PS3 Fanboy

It's time once again to look into the future. That's right, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities, all the way to the year 2008! And what does he see? He says that we should "expect a price cut no later than April, likely to $399 for the 80Gb model" of the PS3.

This would be a $100 price drop on top of the already slashed $499 price he predicted for the holiday season. Pachter believes that Sony's recent IPO announcement, will enable Sony to drop prices even further for early next year. And hopefully, just in time for Metal Gear Solid 4.

[via Joystiq]

They're worried, honestly. Though some may say PR people are a dime a dozen in any industry, Karraker had a lot of history at Sony and his recent departure from the team is going to make it a difficult holiday for Sony, says analyst Michael Pachter. Karraker always made himself available for questions and comments, putting himself forward especially after the shaky PS3 launch and subsequent waves of negative press. Can someone fresh really fill the shoes of that man?

Michael Pachter isn't completely sure. "The other PR people at Sony are quite competent, but it would help to strengthen the team with someone as good as Dave to handle the schizophrenic press over the next 6 months." Just because we always refer to ourselves as "we" doesn't make us schizophrenic! Although we don't consider ourselves press, either. As to further boost Sony's fears, Pachter also claimed that the few PS3 exclusives and pricing disadvantage relative to other consoles will make this one difficult holiday for Sony. Things will shape up in Spring, he said, "with the release of Grand Theft Auto 4, Gran Turismo 5, and Metal Gear Solid 4." We bet so, too!

We can't say we didn't expect it, let alone haven't heard it before and probably had some report on it a while back. Once again, those number-crunching-guessing analysts are setting up consumers for one of two things: an expected result or disappointment. There are no pleasant surprises anymore, huh? Anyway, Wedbush Morgan's own Michael Pachter and simExchange's Jesse Divnich came out of the forest to proclaim the 60GB model PS3 will vanish by the holidays and the 80GB model will fully replace it -- price and all. Yep, they sense Sony will lower the 80GB model to $499 and keep it there.

Other sales boosts, the two say, could come in the form of more software bundles and Jesse Divnich is "confident that through the coming months, Sony will make the correct decisions to prevent the gap between the PS3 and the Xbox 360 to widen." Pachter chimes in also with the idea that in early 2008, Sony may be prepared to cut the price of their console again. We don't think we'll see another $100 price drop, but if one does happen, we bet it'd be about $50. That's our analysis, what's yours?

Everybody's favorite analyst, Michael Pachter, has weighed in once again on his favorite topic -- PlayStation 3 price drops. According to Pachter, it is unlikely that Sony will drop the price of the PS3 again this year even though higher-than-previous console costs will constrain new console growth by approximately 10% compared to last cycle. He does feel that Sony will look at dropping the price early next year though, just in time to spur sales of the console for major hitters like Metal Gear Solid 4 and GTA IV.

The PlayStation 3 wasn't the only console that got love though, Pachter also said that he thinks it's likely that Sony will drop the price of the PlayStation 2 before this holiday season in order to further propel sells of the Energizer of videogame consoles. The PS3's diminutive daddy continues to sell at a fantastic rate and a price cut down to $99 would help maintain or even increase the sales rate of the 'last-gen' console. Continued strong sales of the PlayStation 2 would also help prop up Sony's game devision while the PS3 continues it's slow ramp-up towards profitability.

Will they? Won't they? This is worse than Ross and Rachel. Ah, the 90s. Simpler times. Since Thursday, we've been questioning whether the 80GB PS3 will drop to $499 once the 60GB version sells out. We're fairly comfortable with our prediction that it will and Michael Pachter, of Wedbush Morgan, agrees.

Pachter states that "the Sony entry level price of $499 is here to stay" and that "there are presently 2 – 3 million 60Gb PS3s produced and not yet sold." This number constitutes up 75% of PS3s in the hands of consumers right now, so the idea of that many selling out before the end of the month, as Reeves suggested, is ridiculous. Pachter's reasoning for why he expects the 80GB model to drop in price is similar to most people's. The 80GB PS3 should cost Sony as much, if not less, to produce than the 60GB model thanks to removal of the Emotion Engine (which, at this point, is the PS3's equivalent of the appendix). Not to mention that Motorstorm is included in the 80GB box, so removing the game will allow the bundle to drop in price by at least $50.

Pachter ends his report by saying that he expects "the $499 price point to be maintained until early next year, when the 80Gb model will likely be cut again to $399." We're not so sure about this ourselves, but we'd definitely like to see it happen.

Wedbush Morgan analyst David Pachter just can't seem to stay out of the spotlight -- he's already been quoted on here today claiming a price cut for the PS3 is due this summer. Now he's estimating console sales for April and it seems like he's decided that April was the worst month for the PS3 so far. Citing a mere 100,000 consoles sold for the US (these are NPD numbers, so it's just the US), this is about 30,000 fewer units than the previous month and way lower than the competition. He estimated 300,000 Wii's sold, 175,000 360's, the usual dominance of the DS and the PS2 selling better than both the PS3 and 360.

Software sales are up 24%, he estimates. Chances are this is no thanks to the PS3 since it released zero exclusive titles. He says that upcoming multiplatform games (like those based on movies) will sell the best on the PS2. This is probably due to userbase, plus cost of games for the PS2 seems to have dropped to a $39.99 price point (at least, around Georgia it seems that way). Sales of the PS2 may taper off once people replace the system for a next-gen one (but want to keep their current library), but that's only if the PS3 can show its muscle. In the coming months, that seems very likely.

[via GameDaily]

Videogame analyst superstar Michael Pachter expects there to be a price cut for the PlayStation 3 by the end of the year, and says that it might even come as early as this summer. GI.biz quotes Pachter,

"It is possible that Sony's cost of production for the PS3 has declined to the point that the company may consider a hardware price cut some time this summer, and we may see a price cut for the PS2 before the holidays."

As long as Sony's manufacturing costs have dropped to a reasonable rate, I'd heartily encourage Sony to drop the price of the PS3 as soon as possible. It's very clear that people desperately WANT a PS3, but just can't afford it. Dropping it to $500US and then marketing the hell out of the price drop would do wonders for their sales. Just look at what a 30 dollar price drop did for the PSP.

The most recent Wedbush Morgan report has been released and in it, Michael Pachter states that he believes that Blu-Ray may actually be the deciding factor in the console wars. At the end of the PS3/Wii/360 generation, he expects Sony to 'win' with a 36% market share, largely due to the strong movie industry support of Blu-Ray.

Interestingly though, he also states that this console cycle will essentially be "a dead heat, and each manufacturer will have sufficient market share to generate significant profits." This is great news for videogame fans everywhere, since an evenly divided market will mean that each of the consoles will have a chance to grow and mature as they age. This may be PS3 Fanboy, but I really don't want any of the current consoles to pull a Dreamcast.