Sony PS3 Poll Results

The recent poll asking the question "What can Sony do to ensure they come out on top?" has now finished. Thankyou to all readers that voted and although there wasn't a flood of votes (after all it was only the first poll!) the results are still pertinent.

As suspected it was "reducing the price" that got most votes and accounted for a 53% share. I certainly agree that this has to be the first step that Sony takes. Although they are still making a loss on hardware for each unit that is manufactured (estimated 100 GBP / 200 USD) this has to come sooner rather than later as they do not have the luxury of waiting for manufacturing costs to decrease to help offset a new price point.

When a price drop does happen it has to be a significant amount. Here in the UK there was an "unofficial" reduction of 25 GBP (50 USD) a few weeks after launch but I don't believe another similar drop would be enough. So how much would it take? From a personal point of view a drop of 100 GBP (200 USD) would entice me to buy a PS3 immediately, but from analytical rumours appearing on the Internet a drop of 100 USD (50 GBP) is more likely to happen.

There's no denying that the PS3 is a state of the art piece of kit, but I just feel that adding in so much cutting edge technology has backfired with regards to the manufacturing costs and the resulting retail price. If you have an opinion on the price point in your region, please feel free to leave a comment.

PS3 60GB Launch Prices
(figures in brackets show the equivalent price using current exchange rates)
(UK) GBP 425 / EUR 599 (840 USD / 102,173 YEN)
(US) USD 599 (303 GBP / 445 EUR / 72,862 YEN)
(JPN) YEN 59,980 (249 GBP / 367 EUR / 493 USD)