Sony: we are not gouging Australia with high PS3 price |
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An 80 GB PlayStation 3 in the US goes for US$ 399. In Australia, it's
around US$ 456. (Yeah, you think other regions already had it bad.)SmartHouse recently wrote an article entitled "Why Sony is utterly broken and why a PS4 is needed now," accusing Sony of "price gouging Australians for several years."
You know what "spits the dummy" means? It means a display of anger in Australianese. In Englishese, that's what SCE Australia boss Michael Ephraim was during a phone call to SmartHouse, saying that he is fed up with Sony being bashed for price gouging:
I am fed up of Sony being bashed we are not price gouging neither do we have regional codes in our software. I am calling in our lawyers as we are not in any way price gouging Australian consumers. This is misleading. We have to factor in exchange rates etc.
[...] I am angry I am bloody angry over this story you will be hearing from my lawyers. Just because Sony is making losses does not mean that you can print garbage like this. I repeat we are not price gouging Australians.
The "regional codes" comment was aimed at SmartHouse's claims, which the latter had since admitted was wrong. Ephraim also had a couple of things to say when asked about how the PS3 is doing now that Blu-ray players are a dime a dozen:
So what that consumer's can now buy a separate Blu ray player. What price do you think they will have to pay? [...] So what we have firmware upgrades and consumers can access content on the Internet.
Related:
- SCE Australia: No price cuts for 60GB PS3 unit
- Australia getting PS3 price cut announcement on July 12
Via SmartHouse
25 Jumps Custom firmware 5.50GEN-D now out
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Comments [refresh]
""We have to factor in exchange rates etc.""
Its funny that how even before the $USD/$AUD exchange rate collapsed, the price remained the same. TAX's are the main reason.
But that doesn't explain why even at the current abysmal exchange rate, an Xbox 360 PRO bundle is cheaper here than in the US:
Xbox PRO Bundle is in the US, US$299.
Xbox PRO Bundle is in AU, US$264
(At current exchange rate)
Is it just me, or does this seem like a fake? If this is a transcript of a phone call, why is there no punctuation?
Last I heard the Aussie dollar is actually worth less than the US dollar, and by a difference of over 10%, so I would expect the PS3 there to be the same or a bit lower proces than in the US. Yet, maybe it can be a problem with the japanese Yen conversion to aussie dollars (although I doubt it since PS3s are also produced in the US, and then it should have the same advantage as the 360).
Right now the Aussie Dollar is only worth 0.667 USD.
We're not looking so good at all.
It's the same in many Europen countries. I live in Germany and a 80 gig PS3 costs 399 €, which are according to google US$530!!
In Australia, we have a tax called GST (goods and services tax) where everything, except "essential goods", are priced an additional 10% (which obviously goes to the government) above what you would call the original retail price. So, for example, it would be right to say that a PS3 console sold in Australia would cost 10% more than a console sold in the US. However, I do not believe that this tax alone is to blame for the higher playstation prices in our country...
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi
Live rates at 2009.01.29 19:52:57 UTC
1.00 USD = 1.52861 AUD
United States Dollars Australia Dollars
1 USD = 1.52861 AUD 1 AUD = 0.654188 USD
PS3 sold in USA for 399 converted to AUD
399.00 USD = 609.906 AUD
United States Dollars Australia Dollars
1 USD = 1.52859 AUD 1 AUD = 0.654200 USD
PS3 sold in Australia for 456 converted to USD
456.00 AUD = 298.315 USD
Australia Dollars United States Dollars
1 AUD = 0.654200 USD 1 USD = 1.52858 AUD
Too me that looks like after selling a console to you in Australia they loose 100 USD hmm maybe I should complain for living in america and paying 100USD more than you people in Australia. Shut up and pay what your asked to pay. You know there is also shipping costs and and a whole lot of other stuff to get the console to Australia.
39,980.00 JPY = 680.047 AUD
Japan Yen Australia Dollars
1 JPY = 0.0170097 AUD 1 AUD = 58.7900 JPY
456.00 AUD = 26,801.05 JPY
Australia Dollars Japan Yen
1 AUD = 58.7742 JPY 1 JPY = 0.0170143 AUD
Still a loss for them