Today has been a clusterfuck. There’s no other way to put it. Sony has some explaining to do, because what they’re come up with doesn’t work too well.
If you haven’t heard, earlier in day, SCEE President David Reeves told GamesIndustry.biz that once the current stock of 60GB PS3’s sells out in America, they’ll be gone forever. Vamoose. No more. To further confirm this issue, a Norwegian site posted a video of Kaz Hirai stating the same thing. Here’s a transcript of what he says (around 1:50 in the video):
Well, again, just from a hardware perspective, the 499 dollar price adjustment that we did for the 60 GB version, for the American market, uh, we’re no longer in production for that product, so uh once that product is gone from the retailer shelves, then we’re back to the $599 SKU only, so it’s not like we have a two price strategy here in the US market. We found out very early on, you know, consumers react mostly to just having one SKU as opposed to two.
That’s as blunt as you can get. The head honcho says it’s gone on camera. But alas, Sony is saying it’s not true (in a very vague way). David Karraker, PR magician, had this to say on PlayStation.Blog:
As we announced this week, SCEA’s product offering in North America consists of a 80GB PS3 available in August and a 60GB PS3 available now for $499. We will have ample supplies of both models to meet the needs of consumers for the foreseeable future.
Foreseeable future, eh? I can’t decide what I’m going to do tomorrow, let alone foresee what might happen in a couple months.
To futher add to the confirmation that the 60GB PS3 is going the way of the dinosaur, 1up received word from SCEA stating the model will be discontinued:
The 60GB PS3 will be available in North America for $499 until supplies of that unit are depleted. We have ample inventory to meet the immediate needs of consumers in this territory for several months to come. We won’t be making any further announcements regarding our PS3 model hardware strategy in North America until the 60GB model is exhausted and market conditions are evaluated.
This PR nightmare is sure to continue through the next few weeks, as more potential PS3 buyers hear about this news.
Sony had such a great E3 too. Everything was looking up, then you have this news which brings it all crashing back down. It’s a shame, really.
