Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Sony, This is Not How You Do a Price Drop


The 'Super Slim' Model of the PS3 isn't anything new, having been around since September, so just under a year, and it's quite obvious that it's going to be the last way to get a PS3 unless, you know, you do some online shopping or find a store that just so happens to have a regular Slim (or even rarer, a late-model 'phat').  Initially, this posed something of a nagging issue as the Super Slim was introduced at the exact same price-point of the regular Slim with neither of them taking a price-cut.  People started questioning the worth if it and, well, rightly so, since there was no real price difference or anything.  Traditionally there...are changes and such when this type of thing goes down.  But whatever, everyone just sort of ignored it and assumed the price would quietly be dropped down at some point and any late-comers could grab a PS3 on the cheap-ish to enjoy some of the great exclusives that the PS3 offered this generation.  It's only now, almost a full year later, that we see a Super Slim model at a lowered price-point and it is, uh...less than ideal.

The new 12 Gig (Solid State/Flash memory versus Hard Disk Drive) Super Slim will debut at $199.99 in North America and even it is not a new thing on the market.  This model of the Super Slim was previously exclusive to European and Hong Kong regions and for some reason it didn't die a horrible death of obscurity in the meanwhile as Sony moved further and further into digital ventures.  If it's not patently obvious, I question its existence in the first place and further wonder why it's re-emerging since it seems....quite a bit senseless if I'm being honest here.  Clearly, I'm not in the minority of people questioning it either, but what really bugs me is that it effectively kills any chance of a proper PS3 being put on sale for any less than the $270 pricetag it's currently sporting (generally with bundles and the like).  As someone who is basically in the market for a new PS3 because I am just tired of worrying about my 80 gig, I was hoping to find a nice budgeted version at some point considering I have spent about $570 on -just- PS3s (my original purchase, plus a YLOD replacement refurb) and the idea of setting that further up to $840 is...distasteful to say the least.

The common defense I'm basically seeing for the thing is that the Flash Memory isn't in the same place where the HDD bay is, so you can theoretically buy this model, buy a 1-2 TB drive and slap it right home.  Easily.  So easily that Sony even gives you instructions on the topic and whole-heartedly encourage the process.  The issue here is that, yes, you could spend about $70 on a 1TB and have precisely twice the space of a 500 gig that will run you $270, but I don't care I don't wanna fiddle with shit.  Selfish reason, granted since the pragmatic approach would be to do just that if it's even possible (I don't see why it wouldn't be), but just because you -can- do something doesn't mean you should, nor should you -have- to when it comes to circumstances like these.  Yet the problem is that you're still paying the same price regardless when the hope was...you know, for something less.  Which says nothing for the recently-deserved fear of consoles with higher-capacity HDDs becoming useless after Firmware updates until, you know fixed versions come out which you'll have to plop in through Safe mode and blah blah blah, nonsense.

Maybe it was silly of me to think that there was going to be a proper price-drop for the system in the looming wake of the PS4's release, considering there's going to be a 500 Gig GTAV Bundle for $270 (which, hell, I might just look into because I'm getting GTAV anyway and it's just a pack-in game with a new system and 500 gigs of space) coming out in September which is just...months (perhaps even -a- month) before the PS4 releases proper.  Of course, the PS3 is going to be a necessity regardless of the PS4's launch given the unfortunate lack of backwards compatibility (which is completely understandable, but still).  That is likely the reason for a non-drastic drop and instead something along the lines of this 12-gig silliness.  Much like the 4 Gig XBox 360, it honestly has no place in this world (even if the 12 gig is 'better' because you don't have to pay for proprietary memory like the 360) and it....just annoys me that it exists.  Oh well.  Never let it be said that I'm not willing to call Sony out on stupid things, I suppose.

honestly I kind of just want a new PS3 with lots of space so I can download my PS+ games for the stupid amount of time it'll take and not worry about the thing catching fire...or just using the warranty if it does

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