Sony: "$299 is the sweet spot" - offering best value on market

PlayStation 3's new USD 299/GBP 249 price point is the "sweet spot" for consumers, SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton has said, offering unprecedented value on the market.

Furthermore, the console has reached significant milestones quickly, with a hardware revision being offered short of its third year, said Tretton, while similar revisions of the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 were only possible in their third and fourth years on sale.

"We're extremely pleased that we've been able to meet production efficiencies that have allowed us to pass those savings onto consumers," the exec said, during a video statement on Sony's US blog.

"We're very pleased that short of its third birthday, the PlayStation 3 has achieved tremendous milestones which have allowed us to bring out this new form factor."

The PlayStation 3's new price of GBP 249.99 - half that of its original launch price - will be effective immediately, Sony announced at its press conference in Cologne last night, while the new "slimmer, lighter form factor" will be available on September 1.

"We really think that USD 299 is the sweet spot when consumers think about all the features that exist in the PlayStation 3. There's just no better value on the market," said Tretton.

In terms of the PlayStation 3's competition, he continued, Sony sees itself as competing with any form of entertainment, not just Nintendo and Microsoft. And Tretton also confirmed the company considers the console still in its "infancy", with a long way yet to go.

"When we talk about competition, I think we're really competing with any form of entertainment, not only hardware devices within the gaming space, but clearly multimedia devices, portable and console-based. And we're competing with entertainment in general - we're just competing for people's free time.

"This device is less than three years old," he continued. "We're still in the infancy stage, especially for a company that consistently delivers ten year product life cycles.

"If you look at how far PlayStation 3 has come in terms of features, in terms of the great games that have been offered and to understand that's being done at half the original price with a 120GB harddrive being built in, with a new slimmer lighter form factor...

"It's staggering to think how far this has come in less than three years - and to envision how far it will go before this system is over and done with."

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