Sony UK: PS4 Launch Won't Make PS3 Cheaper

By Jane McEntegart
published

Sony UK says the PS3 will be around for 'years to come.'

When a company releases a new product, it's not unusual for them to drop the price on the previous generation of said product. Unfortunately for those looking for discount PS3s, that's not going to happen when the PS4 launches.


Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Sony UK Managing Director Fergal Gara said the PS3 isn't likely to get a price cut following the launch of the PS4. Gara says the company has no plans to drop the price on the PS3 just yet, adding that the costs associated with the PlayStation 3 have been tough to get down.

"There's no plans as yet," Gara is quoted as sayhing. "The PlayStation 3 is a system where it hasn't been particularly easy to get the costs down."

Sony famously lost money on the PS3 when it first launched back in 2006, despite the fact that the console was priced at $499. The company actually lost money on every PS3 sold for years. Things finally turned around in 2010 (and the PS3, thankfully, doesn't cost so much), but Sony has already said it doesn't plan on history repeating itself with the PS4. In May, Sony CFO Masaru Kato said the company was not planning a 'major loss' for the PS4. Kato elaborated that the development of the PS3 required a lot of investments in R&D. The fact that the PS4 incorporates existing technology means less of an in-house investment this time around.

The PS4 will launch in time for the holiday shopping season and will be priced at $399.

Jane McEntegart
11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • CaedenV
    Thats what happens when you use a custom CPU that hogs power. Makes it very difficult to shrink it down and use less cooling, less power delivery support, and when you are a vendor's only real customer for a product.

    I think Sony and MS have made a great decision moving to x86 where the maturity and price drops of the general market will more easily translate into their respective products as they age. But at the same time I think they have also missed the boat by not making a PC client that can also play these games. This is especially true of MS who could use the Win8 Store as a delivery system, and then require PC players to use an XBone controller and Kinnect. It would spur win8 sales and bring an instant install base at the launch of the XBone... but whatever; I just don't want to buy hardware that is essentially the same as what I already have. Perhaps with being x86 the prices of both of these consoles will drop to a more acceptable $150-200 in a few years and I can enjoy both of them.
    Reply
  • JPNpower
    When you keep on improving the price gradually, you get to a point where you can't lower the price when a successor comes out... I love Sony.

    Anyway, IF sony had waited to release the PS3 superslim until after PS4, things could have been a different story
    Reply
  • cepheid
    Not really because releasing a new architecture doesn't drop the production cost of the old. The benefit is some of the good parts of the PS3 design will be integrated into the PS4 making it a pretty powerful system.
    Reply
  • belardo
    Without a price drop, it will become a difficult sale once the PS4 has a good amount of titles on the market. 3/4 the price with 1/5 the the computing & GPU power = bad buy.

    The PS3 will be worthwhile for those who want 100% compatibility with PS3 games... for a while.
    Reply
  • shikamaru31789
    I think it'll be a real big mistake if they don't drop the price of the PS3. The 500gb PS3 model currently costs only $100 less than the 500gb PS4. The PS3 is 6x less powerful, that's an awful big power gap for $100. They need to get the 250GB and 500 GB Super Slims down to $200/250. Microsoft on the other hand needs to get the new 360 E down to $150 for the 4GB model and $200-229 for the 500 GB model. At those price points, they can severly undercut the Wii U, which has specs closer to the 360 and PS3 than the One and PS4, and is currently overpriced at $300 for the 8GB model and $350 for the 32GB model.
    Reply
  • viliu24
    ooohh ye it will.Maybe not sony itself wont drop the price but definitely the resellers with big stocks will want to get rid of them.Just imagine that already the sales are down, after ps4 launch ps3 will have no sales....
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    Man are console manufacturers taking lessons from "How To Piss Off Existing Customers & Alienate New Ones"? :ange:

    First Microsoft with their DRM fiasco, now Sony and this. What's next?
    Reply
  • thizzle7xu
    Of course they aren't going to tell you they are dropping the price in 5-6 months. They don't want people waiting for the price drop and their sales dropping off a cliff until the end of the year.
    Reply
  • hetneo
    Yeah right, huge losses my a$$, lost money on every PS3 for years, pure bovine scatology. That's called payback period, they had no losses per unit they had big fixed expenses of R&D. You have per unit losses only if proportional expenses per unit increased for nth part of fixed expenses (where n is number of planed units) is higher than price tag. That's microeconomics 101.
    Reply
  • omega21xx
    I don't remember a single time that they (Sony) have confirmed a price drop this far out. It is bad business to confirm price drops this far out, you are just telling possible customers to wait and buy it cheaper.
    Reply