$422???? It's $796 for one in the UK, sod making it even cheaper in Japan, make it cheaper in Europe, Sony!

Somehow I don't think that's the price drop people were looking for to entice them...

My local GameQuest has 60 gig PS3s for $569...that's almost a price drop...

North America needs something similar. They should also think of bundling the PS3 with the new Ninja Gaiden game. Next year I predict a PS3 bundle with the Final Fantasy 13 game.

That's better than $600, but of course like PhotoBoy said, that's in Japan. We probably won't see that here.

My 360 was $75.00, but that was after several trade-ins. There was no way I could pony up $400.00 to buy the damn thing straight out.

Well at least its a start

@jsin007:
I don't think that will ever happen.
Has there ever been a Final Fantasy game bundled with any hardware at all?

@Logician:
Pretty sure there's been a FF DS bundle.

@Logician: Been a DS and a gamecube one, still it wouldnt suprise me if they released a bundled one with ff13 in japan

@ashcraft: Yeah, like the FFIII DS bundle (with the Limited Edition DS), and the FFXII Revenant Wings bundle (with the Limited Edition DS).

@Logician:
I'm pretty sure you're right. But it would be a great idea for Sony to really sell the PS3 in Japan. Unless it's not really an exclusive at all. Then I suggest the Gran Turismo 5 bundle since I bought my PS2 in a GT 3 bundle.

All consoles should come with a game bundle kinda like wii sports with the Wii. I really miss that word 'bundle'. Remember the SNES Super Mario Bros. bundle that came with the extra controller. (LOL)

In the UK we got an unofficial price cut about ten days after launch.
Sony shipped double and in some cases triple what stores asked for, so nearly every store cut the price by £25. Either that or they gave away a free game.

That price cut is still in place in nearly every shop I go in.

there was a limited edition PS2 for FF-XII too

@ Logician;

Yes it was in Europe. Final Fantasy X - PS2 bundle
released May 2002 at the same time FFX arrived in Europe!

[www.amazon.de]

I think that this is a great promotional idea to sell more consoles.

With there movie like ad from before (that did not seem to mention the PS3), and now this.

This is a great way to sell more Xbox 360s & Wiis.

When did Microsoft and Nintendo hire Sony for their marketing?

Damn thing's still priced at 599€ in the local stores around here.

Or you could just walk into any used hardware shop in Japan and pick up a slightly used PS3 60gb model for 50,000 yen ($405).

@Logician: FF XI :\

I'm surprised it isn't a limited edition, special colored system with the game and a larger hard drive, along with limited edition stuffed toy of one of the characters for $300. Some reason Japan always gets deals that we'll not only see, but would actually buy in a second if they came. This one though, I'll still pass.

If I could find one import store that would ship one in the UK i'd be all over that! That works out as £211.77 (£248.83 after tax). The UK street price is £400! I'm still saving about 40% of the price of the console - how screwed up is that?!

I miss lik-sang :(.

@Lov3: Yeah, Sony knew exactly what they were doing when they killed them off. =(

^^^ Hit up Playasia.com, they even have the 20 GB available.. I get my 360 games from there as they have the region free games, I have a Japanese 360 (dont bother asking how that happened)

@Lov3:
Just order one from Lik....errrr, nothing.

I never played these games, but guess they have hopes for this selling well. Supposedly retailers have already 30k+ preorders for the game alone.

@makemoney: Last time I looked at Playasia they wouldn't ship to the UK... don't know if that's changed.

@Psychotext: Grr... wouldn't ship the PS3 to the UK that is. Stupid lack of brain.

This is a bad article. Its more like Hot Shots Golf got a price reduction instead of the PS3 getting one.

@chap: "This is a bad article. Its more like Hot Shots Golf got a price reduction instead of the PS3 getting one"

Ken, is that you? Still all Sony even after the pink slip.

How is it that the Japanese are paying less for the Ps3 than the Us, Canada, and the UK?
60gb in Jap: $487
60gb in Can: $647
" " UK: $843
" " US: $599
(prices in USD, and according to wikipedia)

Seriously, that is just fucked up. I thought we were getting the shaft, but the UK is getting royaly screwed. I feel bad for my friends across the ocean.

@charman: Some of it is taxes... the rest is simply because they can. It's not just Sony either - pretty much everyone does it to us.

@evulcow: if it was $600 in UK it would sell like hotcakes, i mean the 360 is $560 and the wii is $360 jugdging on exchange rates

@chap:
Is English your first language?

I'd be willing to pay $500 for a 60GB PS3 plus a game, though it would have to be a good game to really put me over the top. Something along the lines of FF, MGS, etc...

@Tychoides: I would suspect a killzone one will be released in US and Europe, i think after halo's out of the way, sony will put that on the hype train

@Havok154: Play-Asia is but one of many.

@Havok154: Lik-sang would sell them overpriced. In fact everything was overpriced there...

I've said this a million times and likely will alot more, THE GAMES MAKE THE MACHINE.The PSP isn't much more price wise than the DS but for various reasons including not having very many outstanding games, the DS and it's games outsell it by a HUGE,HUGE margin worldwide and that isn't likely to change anytime soon.On top of pricing competitiveness with the PS3,Sony needs a great stable of games which they simply do not have and won't for quite some time.Sony really needs to get on the ball.Had they had a sweet stable of early games they wouldn't necessarily have to worry about a substantial price drop.MS hasn't had to for exactly that reasoon for almost 2 years.

the game is ok at best. I downloaded the demo from the japanese store.

@Tezs: You are wrong, the big selling point is the price. If you look at the psp game list, you will see that there is quite a huge list of great games and upcoming games.

@skobar: I liked the everybodys golf demo :D, will get this when out over here. Still in japan they go crazy for it, i read a report somewhere that they have over 300,000 preorders for this game already and its still a month before launch. looks like this could be a killer app in Japan

When is Minna No Golf 5 actually out? I wanna import it. So much better than the English versions.

Wait, play-asia says July 26th. But it's £35. :(
Wonder if Yesasia will stock it.

That's a great game to pack-in, as it has a pretty wide appeal. I don't think that game would work as a pack-in for the US though. Also, this is definitely a "hint" that the price drop is eminent.

Personally, I love the HSG series, and I play the demo for the PS3 iteration all the time.

[playstationnationpodcast.co]

@charman:

It still amazes me how people don't understand simple economics. It's real simple, NO COUNTRY IS PAYING MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE! At least not for the base product (taxes are just an add-on). It all has to do with a country's economic status. Workers in other countries generally earn more money per hour than Americans and currency rates are unbalanced for a reason. Therefore prices in general are higher, not just products like the PS3. The Dollar is weak right now, it takes about $3 to a Euro in exchange rates so that is why the UK price is how it is. They aren't paying more, prices are just inflated higher because of economic strength.

@alucard_0007: They are still paying more. The console is manufactured at the same place as far as I know and the price to make 1 does not change from 1 country to another one. I understand your point that euro is worth more than us dollar but it is still more.. They could import one for far less.

@jip100: 300.000 orders for that? Japan people are smoking good drugs...

@alucard_0007:

Shush. You're interrupting the "Stupid Sony hates Europe/UK" rant.

Yes, most other companies do this too. Sony's product just stands out a lot more, thanks to it's already VERY steep price tag.

Personally, I want Sony to drop the price too. I don't care if I already bought it for $600. That's my price of early admittance. But if it can stop people from typing "FIVE HUNDRED AND NINTY NINE US DOLLARS LOL!!!" over and over again on forums like they are saying something witty, I'm all for it.

Well, that, and $600 is a LOT of money. I want my fellow gamers to be able to play Warhawk and LittleBigPlanet with me, and for a lot of people that can't happen until they can get past the financial (and in a lot of cases the psychological barrier) of laying down six c-notes.

I don't know how popular HS is in Japan, but the demo was pretty great.

@skobar:

not everyone imports, and I can understand that they would for certain reasons. I was merely pointing out that when an american goes to the store and pays $600 for one a UK citizen can go do the same thing for their $843 and are not in actuality paying $200 more. That's how I took Charman's post because it seemed to me like he really believed $600 is the global price but some countries are being greedy and tacking on extra cash because they can. As lame as that sounds, there really are more people that believe that than you might think.

@charman:
Yeah it sucks. Then again, us Canadians are paying 50 bucks more than the US anyway (according to the exchange values, we're nearly at a 1:1 ratio anyway).

@alucard_0007:
no. It's 100% certain that this isn't the case just simply looking at Canada. We literally do pay 50 bucks more, and our productivity/pay is LOWER than that of the US. If economic strength is the measure of how much we pay according to PPP, then it's certain that we would be paying a price that is lower than that of Japan, considering that we are second-last in economic strength amongst the high income countries. Yes, we got warnings from WTO to increase productivity or risk future problems. All we did was ignore them...

$400 for the 20 gb sound reasonable, that and the fact that the PS3 firmware downgrades are starting to appear, make the ps3 a little more atractive than before, lest hope this price drops hits worldwide...