PlayStation 3 shows up on Amazon for $299

It seems awful suspicious that Sony's PlayStation 3—with its sketchy release timeframe, malleable specs, and yet unannounced price—would show up willy nilly with an official MSRP on Amazon—but it has. Kind of. It's a little tricky though, because Amazon often has resellers and used listings; yet this one appears semi-legit. Then again, it is marked for the same price as Microsoft's Xbox 360 (as announced earlier today), $299, which aside from being a remarkable coincidence seems pretty low given some of the estimates we've heard about the PS3. You know, with Amazon sometimes anything goes.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this one in!]

[Iuqiddis @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

It can't be that low. Maybe a marketing ploy to subdue x-box 360 buyers.

[Russ @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Maybe it's to stop people from going towards a 360 because of the PS3's expected price point / release date.

[Till Maessen @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Sony representative pointed out that it will cost more.

This is a fraud. I wonder how Sony is involved in this.

Inspector Engadet, find it out!

[Jeff @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Eh, Amazon just puts stuff up sometimes and then changes the price later. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. (And before anyone asks, no, they do not have to honor that price unless they actually *charge* your credit card, which they won't do.)

But, I wouldn't put $299 past Sony. Who says they're not masters of hype just like everybody else is? So they go around telling everybody "oh, our system is SO POWERFUL that it's going to be have to be REALLY EXPENSIVE", then at the last minute they come out and say "you know, we LOVE you consumers so much that we're going to do whatever we have to do to release our console at a consumer-friendly price point." In the process, they get in a subtle dig at MS's $399 price. In reality, that was the plan along, but they come out looking like they're giving you the best thing since sliced bread for practically nothing while MS is trying to gouge you.

I have never believed Sony would ever sell any system for more than $299. I may yet be proven wrong on the PS3, but I still think $299 is it.

Not that this Amazon listing is based on anything but their speculation, but I think their speculation will turn out to be right.

[Aero (from PSP-Vault.com) @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

LOL, Inspector Engadget. That's so great.

[Jayson Elliot @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

My favorite part of the description is the caption under the boomerang banana controller photo:

"A comfy-looking new controller."

Apparently "comfy" is the new street kid slang for "ugly." I'm gonna start using that.

"Man, that M-bird XT-21 sure looks comfy."

[Retro_X @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I wonder why they have "System Requirements" on the page.

[Hacp @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I'm hoping that with the 500 bucks I'ma be paying for the PS3, I'll at least get a HDD........

[Dave @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I'm thinking it might have something to do with the URL that is linked. If you take away the "&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER" in the URL, the price dissappears. In other Amazon URLs (or as far as i have seen), there is no "m" GET variable. However, I have found it interesting that in Sony products on Amazon, if you ad the "&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER", it changes the price. compare http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007TFLLC/qid=1124322146/sr=8-4/ref=pd_bbs_4/104-5541974-3352748?v=glance&s=pc&n=507846 and http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007TFLLC/qid=1124322146/sr=8-4/ref=pd_bbs_4/104-5541974-3352748?v=glance&s=pc&n=507846&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Maybe its just a fixed price in the GET variable?

[Jared @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Dave, unfortunately your theory doesn't check out. If you look at your two links, the first one is having you buy from the "Wholesalers Club", while the second is direct from Amazon. This accounts for the price difference. It was an interesting theory you had though.

[Till Maessen @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

The funniest thing are the system specs.

Looks like: Let's say we have all that MS has.. but let' make it more.. yeah! Write more! Write more!

With all the different cpu cores, and even different memory units, 256 at "3,2GH", they say, and one at 700 Mhz.. it's gonna be no fun programming that thing. I'm startin' to understand what Carmack was trying to say..

And, as far as I know from my PC experience, all that speed of the "3,2 GHZ" ?ram is useless, as soon as the cpu has to wait for the 700 MHZ "realistic" RAM.
What's that incredible 3,2 GHZ superduperram anyway?

Oh, and btw: 2 TFLOPS? Do you know what IBM wants to have for a Computer with 2 TFLOPS?
Have fun saving your money for the PS3.. it's gonna take a while.. haha..

[Till Maessen @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Look what German Amazon says about XBOX 360:

http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009JL03S/qid=1124324055/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl/302-4774421-9178421

[Junpei @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

"Apparently "comfy" is the new street kid slang for "ugly." I'm gonna start using that."

You never know until you try! The DualShock2 isn't exactly the model of comfort. This new one looks to be a LOT for comfortable. Who cares if it looks like a boomerang (don't tell me you're going to buy a PS3 to "look cool").

On topic: Well duh, Amazon /always/ puts up some sort of page like this for popular unreleased items, with a guess at the price and often release date. I'm fully expecting the PS3 to cost something like $399 at least, if Sony's comments are to be believed. If they DO expect the console to last up to 10 years�twice as long as the PS2�then a price up to twice as much wouldn't be too surprising either. I just really, really hope the PS3 first generation isn't as buggy as the PS2 with such a high price tag.

[Tony Chow @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

My (pretty good) theory:

Every item in Amazon's catalog must have a price, but there is an option to hide the price from visitors to the web site. The person who did the data entry, not knowing how much the item will cost, put in $299 as a guess, and then checked the checkbox to hide the price.

Visitors to the Amazon site, however, can defeat this protection mechanism by supplying the parameter "m=ATVPDKIKX0DER". That's why modifying the parameter or removing it from the URL will make the price disappear.

Not convinced? Try this other unavailable product, the HP 310 Digital Color Copier:

Now you see the price:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000696PS//qid=1124324491/br=2-9/ref=br_ts_full_e//002-0446503-9636026?v=glance&s=electronics&n=172578&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Now you don't:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000696PS//qid=1124324491/br=2-9/ref=br_ts_full_e//002-0446503-9636026?v=glance&s=electronics&n=172578

The "m=ATVPDKIKX0DER" parameter is the only difference between these URLs.

[J Low @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Well, I guess the games will be $129 then.

I must work more hours to afford this system! HAIL KEN!

[Vance @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

It's a ploy and it's happened before. This is to keep people from buying the 360. According to industry sources and everyone involved in the hardware production, the PS3 will be, at the very least, $100 more than the Xbox 360. (It may actually be more, but let's give Sony the benefit of the doubt here.)

At this point, there is no way that the Sony execs are going to let Sony lose so much money on the PS3 hardware. They've been doing it too much lately and it's really killing them.

[Jason @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

It might be a real price, Sony in the past has claimed to sell different versions of the ps3. this could be one of the stripped down versions without the hdd or any of the nice accessories. thats what xbox is doing at their $299 level, the core system and thats it, no goodies.

[khalil amar @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

To me, it smells like dumping.

[Hussain @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

"rumor has it that the PS3 is two times more powerful than the Xbox 360 and 15 times more powerful than the Nintendo Revolution."
uhhh... rumor has it, since when does sony use rumors, and no one has the stats on the Revolution, how can you make guess at it's power compared to the PS3.
Why is it that "Sony" is making it seem like they didn't write the article. "Sony has also stated that..."
"Sony has confirmed a lot of information about its newest system, but until the PS3 is out on the market, the rumor mill will continue to churn with gossip -- both unconfirmed facts and bogus news."
What? I doubt a real company would say something like that.
and didn't ken katuragi say �the PS3 can�t be offered at a price that�s targeted towards households." ok, $299 is affordable, and where did I get this quote, right here http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000720051831/

[Cutter @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002XWAGW/qid=1124339636/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-6604630-4308127?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[insanecon @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-images/B0009VXAM0/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_0/103-2203254-5940632?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=videogames&index=0#gallery

check that out!
cool case :P

[Pal @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I'll probably buy the next generation game systems used, not contributing to the game companies. Sad, but true...and a lot cheaper.

Funny, since I'm planning to go into the game industry after two more years of college in CG. I'll have to convince people like myself to buy new games and systems and not used!

[Rob F @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I found this users submitted image of the PS3 interesting: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-images/B0009VXAM0/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_0/104-0531851-1556721?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=videogames&index=0. :)

[Rob Frawley @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

BTW, the m peramiter in the URL stands for "merchant". It is nothing more than a different merchant than Amazon themselves.

[louiedog @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

it has to be legit. why would sony, a huge international company, bother having PR people on staff to write up a press release for info like this. it's so much easier and cheaper to just fax over the final specs and price to amazon.com and wait for it to spread online.

[Kristjan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

yeah.. it's some sort of Amazons .. thing .. Same with Xbox360. Now, normally we don't see the price of Microsofts console in the listing.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0009KF9FM/qid=1124353757/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl63/102-5532108-4709718?v=glance&s=videogames&n=507846

Yes. Now.. If we add the little phrase to the end of the URL ..

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0009KF9FM/qid=1124353757/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl63/102-5532108-4709718?v=glance&s=videogames&n=507846&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

.. ladies and gentlemen. This is what we call magic

;)

[Cyberwhore @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I like how you can be the first person to leave a review for the item for sale on Amazon even tho it isn't available yet.

[loeakaodas @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

At Kristjan,

Do you see how the 299 Xbox version has a picture with a wireless controller, when it doesn't come with it. I think thats false advertising, lol.

[Jay @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

If you now go to the Amazon site, the $299 price is no longer listed!

[yem @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I don't know if this is likely or not, but Amazon could've gotten hacked yet again. It happened to me a few days ago. A Canon Digital Rebel XT was listed for $550, so I placed an order. I later found out that it was an unauthorized listing and that Amazon had been hacked.

[Vee @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

http://www.gamespot.com/live/streamer_new2.html?title=Sony+E3+2005+Press+Conference&path=2stream_sonypress_e305.asx&pid=915821

people, watch this Sony PlayStation3 Press Conference to really realize what it IS!
It is a revolution!
it worth it!

[xhale @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

"http://www.gamespot.com/live/streamer_new2.html?title=Sony+E�

people, watch this Sony PlayStation3 Press Conference to really realize what it IS!
It is a revolution!
it worth it!"

Its a revolution in _hard_ware but still same old game types