online.

Also if they did release the 20GB model for $500 I'd snatch that up in a second. The closest one is $592 from Yesasia but maybe with the US's pricedrop it'll force them to drop the price too to around $500

Ok I'll drive to the Gametraders in Perth and spend $500 in petrol and probably kill my car, all so I can save $200 on a PS3 :P

Taking out the equation of driving to Perth would you still buy it if you had a similar deal locally? I thought about it but not for very long, at the moment you can get a PS3+Resistance+F1 for $986 from Kmart. Or it'd be $937 if you had staff discount like me. Still too expensive though even if I did sell both games close to RRP

Just wait for more decent games to come out first! :P

Well I'm still too scared to buy a 360 (no they haven't fixed the problem, all they've done is said they won't screw you over when the problem eventually happens), and I'll need to play GTA4 somehow. But I'm also trying to save for a house OH WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO COST MONEY

Well, even if MS havent fixed the 'problem', at least you wont be screwed over, thats something.

Just the fact that I'd have to screw around with contacting them, sending it off, waiting for it to return then waiting for it to screw up again is still enough for me to be put off.

That's like saying "We'll give you the console for free, but a guy is gonna come around and stand behind you and poke you with his finger ever 4 seconds. It's annoying but hey, the console is free!"

Yeah I know what you mean, but it's not like every 360 has the issues, but still I can understand how the situation can turn people off.

Certainly a mark of desperation. It is being speculated that the price drop of the 60GB model is to phase it out. The 80GB model, which is coming out in the US in August, will not have the Emotion Engine and will be using software based backwards compatibility like the Xbox 360 and PAL PS3 systems.

However, I don't believe the speculation since Sony could just easily remove the Emotion Engine from the 60GB model and still sell it. The reason they are removing the Emotion Engine is to cut down manufacturing costs. So I don't think the speculation of the 60GB model being phased out with this price drop is true. The PS3 needs a defibrillator but Sony gives it a Band-Aid.