SCEE VP says PS3 will cost 499 to 599 euros

In a radio interview with Générations Europe 1 yesterday, George Fornay -- president of Sony Computer Entertainment France and vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe -- let a little something slip: the PlayStation 3 will cost between €499 and €599. That's somewhere between $613 to $736 in American dollars! He was sure to point out that while this might sound like a lot of money for a game system, it was in fact cheap for a Blu-ray compatible playback system. Yay?

Since I can't seem to get the radio stream to work (and don't understand French if I could)Update: The radio stream has started cooperating, though the French thing is still in the way. If you speak Français, you can jump to the 8-minute mark for the scoop. The news comes to us (via Google's translation services) from Play France. Now, this could be a language barrier problem, but the untranslated page still reads "entre 499 euros et 599 euros donc."

Sony already told us it was going to be expensive and we already know the parts ain't cheap, so either Mr. Fornay is trying to set up an unrealistic price expectation -- only to have it shattered when the PS3 price is revealed to be $7.50 -- or he broke the first (and second) rules of the Sony executive's PS3 club: don't talk about the PS3. This thing is going to cost that much just like the PSP was gonna cost $500.