Even though it launched at a price way, way above what the average gamer was willing to spend, Sony’s PlayStation 3 was a loss leader; sold under cost in the hopes that money would be made through software sales.
"Unlike PS3, we are not planning a major loss to be incurred with the launch of PS4," Sony’s CFO Masaru Kato told investors in an earnings call. (via Eurogamer)
"At the time we developed PS3, we made a lot of in-house investments to develop the chip, the Cell chip. Development of the chip saw the silicon processing and all the facilities invested by us ourselves. But this time, yes we have a team working on chip development, but we already have existing technology to incorporate and also product investment and all the facilities will now be invested by our partners, other foundries, so we don’t have to make all the investment in-house."
This could end up meaning one of two things; The next PlayStation is going to end up being pretty damned expensive or it’ll just be far, far cheaper to produce. My money’s on the latter one; with it using heavily tweaked but already existing PC hardware, there won’t be extra costs incurred by unproven tech like that damned Cell processor. Other bits of tech, like then new Blu Ray and gigabit networking have become significantly cheaper too.
Last Updated: May 9, 2013
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
May 9, 2013 at 14:37
Let’s hope it means cheap to produce and not hellishly expensive.
Tbone187
May 9, 2013 at 14:38
Since when does cheaper production costs equal cheaper prices for the general public…? More profit rather….In SA we will get screwed , no doubt there…
silverscorpio
May 9, 2013 at 15:19
It is clear that Sony has the one up against the next Xbox. Sony clearly properly planned every aspect of the PS4 including its launch schedule. If it is true that the next Xbox will only release in 2014 because of the Blu Ray patent, then it indicates that Microsoft only expected to release next year. That indicates that Microsoft did not properly plan for a accellerated launch schedule. Microsoft is now probably spending more money to achieve an early launch then they originally planned. Increased production costs equals either early losses for Microsoft or a very expensive launch price.
Deano
May 9, 2013 at 15:31
okay if you say so.
OVG OfflineVideoGamer
May 9, 2013 at 15:54
R6000 6 years ago and people are happy to pay even more for cell phones and tablets.
So, why not R6000 again or more?. It worked last time.
FoxOneZA - X-Therminator
May 9, 2013 at 16:27
8GB of GDDR5 isn’t cheap by a mile. Wishful thinking that it’s going to be cheap.
matthurstrsa
May 10, 2013 at 07:26
“Unlike PS3, we are not planning a major loss to be incurred with the launch of PS4,” Sony’s CFO Masaru Kato told investors in an earnings call. (via Eurogamer)
He said they’re not planning a major loss, so I think while it will be cheaper to produce, I do think they’ll make a small loss on each unit.