With a price of about $270 to $300 for the newer, lighter version of the PlayStation 3 coming out next week, a lot of people had to think: “Wait a minute, isn’t this a price increase?” Indeed, the last PlayStation 3, dubbed the “PS3 Slim”, sold for $250 for a 160GB version and $300 for a 320GB version, often with a bundle to boot. The price increase just begs the question of “Why?” but surely Sony will be reducing the price of older consoles to get them off the shelves.
Not so, says Sony. In another bizarre move surrounding the PS3, they are keeping the old prices alongside the older models, even as the new models take up store shelves. What will this lead to? Confusion more than anything I bet. As the prices will indeed look similar to consumers alongside one another and the bundles will also be similar (both the old an new include Uncharted 3 bundles).
I just can’t really say I know what Sony is thinking this year. It does feel like a bit of a nod to just stay out of the picture competitively and double-down on their current base. The Wii U will be releasing in November to roughly the same price point, but for newer (and admittedly neater) hardware. More odd are the disparate release windows and entirely different flavors of storage space when comparing different regions. Its just…confusing to say the least without knowing more about the innards of Sony decision-making. Perhaps a little insight about the notion that engineers make more of the calls within Sony’s ranks than do their leadership will shed some light on Sony’s bizarre missteps in the past few years.
Will this also be considered a misstep? Its hard to say, but nothing I’ve seen in the last few days looks good for the PlayStation line and brand especially considering a complete lack of detail surrounding a PS4 announcement. When that comes we might know a little more about Sony’s priorities.
