"When I bought my PlayStation 2, it was not cheap. It cost the best part of £150 and while not achingly expensive it was not a bargain either. The only thing you could say about the price was that it was no surprise. The Web had been filled with a gazillion articles speculating on how much it would cost for more than a year. In the end, the price was nailed down long before the launch and by the time it arrived, people were ready to stump up the readies. But, did the price really matter? In the end, no. If it had cost £50 more it still wouldn't have mattered.

The Web has been ablaze in the past week with dire warnings that the new PS3 will be more expensive than even the highest estimates. In June, Merrill Lynch estimated that the cost to produce a single PS3 would be a shade under $500. Considering that the Xbox 360 is expected will be priced at around $299, it was felt that even a $399 price tag on the PS3 meant Sony taking a $1bn hit on hardware costs alone in the first year. That was June. In the past few days Sony head honcho, Ken Kutaragi has warned that the PS3 will not be a cheap console. Hmm, we knew that already didn't we? No, because what Ken really means is that all previous bets are off and that the $100 price gap with the Xbox 360 may widen. Realistically, this could push the purchase price of the PS3 to $450." [more]