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Posted: Sep 23 2006 09:26 am

From http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/09/22/ps3price/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

Quote:

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) kicked off the Tokyo Game Show with a surprise for Japanese consumers: a price cut for the yet-to-be-launched PlayStation 3 console.

The cheapest of two versions of the console will cost ¥49,980 (US$427) ın Japan, said Ken Kutaragi, president of SCEI in a speech at the show on Friday morning. That’s a more than ¥10,000 drop from the previous announced price of ¥62,790.

“In Japan there is a perception that one yen is the same as one dollar and one euro, so Japanese people feel it’s a little expensive,” said Nanako Kato, a spokeswoman for SCEI in Tokyo. The U.S. launch price is US$499 and the cut would bring the Japanese price in line with that of the U.S. in the minds of consumers, she said.

The price cut will only apply in Japan.

Asked whether there was now a risk that consumers in the U.S. and Europe would perceive the PlayStation 3 to be overpriced in their markets, she said: “I guess we’ll find that out from now.”

Sony also said it would fit a high-definition HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) on both versions of the PlayStation 3. The company had previously said it would only be available on the higher-end model.

The PlayStation 3, Sony’s first new games console in more than five years, is scheduled to launch in Japan on Nov. 11 and in the U.S. on Nov. 17. It was supposed to be available in Europe at the same time as the U.S. launch but problems obtaining sufficient supply of blue laser diodes for the console’s optical disc drive pushed Sony to delay the European launch until 2007.

Kutaragi’s announcement came at the end of an otherwise uninspiring keynote address which barely touched upon the PlayStation 3. Despite the company being on the verge of its biggest product launch for years, he spent his hour-long speech talking about the future of gaming and the possibilities that new technology could bring 10 years down the road.

Centered around the benefits that could come from silos of data stored on network-accessible servers, Kutaragi said one day it might be possible for players of games like Ridge Racer to race cars along real streets using data downloaded from public mapping databases.

“Today producers have to [produce the game landscape] by foot with digital cameras if they want to use a real world setting. With these databases available you can incorporate data into the game,” he said. Doing so would cut the lengthy development process and save game makers money, he said.

He also suggested that users could contribute their own data, supplementing publicly available sources with more detailed information on locations. What Kutaragi was suggesting has similarities with the way Google benefits from its users adding metadata to images or marking up maps with labels.

“If you have the database, you don’t have to put it all in from scratch,” he said.

Posted: Sep 23 2006 07:11 pm

I think the core PS3 is actually a good deal, unlike the useless, neutered xbox 360 core system. You still get all the stuff you need, just no shitty card reader or wifi. I hate wireless anyway, so, I'm okay with shaving 150 bucks off my price to not have it. It's not like it's that difficult to drag an ethernet cable 10 feet across the floor of my apartment.

All this of course is assuming I'd even want to buy a PS3, or any other next gen console, which I don't, because I see no reason in it. WOW NEXT-GEN...suddenly a bunch of new CPU's came out, that means games won't just be the same old derivative shit with new graphics, right?