PS3 to cost £425

Yet again, the UK is the victim of silly price markups. For no particular reason, Sony have decided that an appropriate price for the Playstation 3 will be £425. That's equivalent to $800, when the console will cost only $600 in the US and 600 EUR for the 60GB version.

Sony Computer Entertainment UK's managing director, Ray Maguire, said in an interview with Eurogamer TV:

"If you think a Blu-Ray player by itself might be £600-700, and we're coming in at just £425 - it's a bargain.

"But you think about the price, think about the price of just a Blu-Ray player. It will be cheaper than a Blu-Ray player just by itself. So fundamentally we're going to be great value just from that point of view without even looking at the games side."

However, he did seem to acknowledge that £425 is 'definitely not a mass market price'. It doesn't appear that it's a price that will work in any market, in my opinion, with the fact that the Xbox 360 is significantly cheaper, even with the HD-DVD drive, and offers comparable features, and probably better integration with Windows as well as the much-lauded Xbox Live. It looks like this price is certainly the end of the PS3 in the UK, and quite possibly the end of Blu-ray on this side of the pond as well.

[via Eurogamer]