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When can we reasonably expect a PS4 price drop?

E

Elios83

Member
Toki767 said:
It lost 1 month by like 13K and then won the following month by 13K.

People are making way too big a deal over Xbox One beating the PS4 in April here.
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I don't think that's the point.
The key is that sales are lower than last year even with much better games available for new customers (Bloodborne, Witcher and soon Batman) and momentum has objectively slowed down year on year.
They don't want that in fact they expect sales for the fiscal year to grow.
Considering they have a weak first party lineup for the holiday season while Microsoft is well positioned and they have already proven they can fight back hard with deals, thinking they can go through this year without a price drop is out of reality.
 
I

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Next E3 is when they will drop the price i'm thinking. Along with a HW revision. 16nm finfet will be ready for mass production next year, so i'm guessing Sony wants to wait to get on that so they dont incur a major loss on HW sales. They are probably making money on the HW at this point but definitely not 100 dollars worth.
 
J

jimforspeed

Neo Member
Inuhanyou said:
Next E3 is when they will drop the price i'm thinking. Along with a HW revision. 16nm finfet will be ready for mass production next year, so i'm guessing Sony wants to wait to get on that so they dont incur a major loss on HW sales. They are probably making money on the HW at this point but definitely not 100 dollars worth.
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I don't think they care so much about hardware income (which is relatively meh) and next E3 is too far away. 2016 is gonna be good for them games-wise, so having an aggressive -50 or even -100 at around holidays-early 2016 to broaden the installed base seems very reasonable to me.
 
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SolidSnakex

Member
The lack of any kinda of Battlefront bundle announcement at E3 makes me think that they definitely have a pricedrop planned. No system pre-orders are out there once Batman launches (and MGSV in Japan and Europe), so they're free to do whatever they want with prices. An immediate pricedrop at TGS or PGW would make sense.
 
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BedBison

Neo Member
I'm guessing in early 2016 alongside the launch of Uncharted 4. They'll cut the 500GB to $299 and the soon to be 1TB will be $349 with a game. I imagine MS will probably counter this by cutting the XBO to $249/$299 around the same time.
 
K

KyleP29

Member
zenosparadox said:
Maybe the next PlayStation Experience this December? 50$ perhaps?
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They aren't going to do a price drop in December (even an announced pricecut for start of 2016 would hurt holiday sales as people wouldn't buy it knowing they could get cheaper in a month or two) when they could do it a month earlier and boost their sales for blackfriday. If there is no PR announcement for a price cut at gamescom or paris game week i think we are looking at 2016 and possibly next years e3 before they make the move.

The Artisan said:
20.2 wasn't a sell-through number?
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they announced the 18 mill at PSX the 20.2 was announced start of January but announcing holiday sales figure and where they were at at the end of the calendar year. the last 23 mill announcement was from their financial year end statement.

i wouldn't be surprised if at this point they are closing in or are over 25 mill and really at this stage i don't think they need to release an announcement on sales milestones all that often. Coming up on 2 years i think people realize the system has been selling well and aren't as interested in hearing about every 5 or 10 million milestone. I wouldn't be surprised if they just started providing totals once (atleast for year end financials) or twice a year no matter if sales start slipping or even gets a boost with a price drop or Morpheus release.
 
B

big_z

Member
Sulik2 said:
When it stops selling at a higher rate then any other console in history.
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ps4 is no wii, it hasn't even sold half that amount in the same amount of time. its selling well but its no phenomenon.


sony wont drop price until xbox consistently outsells it. sony as a whole needs the money and theres no market pressure yet. The earliest possibility I see is around black Friday. Microsoft knows how to kill it during the holiday season and after last year sony will probably want to put some effort in this time around.
 
G

Glorified G

Member
Whenever it is, the most likely scenario is that it has all been planned out. The drop is not going to be reactionary unless something drastic happens in the coming months. They have a blueprint of what to expect sales wise and how to coincide that with their software releases with even manufacturing costs coming into play.

My prediction. Early-mid fall, $299. Sony would have this planned out as far back as last year and maybe even earlier.
 
K

KyleP29

Member
SolidSnakex said:
The lack of any kinda of Battlefront bundle announcement at E3 makes me think that they definitely have a pricedrop planned. No system pre-orders are out there once Batman launches (and MGSV in Japan and Europe), so they're free to do whatever they want with prices. An immediate pricedrop at TGS or PGW would make sense.
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I think that the lack of a bundle announcement is sony still trying to settle on their holiday plans. And unless it is getting a customized ps4 and not just a bundle, a battlefront bundle can be announced relatively close to release.

BedBison said:
I'm guessing in early 2016 alongside the launch of Uncharted 4. They'll cut the 500GB to $299 and the soon to be 1TB will be $349 with a game. I imagine MS will probably counter this by cutting the XBO to $249/$299 around the same time.
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I think $250 for xbox one is a wish unless you are talking about them using it to discontinue the 500 gig model. The 360 (outside the arcade model) price cuts only went as low as $250 when they were discontinuing the model after introducing a new one.
 
E

Elandyll

Banned
Drilbit777 said:
$299 is just absurd. I think they would drop it to at least $350 at the most, after all its outselling XOne so there isn't any need to drop the price that low.
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Why does everybody keep saying it's about outselling the XB1? I mean it's nice for PR purposes and mindshare, but that's not really what this is about.

It's about growing your market to sell services, and this year not only have the PS4 sales dropped YoY, but Sony also missed their FY2014 sales target (by a hair at 14.8m vs 15m), while increasing their sales forecast on FY15 by 1m (16m target).

Combine all of this, and PGS (or an announcement during Gamescom) seems like a pretty much guaranteed price drop at $349 minimum, but more likely to be $299 imo to make a bigger splash during the Holiday.
 
K

KillerMan91

Member
CosmicQueso said:
Nope. Velocity is good, inventory is good, bundles are working. No real incentive to.
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For this FY Sony is forecasting increased hw sales (from 14.8 million to 16 million) with less than half of the profits of previous FY (from ¥48 billion to ¥20 billion). There will be absolutely a price cut this year. I will eat my hat if there isn't.
 
1

10k

Banned
They're lack of new first party games this Xmas tells me they'll do a minor drop to $350 this holiday. But they don't need to when the console is still selling like gangbusters.
 
R

RibMan

Member
If they don't drop the price at the Paris Games Week then I wouldn't expect them to drop the price this year. As another poster mentioned, bundled consoles might be Sony's strategy for the holiday season. Since the biggest games of the holiday season have PlayStation co-marketing (Call of Duty, Battlefront, Infinity etc.), it's reasonable to expect $349.99 and $399.99 bundles. This is all assuming they don't drop the price.

Three important things to keep in mind:

1) The PS4 is the market leader. The pressure isn't on Sony to drop the price, and from a strategic point of view, they should only drop the price when they can make the most gains. Gains can be in the form of increased marketshare, increased revenue from software, increased revenue from subscriptions etc.

2) Sony aren't really going for Microsoft's throat. Unless Microsoft cut the Xbox One price for a fourth time, Sony won't feel the urge to cut the PS4's price. If Sony wanted to bury the Xbox One then they would drop the 500Gb price to $249.99 and introduce the 1Tb PS4 at $329.99. That's a move that I can see them making when they realize they still have an opportunity to close the chapter for the Xbox One in NA and EU (The One is already dead in JP).

3) The retail price for Morpheus will affect the PS4's retail price strategy. $399.99 for PS4 and $299.99 for Morpheus is unreasonable for most consumers. $299.99 for PS4 and $249.99 for Morpheus starts to make a lot of sense at retail. What I'm saying is, if Morpheus is launching in 6-12 months then you should expect a PS4 price cut in 3-6 months.
 
S

StrongBlackVine

Banned
Toki767 said:
It lost 1 month by like 13K and then won the following month by 13K.

People are making way too big a deal over Xbox One beating the PS4 in April here.
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It's not Xbox winning. Sales have been lower for PS4 to compared to 2014 overall in the U.S. Don't know about worldwide.
 
C

CLEEK

Member
The U.S. is the only region with a competitor that could force a price drop. But if one region gets a reduction, the others will want/expect on too.

I'm sure it's worth Sony taking a hit in market share in the U.S. to keep selling at its current price globally. It's not like the other regions need a price drop to incentivise sales.
 
Sakura

Sakura

Member
Sony dropped the price of the PS2 just 2 years after being out.
And they dropped it 299 to 199. Pretty significant cut, especially considering that is 2002 dollars.
If Sony doesn't cut the PS4 price this year then I don't know what they are doing.
 
S

StrongBlackVine

Banned
Why is just outselling Xbox One supposed to be some end goal? Sony's goals should extend far beyond that and being the leading console when the other two competitors have flopped is no reason to be content. They should be pushing to get PS4 in as many homes as possible regardless of the competition is doing. If Xbox One sales 40 million this generation should PS4 be content with 60 million?
 
G

GasProblem

Member
I'm hopefully getting a PS4 at the end of this year so a fall or holiday price drop would be more then welcome.

A Xbox One plus a game is €350 here while a PS4 plus game is still €420 or €439 most of the time.
 
brickarts295

brickarts295

Member
What if they don't do a price cut this year, then surprise everyone next year with a PS4 Slim (if its even possible to get slimmer than it already is) at $299. And in a surprise move they bring Kevin Butler back
Not gonna happen but I can dream :(
 
G

Griss

Member
The momentum and new software this Christmas will keep it at its current price with bundles etc.

Then when sales start to flag in the dead period of Feb/March next year is when they drop the price. Makes no sense to drop it before Christmas, sacrificing 10s of millions of dollars unless you have data saying that you won't meet your targets.
 
K

KOHIPEET

Member
It'll either be this holiday, coupled with SW Battlefront, or next year when Uncharted 4 drops.
But there's a possibility that they wait for next summer where there won't be anything that would drive sales. Or perhaps they drop price along with the launch of Horizon.

IMO the first one is the most likely, but the smartest would be to wait until Horizon and give it a huge support with a price drop as I don't really see the PS4 slowing down in the next 8 months.
 
D

ddikxela

Member
Since Morpheus is dropping in the first half of 2016 I think we'll get a price drop timed before the price announcement of morpheus. Price drop at PSX to bump up the potential Morpheus customers over the xmas period and a February/March announcement for the price of VR hardware.
 
Chobel

Chobel

Member
If Sony wants Morpheus to have any chance of success, then they must sell big in US. So a price cut this year (in US at least) is a must.
 
small44

small44

Member
Sony said they want to focus on profits more then install base so i would not be surprised if they don't drop the price this year.
I think a temporary price drop in Holiday is a better idea
 
S

Stage On

Member
I really want jump in soon. Best buy Canada is having throwing in a free copy of Metal gear 5 with the last of us bundle but it's only for September 1-3 and is still $450

On one hand it's the first bundle that's has a game I'm really interested in, but I'm worried about a potential price drop coming in the near future, it's been nearly two years so it'd be pretty strange if they don't have one soon.
 
NJDEN

NJDEN

Member
If anything I'd expect a temporary Black Friday sale... Not the permanent price drop folks are looking for, but it's something.
 
Z

Zaventem

Member
How financially fucked do you have to be you can't invest in a system now, possibly one of the cheapest generations. And it's been constantly bundled with gamee.
 
R

Roronoa

Banned
Stage On said:
I really want jump in soon. Best buy Canada is having throwing in a free copy of Metal gear 5 with the last of us bundle but it's only for September 1-3 and is still $450

On one hand it's the first bundle that's has a game I'm really interested in, but I'm worried about a potential price drop coming in the near future, it's been nearly two years so it'd be pretty strange if they don't have one soon.
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Wow are you my twin? We're connected telepathically, it seems.

Miracle-girls-miracle-girls-toni-and-mika-26484035-300-245.jpg
 
H

hodayathink

Member
Sometime between now and Morpheus launch is almost certain. I also expect a better Black Friday deal than last year (which was keeping the price and 2 free games), though that be a third free game or some extra PS Plus time instead of an actual price drop.
 
I

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
E3 2016. No point this year i say, and they probably want to wait for a full die shrink on the HW before committing to eating the cost.

*edit*

I already commented, my bad
 
S

Sjefen

Member
50$ drop in Paris games week, would be a very good strategy to kill it this holiday. But I think Sony can't supply enough PS4's if they did, so E3 next year seems more likely.

If MS drops the price with another 50$ before next years E3 Sony will drop the price with 50$. A 100$ difference is to much even for PS4 imo
 
brickarts295

brickarts295

Member
At this point, when the Xbox One catches up, if it ever happens. This fall will a be interesting test, MS got the Halo and a few exclusives here and there, while Sony has most of 3rd party marketing.
 
D

DieH@rd

Banned
Console is still selling like mad at $400. Sony will not reduce price easily.

I can see only a $50 pricedrop for holidays [and that maybe in the US, nowhere else], $100 is not happening.
 
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