No offense intended here, I just wanted to see peoples views on this.

Here's the thing. We've all heard the endless complaining about the PS3 price right?
Indeed it does cost a good buck... but how come when the PS2 was released in Europe in 2000, it sold for a price of $550, (that's only 50 under the PS3, and even more than the core version of PS3) and not only did I not hear a single complaint, but they sold out off the shelves like hotcakes. Stores ran out of them fast.

No blog spots were created regarding the price. No magazine headlines about the subject. No fans whining so much about it.

Are Europeans richer, or is this a cultural thing?

When I mentioned before about the concept of saving, someone said "everyone isn't you"

It's a good thing everyone isn't a 16 year old jobless student.
And I still managed to pick it up anyway, along with a game and Memorycard. That would exceed $600.
So did almost everyone of my friends and millions of people around the world outside of the USA, and I never heard anything about the price.


Well as Peter Griffin would say, "Just throwin' it out there"

But it's the same tune about games being priced at $60. Forgetting what games cost back in the SNES and N64 days are we? And games have been sold for $60 for a long time in Europe. It is concidered a fair price here, but in the US people get all worked up about it.

Spoiled? Poor? Cultural difference?

I don't know, so I'm asking.

Okay... Is that $550 american or $550 European? There's this thing called an exchange rate, and america's dollar I believe at this time has more worth than the euro and any other european currency and during the time of the PS2 I believe it was worth even more. Meaning that the europeans would be spending what would seem like more money, when in reality it's about the same.

I don't know, I know nothing about currency or the market or anything, but I believe that the american dollar still has more worth than any european note. Meaning that even though it appears your systems cost more, sometimes they don't. Also taxes are done differently in most european nations... But yeah, I make no claim to know the exact situation here.

All these RPG kids are poor and can't afford to pay for bigger and better things. DAMN YOU AMERICA, HOW CAN YOU RELY ON YOUR YOUTH IF YOU GIVE THEM NOTHING.

Actually the Euro is stronger than the dollar, and the British Pound is worth almost twice as much as a dollar today. And pretty much always has been.

But PS2 was released for $550 US dollars, (GB£299.99 = 448 US dollars) when it was released for $299.99 during the same time in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation2#Price_history

But all I'm saying here is that there was no commotion, no complaining, no appocalypse prediction when the PS2 was released for (in Europe) only $50 less than what the PS3 will be released for in America in November this year.
I don't see why this causes such a huge commotion now for Americans, and people who actually have jobs, when it wasn't back in 2000 in the rest of the world. Even for jobless students such as myself.

Sure, it was a lot of money, but it didn't create headlines.
Money came rolling in again the next month, and life went on.

Most people complaining either have no job or have other expense and can't afford the PS3. I think it's as simple as that. I never bother complain about video games prices rising since I do remember how much they use to cost back in SNES era.

If I had a job, I could probably save up to get PS3. It's not really that expensive, if you're working and saving cash each week. It does become expensive when you have life expenses to care of before entertainment expenses. If I saved 100$ from 200$ pay check, then I could get the system in six to seven weeks. Most people just don't like spending a lot of money, because they're cheap.

I don't think it's about being spoiled, poor or cultural difference. I just think it's about people being cheap and rather have more money for themselves than spend that much money on games and game consoles.

Simply put, the console "wars", the internet "blogging scene", and even UK gamers in general were a lot different when the PS2 was released. Which is why you didn't hear any bitching. Any bitching there was, has long passed, and gaming in general wasn't nearly as popular (and that goes for gaming boards as well) as they are today.
I mean, there wasn't as much information, and gaming boards weren't at the same status as we see them now. Nor gaming sites like IGN (were they even around when the ps2 was released?) and whatnot weren't big at all.

If that makes sense.

I think that the American consumer is pretty savy when it comes to buying technology/electronics(not always, but for the most part). Americans always look for the smarter buy, no matter where it's from. When I buy a device I look around quite a bit before buying and see what the performance/quality to price is.

The thing with the PS3 is that the games on it and the 360 look the same graphically. So to a consumer who isn't completley wrapped up in the latest gaming news( or the HD format wars), they might not see why you have to pay an extra $200 for the system. Besides there won't be any must have games on it for the first few months, so waiting is a good move(it's going to be damn hard to find one anyway).

$600 is alot of money anyway you look at it. You can totaly upgrade you computer for that or spend it on a slew of other devices. I'm getting one eventually, but at this time it just doesn't seem to be worth it (and there first batch will probably be filled with defects).

Even if that is the case ( I'll see when I play a PS3 game and can compare it to my roomies 360 ) the PS3 has more potential than the 360 in the long run.



Yeah I'd like to see someone here at dreamers do that. Most people here run on ancient machines.

I know why we Americans are so poor, it's cause those damn illegal aliens take all our American Jobs!!!

J/K. Seriously...

It's a lot of money, and if we aren't spending our money on cars that get 2 miles to the Gallon, then were are buying jewelry that we don't need.

I guess if we can't show everyone how much money we spent on something, then I guess we won't buy it.

I think the teenagers of nowadays are become cheaper and cheaper. They don't know about NES games costing as much or even more then the current games, they think this is expensive, because most of them think about going out, drinking, getting a car, getting a girl and whatsoever.

Also, they are getting more lazy, don't wanna get a job, sit at their computer all they day long and whatnot, expecting their mum to buy it for them, so I think that those things will add to the continues bashing aswell.

Poor ? That was not the issue.
The problem is that the gaming industry is developing too fast for most of gamers to keep their pace. Let's look back in the era of PSX glory. PSX was released in the mid 90's and PS2 was on the year of 2000. It was like the potential of PSX console all had been used up, so making a new console was the best choice. And gamers had 10 years to earn their savings. So we didn't hear anyone whining about it.
And I think PS2 can still do better than what we've witnessed these days, yet stubborn SONY decided to manuver the direction to the place where most gamers couldn't reach. Yeah, so expect a little whining from them.

To me personally it's not even necessarily the price that throws me off, but rather, it's what I'm paying that price for exactly. I want a gaming console, not a super computer home entertainment system with the added extra of playing games. Sony are just trying to do it all with the PS3, but maybe you've heard the old saying... "A jack of all trades, is a master of none." And the truth to that statement will no doubt reflect on Sony's PS3 if their focus remains so scattered. If I'm going to spend that much money on a console, I'd really like to know that the company is going to be focusing exclusively on the interests of gamers, instead of a hundred other features I don't care for.

If it were all about price, I wouldn't have just spent around $600 on my XB360 with games...but I did so because I know I'm getting my money's worth with a system that's actually a gaming console, with a number of games I'm already enjoying this early in it's era. And it will most likely be the same for my Wii purchase. But as of now I'm not planning on spending $600 for the PS3, when I'm very unsure about it's future with the direction Sony are taking it in. And while I can afford $600 pretty easily, it's not a gamble I'm willing to take based on all I know about the system right now. And by the time of when/if they do manage to impress me as they did with PS2, the price will have dropped anyway, so yeah.

Bottom line is, I don't spend large amounts of money on things I'm skepticle about. I need concrete reason to spend that kind of money, and there just isn't any reason to do so right away with PS3. So yeah, I'll wait and see how things go with that before I think about buying, which in any case, it'd be cheaper buy then.