Looks like the heat of competition is getting to Sony. It has just announced that it will drop its price to €400 on October 10th in Ireland.
But the machine will have a reduced 40GB hard drive, only two USB slots and no multi-memory card port. It also won't be backwards compatible with PS2 games, unlike the 60GB version.
Have gotten stuck in...
Just got my hands on an Xbox 360 Elite (with 120GB hard drive). Shame that you still need to buy the €170 HD-DVD drive as an accessory to play high def films. Still, that's the rest of the month gone...
So who says the PS3 is too expensive for the mass market in Ireland? Well I did, for one. But boy, am I shaping up to be wrong. In casual conversation with a clerk in Xtravision's Finglas branch last night, he said that they has already exceeded their pre-launch sales target of 10. In fact, they've already sold 27. In Finglas. And most of them, he said, were fully paid up! Just to remind everyone, the basic console (with no games and only one controller) costs €630. A package with two games and a second controller, which Mr Xtravision said was the most popular option, costs €715. I asked him who the hell was shelling out such bread in one of Dublin's poorer neighbourhoods. I mean, we're nowhere near Christmas. "Kids," he said. "Teenagers and Leaving Cert types." That's a lot of communion or confirmation money.
That's according to Sony's Irish boss, Niall O'Hanrahan. He also said that they expect to gross €15 million in Ireland on the first day of sales (March 23rd). The console will cost from €630 in 600 Irish shop locations.
Apologies for the absence. Consider any 'blogger' status revoked :)
The PS3 -- which I've played with in advance of its March 23 launch -- is certainly impressive. The list of games for it, however, isn't. Other than Ridge Racer, there are few big hitters here, though 'Resistence Fall Of Man' is certainly fun to play. But man, that €630 price is going to hurt! For an explanation from Sony Ireland as to its high price, see an article I wrote here.
Speaking of Sony, what's with its latest colour schemes for laptops and PSP consoles? Pink is the new black, apparently.
The Gap did it, the BBC did it, now an Irish PR firm is doing it. Thinkhouse Public Relations has opened an 'office' within the online virtual game Second Life.
"At relatively low cost, Thinkhouse will host events, product launches and arrange publicity stunts for our clients," said Jane McDaid, managing director of the company.
"It's an untapped opportunity for Irish PR specialists. When the virtual office is set up with staff and customers, it will prove a headache for our accountants and for the Irish Revenue, but we'll soon finalise these details."
Second Life has over 360,000 members.
It looks Sony's PSP is a games machine, after all, and not a portable film device. While the PSP was launched equally as a device for film fans, with a new UMD disc format for the gadget, that end of it has been a bit of a flop, according to top Irish executives.
"Movies haven't really been successful on the PSP," Niall O'Hanrahan, managing director of Sony Computer Entertainment Ireland, told me. The reason? "It's down to content and price. The studios have been launching a lot of the older catalogue movies and they're too expensive, in my view."
