UK PlayStation 3 = £425

Written by Ryan Garside

May 18, 2006 | 17:58

Tags: #20gb #60gb #playstation-3 #ps3 #rip-off-britain

Companies: #sony

Sony Computer Entertainment UK boss Ray Maguire has made some interesting comments about the PlayStation 3, including a pricing plan for Britain as well as a snippet about the differing strategies for the US and European markets.

With fluctuations in currency being taken into account the Sony representative had this to say about the cost of the new Playstation when it hits the streets:

"We have time to watch the yen and be flexible, but that 60GB version looks like £425 in the UK at the moment. High trade margins in the UK are likely to see it come in with that kind of street price, though it’s ultimately up to retailers." So you can blame Rob for that then (as in Rip Off Britain).

In an interview with Eurogamer Maguire announced that gamers should consider the PlayStation 3 cheap, considering what it will offer them:

"If you think a Blu-ray player by itself might be £600-700, and we're coming in at just £425 - it's a bargain." On the other hand, we're thinking PlayStation 3 is expensive, and £700 for a Blu-ray player is just laughable, especially given that in the US, HD-DVD players are going for as little as $500, or around £300.

At this moment in time it is unclear whether Britain will have the option of buying the 20GB or 60GB console - with rumours suggesting that only the 60GB PlayStation 3 will go on sale. Maguire did release a few pieces of information about the lower spec version:

"The lower-end 20GB version of PlayStation 3 has no Wi-Fi, no HDMI and none of the other slots in it, so it’s really a question of where we would position it. It’s more likely that we will only launch the 60GB version,"

Maguire mentioned that he had got together the leading games retailers in the UK to discuss the plans for Sony’s platform. Summing up these discussions, he said:

"It’s five months until launch, so we have time for dialogue with retailers. Maybe the early adopter price for PlayStation 3 is really upwards of £2,000, given that retail has a great opportunity to drive HDTV sales. And we won’t be launching the pre-pay card for online that was demonstrated at the press conference. It’s not right for the UK - too difficult to launch or manage."

So Sony, who hopes to have a more successful simultaneous worldwide launch than Microsoft, is targeting individual regions with different pricing schemes. Whether or not this will leave some countries out in the cold or not remains to be seen.

Let us know what you think of Sony’s marketing schemes and pricing plan for the PlayStation 3 over in the forums.
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